Stress, Coping & Health Flashcards
What is Stress?
- stress is the tension, discomfort, or physical symptoms that arise when a stressor strains our ability to cope effectively
- a traumatic event is a stressor so severe that it can produce long-term psychological or health consequences
- emotional, psychological, behavioural, and cognitive experiences…
- …in response to perceived threats or challenges
- some people will find something very stressful, while others might not
- …in response to perceived threats or challenges
3 Approaches to Stress
- Stressors as Stimuli
- different types of stressful events - Stress as a transaction - subjective experience
- Stress as a response - asses psychological and physical reactions to stress
- Stressor as Stimuli
- identifying different types of stressful events
- This approach pinpoints categories of events that most of us find dangerous and unpredictable & the people who are most susceptible to stress following different events
- ex. college freshmen think breakups are terrible compared to adults or natural disasters + trauma bonding
- Stress as a Transaction
- subjective experience
a. Problem-Focused Coping- primary appraisal (first)
- tacking life’s challenges head on
- “is this event harmful?”
- ex. job interview stressful? prepping for it, researching company
b. Emotion-Focused Coping - secondary appraisal (second)
- put a positive spin on experiences
- engage in behaviours to reduce painful emotions
- how to cope
- Stress as a response
- assess/ measure psychological and physical reactions to stress
Psychological- feelings of hopelessness
- hostility
- depression
Physiological - increased heart rate
- stress hormones (ex. cortisol)
- ex. lab experiments will make you come in and write a piece & present & get marked to test your response to the stressor
Measuring Stress
related to Approach 1: Stressor as a Stimuli
- number of major life events over past year relate to physical and psychological health
- the SOCIAL READJUSTMENT RATING SCALE ranks a number of particularly stressful events
- ex. death of a spouse, birth of a baby, job change
- neglects coping resources, chronic issues or perception of event (+ or - they’re the same same points on the scale)
Hassles: minor annoyances that strain our ability to cope can impact us as well
- the more hassles → poorer physical health, depression, and anxiety
- this is true even when major life events are controlled for
Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)
3 Mechanics of Stress
Stage 1: Alarm
Stage 2: Resistance
Stage 3: Exhaustion
Stage 1: Alarm
- autonomic nervous system is activated
- stress hormones released
- physical symptoms of anxiety
HPA AXIS & Fight or Flight Response - Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis → cortisol
Stage 2: Resistance
- you adapt and find ways to cope with the stressor
Stage 3: Exhaustion
- in prolonged stressors, our resistance can break down
- can cause physical or psychological damage
- ex. For the past 6 months, Saleisha’s job has been extremely stressful, but she doesn’t feel that she can quit because she needs the money for tuition. Saleisha has been having chronic headaches, just got her second cold in a month, and is behind in all of her classes
Diversity of Stress Response
FIGHT OR FLIGHT
- physical and psychological reaction that mobilize to defend (fight) or escape (flight)
FREEZE
- - Freeze is another response to autonomic nervous system under stress
- unable to fight, unable to flee
- immobilize physical, mental, and emotional states
- related to PTSD
TEND OR BEFRIEND
- reaction that mobilizes people to nurture (tend) or seek social support (befriend) under stress
PTSD: Post-Tramautic Stress Disorder
- condition that sometimes follows extremely stressful (ex. traumatic) life events
- symptoms: unable to sleep,
- severity, duration, nearness
- Certain occupations
- not always a single event
- lifetime prevalence rates are 5% in males and 10% females
- 60 - 90% of people experience a traumatic event - why developing? police occupation
Coping with Stress
- Social Support
- Behavioural Control
- Cognitive Control
- Decisional Control
- Informational Control
- Emotional Control
- Social Support
- interpersonal relations with people, groups, community
- four social ties that buffer against stress (Berkman & Syme)
1. Marriage
2. Contact with Friends
3. Church Membership
4. Formal/ Informal Group Association
- Behavioural Control
- aka problem-focused coping
- ability to do something to reduce the impact of a stressful situation/ prevent recurrence
- better than avoidance
- taking action of making resume after losing a job - reducing impact of stressful situation
- making a week-by-week schedule at the beginning of busy semester
- Cognitive Control
- AKA emotion-focused coping
- ability to cognitively restructure or think differently about negative emotions
- I didn’t like that job, it was bad for my mental health, it was a sign
- Decisional Control
- ability to choose among alternative courses of action
- Informational Control
- ability to acquire information about a stressful event
- AKA proactive coping
- people getting laid off at work - you look for other jobs and info on why people are getting laid off
- Emotional Control
- ability to suppress and express emotions
- yelling at someone on TTC - not helpful
- not sharing your troubles with anyone - bad psychologically
- journal writing about emotions is found help, but not long term
Individual Differences
Hardiness is a set of attitudes where you:
- see change as a challenge instead of a threat
- are committed to their life and work
- believe you can control events
- related to low levels of anxiety proneness and general tendency to react calmly to stress
- not in a delusional way but you feel you have the power/control to change things in your life for the better (internal locus of control) vs idk what im gonna do (external locus of control)
- optimistic persons are more productive, focused, and handle frustration better
- also show lower levels of mortality and better immune system response
- spirituality and religious involvement
1. Self Control
2. Sense of Community
3. Meaning or purpose
- some ways of reacting to stress are counterproductive
Ruminating
- focusing on negative and endless analysis of what caused problems
- women > men
- linked to depression (feature of long term depression)
Flexible Coping
- ability to adjust coping strategies as the situation demands
- suppressing and avoiding emotions to distract us from problem solving and may cause emotions to return in greater force
How Stress Impacts Our Health
Immune System
- our body’s defence against invading bacteria, viruses, and other illness-producing organisms (pathogens)
- consists of the skin, phagocytes, lymphocytes (T and B cells), and macrophages
Psychoneuroimmunology
- the study of the relationship between the immune system and CNS (stress response)
Example: high levels of stress over the past year makes you more susceptible to catching cold virus
- being really stressed w/ school and then you get sick
- caring for someone with Alzheimers is associated with lower ability to heal from injury and decrease blood clotting - taking longer to heal from injuries
- Placebo vs Common Cold and Scale Study
Stress Related Illnesses
- physically illnesses that emotions and stress contribute to maintain are psychophysiological (physical illnesses that can be made worse through psychological stress)
Ulcers: at first thought to be caused by stress but actually caused by bacteria
- however, stress is more likely for bacteria to cause ulcer and maintain it (harder to heal) - Biopsychosocial perspective on illnesses
Coronary Heart Disease: - the complete or partial blockage of the arteries that provide oxygen to the heart
- Key risk factors:
- family history
- smoking
- high cholesterol, blood pressure
- stress
- “Type A” personality
- Anger and Hostility
