WEEK 6- Health Stress and Coping Flashcards
(103 cards)
1
Q
Health Psychology
A
Is a field that centres on the promotion and maintenance of health, ways of preventing illness, and understanding of the individual to the entire healthcare system. The work of health psychologists is part of the broader field of behavioral medicine, in which psychologists persue their health-related goals in cooperation with physicians, nurses, public health workers and other biomedical specialties.
2
Q
Eustress
A
The “good “ form of stress that is associated withpositive feelings, optimal health and performance. Stress level must be low to moderate, at optimal level, performance has reached its peak.
3
Q
Distress
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Is when stress exceeds the optimal level, and it is no longer a positive force. It becomes excessive and debilitating. People who reach this level of stress feel burned out; they are fatigued, exhausted, and their performance and health begins to decline. Its the “bad” form of stress.
4
Q
How chronic stress affect the brain?
A
By reducing his size, structure and functions.
5
Q
Stress begins with a process called:
A
Hypothalamus Pituitary Adrenal Axis
6
Q
Hypothalamus Pituitary Adrenal Axis
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Is a series of interaction between the endocrine glands in the brain and kidney which controlls the body reaction to stress. When the brain detects a stress situation, the HPA activates realising a hormone called cortisol which primes your body for instanct action.
7
Q
High levels levels of cortisol for a long period of time is bad for the brain, why?
A
Cortisol can cause the brain to shrink its size, too much of it involves in the loss of synaptic connection between neurons, and the shrinking of the prefrontal cortex which involves behavior like concentration, judgement and decision making and social interaction. It also leads to fewer new brain cells being made in the hippocampus.
8
Q
Chronic stress involves
A
In not remebering things and not learning and can lead to depression and alzheimer.
9
Q
Epigenetics
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Is the study of heritable changes in gene expression (active versus inactive genes) that do not involve changes to the underlying DNA sequence.
10
Q
Poor Health consists of:
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Behavioral factors such as lack of exercise, inadequate diet, smoking, abuse of alcohols, and drugs.
11
Q
Good Health consists in
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Being optimistic, experiencing positive emotions, and behaviours such as adequate exercise and following medical advice.
12
Q
_________ diseases affects more a person psychologically.
A
Chronic diseases like cancer and heart.
13
Q
Life expectancy on average Australian is ____ on females and ____ males.
A
84; 79.
14
Q
In Australia, the top cause of death is _________ on both males and women. And in New Zealand is___________ in females and _______________ in males.
A
Coronary heart disease.
Lung cancer; Ischemic heart disease.
15
Q
Stress
A
Are internal processes that occur as people try to adjust to events and situations that they perceive as threatening or overwhelming, especially. Stress is an internal state. Another definition: (Selye) the nonspecific response of the body to any demand.
16
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Stressors
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Are the events and situations that stress creates and people must adjust.
17
Q
What do stressors have in common?
A
They all disrupt or threaten to disrupt daily functioning and cause people to make adjustments. Stressors can be mild and temporary or severe and lasting.
18
Q
External stimulis triggers ________.
A
Stress
19
Q
Stress reactions
A
Are physical, psychological, emotional, cognitive and behavioral responses that occur in the face of stressors. In other words, stress involves transaction between people and their physical and psychological environments. When stress reactions are confronted by stressor, people may respond physically (with nausea and fatigue for example) and psychologically (with anxiety, lack of concentration or changes in eating habits).
20
Q
Stress mediators
A
The transactions between people and their environments can be influenced by stress mediators. These mediators include such variables as the extent to which people can predict and control their stressors, how they interpret the threat involved, the amount of social support they perceive as available from family and friends, and their stress-coping skills. Stress mediators, however, can minimize or magnify a stressor’s impact and include factors such as perceptions of control or threat, social support and coping skills.
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Q
To deal with consequences of trauma, health psychologists do ______________ and _______________.
A
On spot counselling and follow up sessions.
22
Q
The most adverse psychological stressors are
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Events and situations that are perceived as unpleasant and threatening.
23
Q
Psychological stressors involve:
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Catastrophic events, life changes and strains, chronic problems and daily hassles.
