Stress Lecture #1 Flashcards
How common is it for college students to be stressed? What about the general population?
90%
People are also commonly stressed; Gen Z more stressed than other adults
What are the major sources of stress?
Catastrophic events (hurricane, accident), major live events (divorce, move), daily hassles (forgetting phone, miss your bus)
What is stress?
Physiological response to some type of environmental event that is subjectively appraised as being taxing or even exceeding’s one ability to adapt
What is a Type A personality? What is a Type B personality?
Competitive, time urgent, hostile and aggressive
Relaxed, patient, easy going
Which traits are associated with coronary heart disease?
Hostile or aggressive traits
How does stress impact physical health?
Every body - immune response, blood pressure, gastrointestinal, sexual health, muscle tone, bone density
What is the General Adaptation Syndrome, and what happens at each stage?
Three phase model to why our body reacts to stressors
Stage 1: Alarm - Sympathetic nervous system is activated due to threat or danger (heart speeds up)
Stage 2: Resistance - body attempts to cope with stress while you remain on alert (adrenal glands pumps hormones to bloodstream)
Stage 3: Exhaustion - body exhausts if stressor remains intense and ongoing (vulnerable to illness, collapse)
What is the relationship between stress/arousal and performance (Yerkes-Dodson Law)?
Increased arousal can help improve performance, but only up to a certain point.
What does it predict as the optimal conditions for performance?
At the point when arousal becomes excessive, performance diminishes.
How can mindset help manage stress?
Positive reappraisal - Reframing
Present control - Focus on what is happening now
Downward comparisons - Compare yourself to someone who is worse off than you
Are traumatic events common?
Most of us will experience some type of traumatic event; 90% of population have experienced at least one
How is trauma different from stress?
Some type of event that is deeply distressing or severe; the trauma is the event itself / stimulus and the stress is the response
Does the research suggest that PTSD is incurable?
What types of treatment work?
No, it is curable
Prolonged exposure
Cognitive processing therapy
Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing
Do we report subjective gains from experiencing a traumatic event? Does our behavior tend to change after a traumatic event?
⅔ people report benefits from a traumatic event; people don’t appear to change the way they are living
