Unit 2 Flashcards
What are the 3 S’s
Sleep, Stress, Self regulation
Why are the 3 S’s important?
Interconnected determinants of mental health, resilience and success at uni and other aspects of function
What do the 3 S’s influence?
Well-being, mental health and resilience
3 S’s relationship resilience?
Help in the development of ways to cope and adapt.
Protect emotional health
Define stress
State of emotional strain or unease. It is a normal response to demanding situations or pressured experiences in day-to-day life
What is a common response to stress?
Fight or flight response
Is stress adaptive?
In the short term yes, it helps keep you safe
What is good stress?
Small doses referred to as “eustress” are important for success in day-to-day life and building resilience to better cope with challenging situations
How might stress be beneficial? Give example
- Exam stress: may motivate you to spend more time studying
- Financial stress: may motivate you to avoid over-spending so that you have enough money to pay for important things
- Social stress: May motivate you to meet new friends and make new associations
Adaptive vs problematic stress
Small amounts of stress can be adaptive. Too much stress can be harmful
Inverted U-Theory
Relation between pressure and performance. (shows when stress shifts from helpful to harmful)
Low pressure or stress affect on performance
Often results in boredom or weak performance
What happens when pressure starts to increase?
Increased attention and interest
What is optimal performance?
When more pressure or stress improves performance up to a certain point by prepping us to cope effectively with a challenge
High pressure and stress affect on performance
If stress is too high performance will decrease
What level of performance is associated with high anxiety?
Impaired performance or distress - can lead to meltdown if effective coping strategies aren’t in place
What factors can influence your response to stress?
Thinking (the way you think can influence stress)
Action (how you act can influence stress)
When does optimal performance typically occur?
Find spot between boredom and anxiety
What is a flow state?
Time when you were caught up in what you were doing - lost sense of self or lost track of time
Why are flow states important?
can increase happiness and wellbeing and strongly counteract stress
When are flow states most likely?
- Intensely focus on the task and the present moment
- Only do one thing at a time - Remove distractions
- Focus on the process rather than the outcome
- Practise this activity or skill a lot so it becomes automatic
- Try something that is not too easy, not too hard, but that challenges yourself a little
What happens when stress shifts from helpful to harmful?
It is maladaptive and can overwhelm your coping resources and result in significant stress
What feelings do people who experience chronic or overwhelming stress face?
Irritability
Fatigue
Difficulty concentrating
Disorganized thoughts
Trouble sleeping
Dost most situations have good and bad stress?
yes, the goal is to reach a level of stress where performance is optimal
What is sleep?
State of the mind and body characterized by altered or reduced consciousness
Why is good quality sleep important?
Essential to your survival and plays a crucial role in both physical and mental health, brain function (emotional regulation and thinking)
Close and bidirectional relationship between sleep and mental health
Poor sleep = decrease well being
Poor sleep = mental health = worry, difficulty coping with stress, low self - esteem = decreased well being
What is self-regulation?
Control over behaviour, thoughts, and emotion which can interact with each other
Levels of self-regulation
Behavioural
Cognitive
Emotional
Behavioural level of self-regulation
Involves setting a healthy rhythm to your day, keeping a balanced routine that involves self-care and good sleep hygiene
Why is a consistent rhythm and routine important?
Important for a biological clock and rhythms
Cognitive level of self- regulation
Involves managing difficult, negative, or intrusive thoughts and worries, and using cognitive strategies to manage stress
What does cognitive self-regulation include?
Spotting the thoughts that impact your mood, checking to see if they are accurate and realistic, shifting from warry to problem-solving and planning, looking for positive interpretations, and mentally reframing
What does the emotional level of self-regulation include?
Slowing yourself down, calming and relaxing yourself when stressed or tense, and pausing and thinking before acting, and acting in accordance with your values
What helps with emotional regulation?
Sleep, exercise, working with your thoughts
How are the 3 S’s interconnected?
They can significantly contribute to your ability to increase or decrease your resilience
Why are the 3 S’s important?
Interconnected determinants of your mental health that can influence one another
Underlying mechanisms of stress, sleep and self-regulation
Underlying biological, psychological, sociological and behavioural determinants that cause variations in stress, sleep and self-regulation
Why are the underlying mechanisms of stress, sleep and self-regulation important
They can help you make healthy choices, developing resilience and improving well-being
Brain regions/structures important for the initiation and termination of stress
Hypothalamus
Pituitary gland
Adrenal gland
Hypothalamic pituitary-adrenal (HPA) Axis
important part of the biological stress response system
Stress response system
Stress -> hypothalamus -> anterior pituitary - > adrenal gland
What is your response to stress influenced by?
How thoughts, bodily sensations, feelings, and behaviours all interact together. This relationship is represented in the fatigue
Unhelpful vs helpful response to stress?
Psychological factors that interact to produce a response to stress
Social factors that influence stress?
Can increase or prolong stress. Early history of trauma or neglect, feeling excluded, poverty, limited social support
What populations have increased stress or poor mental health?