24
Q
Catastrophic events
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Are sudden, unexpected, potentially life-threatening experiences or traumas, such as physical or sexual assault, military combat, natural disasters, terrorist attacks and accidents.
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Life changes and strains include
Divorce, illness in the family, difficulties at work and other circumstances that create demands to which people must adjust.
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Chronic problems
Those that continue over a long period of time. It comprises circumstances such as living in a high-crime neighborhood or under the threat of terrorism, having a serious illness, being unable to earn a decent living, being the victim of discrimination, and even enduring years of academic pressure.
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Ways that chronic stress can sabotage the life of a person:
Are with acne, hair loss, sexual dysfunction, headaches, muscle tension, irritability and lack of concentration.
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Daily hassles
Are irritations, pressures and annoyances that may not be significant stressors by themselves but whose cumulative effects can be significant.
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How stressors are measured?
With Life change units (LCUs), Social Readjustment Rating Scale, SRRS and - Life Experiences Survey or LES.
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Life change units (LCUs)
It measures by asking questions the amount of change and demand for adjustment associated with events such as divorcing, being fired, retiring, losing a loved one or becoming pregnant.
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Social Readjustment Rating Scale, SRRS
People taking the SRRS receive a stress score equal to the sum of the LCUs for the events they have recently experienced.
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Life Experiences Survey or LES.
Go beyond the SRRS to measure not just life events but also peoples perceptions, or cognitive appraisals, of how positive or negative the events were, how controllable they were, and how well they were able to cope. The LES also gives respondents the opportunity to write in and rate any stressors they have experienced that are not on the printed list. This personalized approach is particularly valuable for capturing the differing impact and meaning that experiences may have for men compared with woman and for individuals from various cultural or subcultural groups.
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Physical stress responses.
Include rapid breathing, increased heartbeat, sweating and shakiness, decreases in digestive activity, release of glucose from the liver for energy. These reactions are part of a general pattern known as fight-flight reaction or syndrome.
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General adaptation syndrome, GAS
Is a 3-stage pattern of responses triggered by the effort to adapt to any stressor found by Hans Selye/ He stated that physical reactions to stressors include an initial alarm reaction, followed by resistance and then exhaustion.
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Initial Alarm reaction
Involves some version of the fight-or-flight syndrome. In the face of a mild stressor such as an overheated room, the reaction may simply involve changes in heart rate, respiration and perspiration that help the body regulate its temperature. Environmental demands (stressors) trigger a process in the brain in which the hypothalamus activates the sympathetic branch of the ANS, which stimulates the medulla (inner part) of the adrenal gland. The adrenal gland, in turn, secretes catecholamines (which mobilizes the body for action). The results are increased blood pressure, enhanced muscle tension, increased blood sugar, strokes, cholesterol in arteries, vessel obstruction, and hearburn (acid) and other physical changes that provide the energy needed to cope with acute stressos.
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How does stressors activate the pituitary-adrenocortical system (HPA) how?
Through the HPA, the hypothalamus causes the pituitary gland in the brain to trigger the release of endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers. The HPA which involves the adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) also stimulates the release of corticosteroids (hormones), which help resist stress but also tend to suppress the immune system . The overall effect of these stress systems is to generate emergency energy.
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Catecholamines
Is secreted by the adrenal gland which mobilizes the body for action, especially cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline which circulate in the bloodstream, activating various organs, including the liver, kidneys, heart and lungs.
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Resistance Stage
If stressors persist, the resistance stage of the GAS begins. Here, obvious signs of the initial alarm reaction fade as the body settles in to resist the stressor on a long-term basis. The drain on adaptive energy is slower during the resistance stage than it was during the alarm reaction, but the body is still working hard, physiologically, to cope.
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Exhaustion Stage
It slowly but surely uses up the body’s reserves of adaptive energy. The organ systems involved in prolonged resistance to stressors eventually breaks down. In extreme cases, such as prolonged exposure to freezing temperatures, the result is death. More commonly, the exhaustion stage brings signs of physical wear and tear, especially in organ systems that were weak to begin with or that were heavily involved in the resistance process.
