Stress Module 5 Flashcards
Define stress
Stress is the psychological and physical strain or tension generated by physical,social,emotinal,economic or occupational circumstances,events or experiences which are difficult to manage or endure.
Are stress levels increasing?
Yes.
Research has shown that there have been increasing signs of stress such as depression,anxiety and stress in college students,over the years. This could be happening according to them because many young people nowadays are much more focused on materialism and wealth and status instead of being socially connected with others.
What happens to our bodies when we are feeling stressed?
The sympathetic nervous system becomes very active, and prepares the body for the fight or flight response.
Name the 4 majors effects of stress
Emotional
Physiological
Cognitive
Behavioural
Give 3 examples of emotional effects
Feelings of anxiety and depression
Increased psychological tension and physical tension
Give 3 examples of physiological effects
Increased heart rate
Secretion of adrenaline and nonadrenaline
Shut-down of digestive system
Constriction of blood vessels
Give 3 examples of cognitive effects
Poor concentartion and increased distractibility. + Reduced short-term memory capacity
Give 3 examples of behavioural effects
Reduced work performance
Showed absenteeism
Disrupted sleep patterns
The physiology of stress:
What does SAM and HPA stand for?
SAM: Sympathetic adrenal medullary system
HPA: Hypothalamic pituitary adrenocortical axis
Who came up with the General Adaption Syndrome?
Selye
What is the General Adaptation syndrome of 1950?
It explains in a series of steps of how the body responds to stress in 3 main stages which are :
1) Alarm Reaction stage
2) Resistance
3) Exhaustion
Explain the Alarm Reaction stage
Fight or flight response gets triggered. (Body gets exposed to a stressor)
ex: Joe is made aware that he could lose his job.
Explain the Resistance stage
Physiological efforts to deal with the stressor .
ex; body releases noradrenaline and other neurotransmitters to deal with the stressor
Explain the Exhaustion stage
The above physiological efforts become ineffective and stress-related diseases may result ex: heart disease
Body’s resources are depleted so the parasympathetic nervous system is activated.
Explain the SAM in detail
SAM: shock.
Initially Selye only focused on the SAM. The initial response to stress involves the SAM whereby adrenaline and non-adrenaline is secreted and are released and they both increase the sympathetic nervous system.
This leads to an increased heat rate and a decreased activity of the digestive system.
Explain the HPA
When the stressor lasts very long,the body’s syapthetic nervous system tires down and the body goes into counter shock.
The anterior pituiatary gland releases sevreral hormones and eventualllyhelp the body to cope with long term stress reducing the effects of the initial shock response.
When does a person feel stressed?
According to the transactional model and cognitive appraisal.
Explain cognitive appraisal
There are 2 types of cognitive appraisal
Primary and secondary appraisal.
Cognitive appraisal involves assessing the situation to decide whether it is stressful and wither the individual has the resources to cope with it.
Explain primary appraisal
Regarding the situation as positive,irrevelant or stressful to well-being
Explain secondary appraisal
Taking into consideration the resources that one has available to cope with the satiation.
Explain the transactional model
It states that stress depends on the interaction between an individual and his or her environment.
Stress occurs when the precevied demands of a situation are greater than the individual’s ability to handle those demands.
ex: driving is stressful to learners because they have limited ability handling a car in traffic.However experienced drivers might not find this so stressful
What are the 3 main factors which cause stress?
Stressful life events
Personality
Environmental stressors
Explain stressful life events and give 3 examples
According to Holmes and Rahe of 1967, any change which happens in life desirable or undesirable can be stressful.
They came up with the social readjustment rating scale, which is a list of life events each assigned a value according to their likely impact.
So most stressful are:
Death of a spouse
Divorce
Marital separation
It has been concluded through this scale that if a person experiences many chnages during the year,there is a higher risk of having a wide range of physical and mental illnesses like anxiety,depression,diabetes, or heart attacks.
Mention 2 criticisms regarding this theory
1) The impact of most life events varies from person to person
2)However it is not clear if stress caused some stress-related illnesses or whether it was stress that caused life events. ex: stress can cause a change in eating habits. ( not vice-versa)
Explain why personality is a factor which influences stress and give the 3 types of personality and who came up with them?
Friedman and Rosenman
Type A,B,D
Type A individuals are much more prone to stress because they are much ore impatient, hostile, competitive
Type B individuals: more relaxed and less competitive
Type D: experience anxiety, depression and other negative emotional states and show inhibition in stressful situations
According to a research people having type D personality are much more prone to stress, they are often highly stressed and this impairs their physical and psychological well-being.
According to the type A individuals they are much more prne to stress than type B,and much more likely to suffer from physical illness like coronary heart disease, however research has shown tha there isa very small relationship between type A and coronary heart disease.
Explain environmental stressors and mention them
Noise and heat
Workplace stress
Explain noise and heat
Noise and heat are 2 of the most common environmental stressors
The intensity of noise also leads to increased physiological arousal
The 5 factors which also cause noise to be regarded as stressful apart from intensity are:
1) It is perceived as unnecessary
2) The individuals responsible for the noise are thought to be unconcerned about its effects on others
3) The individual dislikes other qualities about the environment like overcrowding
4) The individual believes that npise is harmful to health
5) That noise is associated with fear.
