u3 aos1 - stress Flashcards
stress
a state of physiological and psychological arousal to internal or external stressors that are perceived to challenge a person’s ability to cope.
Stressor
stimuli that cause or produce stress and challenge our ability to cope
internal stressors
factors that originate within a person’s body. cognitive and biological processes causing stress or influencing the perception of stimuli as stressful.
external stressors
factors that originate outside a person’s body. stimuli in our environment.
Acute stress
an immediate response to a perceived stressor that involves stress that is brief and specific to the demands of a particular situation.
o Sudden or short term, results in the release of adrenaline (due the activation of the fight-flight-freeze response)
Chronic stress
the body’s response to a persistent or long-term stressor that are long-lasting
o Ongoing or long-term, results in the release of cortisol (due to the activation of the HPA axis)
distress
negative psychological state, undesirable circumstance leading to a negative outcome.
eustress
a positive psychological state, that provides positive opportunity or circumstance.
flight-fight-freeze
involuntary automatic response to acute stress taking the form of escaping it, confronting it, or freezing in the face of it, occurring without conscious awareness. an adaptive response helping an organism to survive in the face of a stressor
cortisol
hormone released in times of chronic stress to aid the body in initiating and maintaining heightened arousal, released by the adrenal glands.
Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)
is a biological model involving three stages of physiological reactions that a person experiences in response to a persistent stressor and explains the experience of stress from a biological perspective.
alarm reaction stage
the first stage involving the initial decrease and subsequent increase in bodily arousal in response to an immediate stressor, occurring when an individual first encounters and becomes aware of a stressor.
shock
first substage of alarm reaction stage, decrease in bodily arousal for a brief time, temporary state of shock (reacts as being injured), ability to deal with stressor goes below normal.
countershock
second substage of alarm reaction stage, sympathetic nervous system response mobilising the body to respond, ability to deal with stressor above normal.
resistance stage
the second stage involving maintaining high levels of bodily arousal in response to a persistent stressor.
exhaustion
the third stage involving the depletion of energy levels and bodily resources, resulting in an inability to cope with the stressor.
Lazarus and Folkman’s transactional model of stress and coping
suggests stress is a subjective transaction between an incoming stressor and the personal and environmental factors specific to an individual.
primary appraisal
the initial process of evaluating the nature of the incoming stressor, specifically the kinds of stress it might cause.
- initial appraisal: decides whether or not the incoming stimuli will cause them to experience stress.
o benign-positive: neutral or good thing not causing stress.
o irrelevant: non-issue.
o stressful: source of worry or emotional significance. - second stage: only continues if determined as stressful, involves further appraisal containing labelling of the form of stress caused by the incoming stimulus.
o harm/loss: cause damage to the individual, already experienced direct distress as a result.
o threat: potentially causing damage in the future, experiencing distress even if the stressor hasn’t directly caused distress yet.
o challenge: potentially providing a positive opportunity for growth or change.
second appraisal
the individual decides what types of coping mechanisms or strategies will be needed to confront a stressor and whether they are available to them. further stress occurs if the individual believes their coping resources cannot meet the demands of the stressor and are inadequate, but if an individual believes their coping resources are adequate then further stress can be prevented.
* emotion-focused coping: targets emotional components, and deals with them indirectly.
* problem-focused coping: directly targets the source of stress, and aims to reduce it in a practical way
gut
the long flexible tube from mouth to anus that is the passageway involved in digestion.
gut microbiota
refers to all the microorganisms that live in the gut
gut microbiome
to all the genes of the microorganisms that live in the gut.
the gut-brain axis
the bidirectional connection between the gut and brain through the enteric, network of nerves in the gut, and the CNS.
enteric nervous system
the network of nerves in the gut and is a subdivision of the autonomic nervous system