BIPOC, LGBTQ2+, Disabilities, refugees, asylum seekers, lower socio-economic backgrounds
Social factors that reduce stress?
- Supportive social network
- Strong social identity
- Sense of agency
- Sense of belonging
- Heard and listened too
- access to opprotunities
Intra- and inter- individual differences
Genetic make-up and early life experiences, together with more recent social and psychological factors can impact how sensitive or reactive you are to stress
Risk factors for increased stress?
Perfectionism and self-doubt
What is perfectionism
Tendency to set unrealistically high expectations for yourself and/or others
Why is perfectionism a risk factor for increased stress?
Increases vulnerability for anxiety, depression and other mental health problems, and looks to be increasing in young people
What is imposter syndrome?
When you compare yourself to other people and think you aren’t good enough or don’t belong
Ways to tackle perfectionism, self-criticism, and self-doubt
- Focus on strengths
- Avoid comparisons
- Mindfulness and self-compassion
- Good enough
- Challenge your beliefs
- Growth mindset
What is allostatis (equilibrium)?
Process of responding to a challenge or stressor by triggering various biological and chemical processes to maintain balance
Wear-and-Tear or allostatic load?
Results from chronic or overwhelming stress. (Ex. Includes chronic overactivity or sensitivity of the HPA axis – always firing and difficulty finding equilibrium)
Signs and symptoms of chronic or overwhelming stress?
- Cognitive changes (difficulty concentrating, attention, memory problems)
- Emotional changes (moodiness, mood swings)
- Physical changes (muscle tension, stomach issues)
- Behavioural changes (sleep, eating, social withdrawal, substance use)
What is sleep?
A state of the mind and body characterized by altered or reduced consciousness
What triggers sleep?
Complex interactions between different hormones and biological cues
What brain structures are involved in sleep?
Hypothalamus plays important role in arousal
Two basic types of sleep?
Non rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (stages 1-3) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (stage 4)
What is stage 1 (non-REM) sleep?
the change from being awake to being sleep. It is relatively brief, lasting for only several minutes, and is characterized by light sleep that may involve
Characteristics of Stage 1 (non-REM) sleep?
- Slowing heartbeat, breathing, and eye movements
- Relaxation of muscles
- Brainwaves begin to move slow
What is stage 2 (non-REM) sleep?
Period of light sleep before you enter deeper sleep.
Characteristics of Stage 2 (non-REM) sleep?
- Further slowing down of heart beat and breathing
- Eye movements stop
- Deeper muscle relaxation
- Body temp drops
- Brainwaves slow even more but show brief bursts of activity
What is Stage 3 of sleep?
Type of sleep you need to feel awake and refreshed the next day. It usually occurs in longer periods during the first half of the night
Characteristics of Stage 3 sleep?
- Further slowing of heart beat, and breathing. (Period when they’re the slowest!)
- Deeper muscle relaxation
- Brainwaves slow even more
- It may be difficult to wake you up
What is stage 4 of sleep?
The first stage involving REM. REM sleep first occurs after the three non-REM stages (often about 50 mins after you have fallen asleep)
Characteristics of stage 4 sleep?
- Rapid eye movements
- Breathing, heartbeat, blood pressure increase to be close to waking levels
- Brain waves have mixed frequency and start to resemble brain waves when you are awake
- Most (but not all) dreaming occurs when in REM sleep
- Your limbs become temporarily paralyzed so that you don’t act on your dreams
Why is REM sleep important?
Resets mental state
What happens to REM sleep over the course of the night?
REM episodes get longer in duration with most REM happening in the last third of the night
Why are the stages of sleep different in older people?
Older people spend less time in stages 3 & 4, or deep sleep. They tend to wake up more which interrupts the sleep cycle
What benefits does sleep have?
- Cognitive
- Emotional
- Physical
- Mental
- Behavioural
Important biological component of self-regulation?
involves staying in tune with our bodies naturally-occurring rhythms and cycles
What are circadian rhythms?
Naturally occurring process, which forms your biological clock
Why are circadian rhythms important?
Ensure that your body is optimized at the correct time of the day through biological processes such as regulation of the sleep-wake cycle, energy levels, brainwave activity, and others
Importance of biological rhythms?
Disrupted circadian rhythms can result in a variety of serious cognitive, emotional, physical and behavioural changes
Healthy Strategies for dealing with stress?
- self care
- talk to someone
- take a break
- self-compassion
- practice mindfulness
- self-compassion
Healthy strategies for sleep?
- Routine
- Environment
- Consumption
- Exercise
- Mindfulness (clear mind)
- Support (non-medical and medical sleep aid)
- reduce worry
Healthy strategies for behavioural self-regulation?
- daytime/bedtime routine
- avoid shifted sleep schedule
- avoid disruptions in sleep schedule
Healthy strategies for emotional self-regulation
- practice mindfulness
- cognitive skills (reframing)
- maintain a healthy lifestyle
What triggers CRH release from the hypothalamus
the sudden onset of this stressor
What is the role of CRH?
Stimulates the release of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) from the anterior pituitary
Where is glucocorticoid secreted from?
adrenal gland as the end product of the axis