Explain workplace stress
The workplace is another major factor when it comes to stress especially if:
we have low-job control especially if the job is very demanding.
There is an effort reward imbalance( work rewards are low relative to the effort required) this could make the workers feel angry
Explain technostress
the stress and anxiety workers experience when they do not cope with fast technological changes and the increased workload associated with it.
How does stress cause illness?
Directly: reducing the body’s ability to fight illness (damaging the immune system)
Indirectly: leading the individual to adopt an unhealthy lifestyle like smoking or drinking
Explain in detail directly
Stress can cause illness by impairing the functioning o the immune system.
1) Stress can reduce the effectiveness of natural killer cells which are our body’s main natural defence against various infections and cancer.
2) The immune system is a system of cells whichare involved in fighting disease,they contain hormones and neurotransmitters involved in the stress response.
3)Stress can produce chnages in the immune system and therre is some evidence that stress can increase the probablity of individuals developing various disease.
There is evidence that long term stress impairs the functioning of the immune system whilst short term stresses do not
Explain indirectly
Stress can cause illness indirectly by developing the individual to develop an unhealthy lifestyle.
For example stressed individuals may smoe more drink more,excercise less and sleep less than non-stressed ones.
Life stress was associated with hardening of the arteries, this is because indvisuals who were stressed smoked more,had a high caloric intake and excercised less.
What are the 4 methods of reducing stress?
Biofeedback
drug treatment
social support
Stress inoculation training
Explain drug treatment
Stress can be treated with anti-anxiety drugs like benzodiazepines. These reduce the effects of fstress but not the problems causing it.
Benzodiazepines increase the activity of the neurotransmitter GABA, which inhibit the function of the nervous system.
Some unwated side effects: people may become depedant on them, drowsiness and depression
It is generally recmmended that benzodizapines should be limited to short term use for 4 weeks maximum.
Explain Biofeedback
This is a technique in which individuals are provided with information regarding their current physiological activity like heart rate which is often accompanied by relaxation training.
Biofeed back involves 3 main stages:
A: developing an awarness about a particular physiological response like heart rate
B: Learning ways how to control the current physiological response in quiet conditions. Like lowering heart rate and this can include rewards
C: Transferring the ability to control the physiological response into everyday life.
Biofieedback can produce reductions in heart rate,blood pressure,skin temperature and brain wave rhythms.
It is not known wether the biofeedback is more effective or the relaxation training.
Explain social support and the 2 types of social support
There are 2 types of social support.
Social network: This refers to the number of people who are available to provide the support (quantity of support)
Perceived support: This refers to the strength of social support that can be provided by these people (quality of social support)
What are the effects of these 2 types of support? / when does social support not have a positive effect?
Social network: this could negatively influence well-being because when you have a very large social group it can be time consuming and demanding.
For example research has shown that women who were exposed to many stressful life events were much more likely to suffer from medical complications during pregnancy if they had low support.
Perceived support: positively related to health-and well-being.
Ex: research has shown that people with diabetes had a much lower riisk of death if they adequately social supported.
Sometimes social support can feel ineffective because they end up relying on the other person for help.
What are the gender differences when it comes to social support in terms of stress?
Luckow et al: women sought more social support than men
Taylor et al: Men generally respond to stressful situations with the fight or flight response, whilst women respond with a tend and befriend response.
So women respond to stressful situations by protecting and looking after their children,(tend),and they also seek social support from others ( befriend response)
Explain stress inoculation training
According to this mentality: we should use therapy before people become overly anxious or depressed.
He developed 4 types of stress inoculation training:
1) Assessment: the therapist discusses the nature of the problem with the individual, along with the perception of how the individual can eliminate it.
2) Stress reduction techniques: developing techniques to reduce the stress like relaxation and self-instruction :ex: coping self-statements: stop worrying because its pointless, and if i can keep calm i can handle this situation.
3) imagining using the stress reduction techniques in B in difficult sistuations and engaging in role play if such sistuatio with the theraphist.
D: using these technques in everyday life.
Contributions: effective for both long term and short term stresses,
It can protect individuals from the negative effects of fufture stressors.
The success of stress inoculation training could be due to general factors such as the warmth of the therpahist,and the relationship between the therpahst and the client.
List the 3 coping strategies in which people use to cope with stress
Task orieneted strategy
emotion oriented stragety
avoidance oriented strategy
Explian task orieneted strategy
obtaining information about the stressful and finding alternative ways and their probable outcome/
ex: figurig out prioritieis or dealing directly with the stressful situation
Explain emotion oriented strategy
Trying to maintain hope and control one’s emotions
deciding that nothing can be done to chnage things
Explain avoidance oriented strategy
usually associated with anxoiety
1) denying or minimising the seriousness of the situation
2) suppressing the stressful thoughts and replacing them wth self-protective thoughts
True or false
People who are high in trait anxiety tend to use the emotion and avoidance strategies the most
True
True or false
People with type A behaviour tend to use more of the avoidance staretgy
False
The task orieneted
Usually if the individual has the necessary resources to cope with the stress the task oriented stragtegy works the best but if the indiidual doesnt the emotion works the best
True