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Diseases of adaptation
Illnesses that are caused or worsened by stressors (we see this on the exhaustion stage).
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Psychological responses to stress.
Include emotional, behavioral and cognitive changes.
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Psychobiological models emphasizes the:
Importance of psychological as well as biological variables in regulating and producing stress responses. Psychological responses to stress can appear as changes in emotions and thoughts (cognitions), along with changes in behavior.
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Emotional responses
Physical responses are usually accompanied by emotional responses. In most cases, emotional stress reactions subside soon after the stressors are gone. However, if stressors continue or occur in tight sequence, they may persist. When people do not have a chance to recover their emotional equilibrium, they commonly report feeling tense, irritable, short-tempered, or anxious more of the time.
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Cognitive responses
Reductions in the ability to concentrate, judgment, decision making, to think clearly or to remember accurately are typical cognitive stress reactions. These problems appear because of ruminative thinking, catastrophizing and functional fixedness.
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Ruminative thinking
Are the repeated intrusion of thoughts about stressful events.
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Catastrophizing
Is dwelling on and overemphasizing the potential consequences of negative events.
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Functional Fixedness
Stress can also intensify functional fixedness, which is the tendency to use objects for only one purpose. Example, Victims of hotel fires, for example, sometimes die trapped in their rooms because in the stress of the moment, it did not occur to them to use the telephone or a piece of furniture to break a window.
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Behavioral Responses
Clues about peoples physical and emotional stress responses come from changes in how they look, act or talk. Strained facial expressions, a shaky voice, tremors or spasms, and jumpines, bad posture are common behavioral stress responses. Other behavioral stress responses appear as people attempt to escape or avoid stressors. They turn to alcohol, overeat, agression and sleep. In behavioral responses we see a lot of suicides, risky behaviors, job quiting, drop out of school among other things.
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Physical, psychological and behavioral stress responses sometimes appear together in patterns known as
Burnout and post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Burnout
Is an increasingly intense pattern of physical and psychological dysfunction in response to a continuous flow of stressors or to chronic stress situations. Burnout is particularly common among individuals who do peoples work and are unjustly treated by employers. They tend to be indifferent, disengaged, impulsive, accident-prone, they miss work, oversleep, perform their work poorly, abuse alcohol, depressed among other things. Ex. Previously reliable workers or once attentive spouse.
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Post-Traumatic stress Disorder (PTSD)
is a pattern of adverse and disruptive reactions following a traumatic and threatening event. Among the characteristics, reactions are anxiety, irritability, jumpiness, inability to concentrate or work productively, sexual dysfunction and difficulty in getting along with others. People suffering from PTSD may also experience sleep disturbances, intense startle responses to noise or other sudden stimuli, long-term suppression of their immune systems, and elevated risk of coronary heart disease.
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The most common feature of PTSD is re-experiencing the trauma through
nightmares, vivid memories and in rare cases, flashbacks.
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Flashbacks
Is when the person behaves for minutes, hours or days as if the trauma were occurring again.
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Symptoms of burnout and PTSD often plague
Firefighters, police officers, emergency medical personnel and others who are repeatedly exposed to time pressure, trauma, danger and other stressors. PTSD can be another result of these conditions, but it can also occur following a single event and from ongoing chronic events.
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Symptoms of PTSD appear:
Immediately following a trauma, but the full expression of its symptoms may not appear until weeks later. Many people require professional help, although some seem to recover without it. The support of family and friends is vital to recovery.
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Stress plays a role in:
The development of a number of psychological disorders, including depression and schizophrenia.
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The diathesis-stress model
Suggests that certain people are predisposed to burnout and PTSD disorders but whether or not individuals actually display them depends on the frequency, nature and intensity of the stressors they encounter. If untreated, stress-related mental health problems can threaten physical health, too.
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__________ and ___________ help fight stressors during the resistance stage.
Adrenaline and Cortisol
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What happends if Adrenaline and Cortisol remain at high levels for an extended time?
They can damage the heart and blood vessels. They also suppress the functioning of the body’s disease-fighting immune system, leaving people vulnerable to illnesses such as heart disease, high blood pressure, arthritis, colds and flu (diseases of adaptation).
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A potential stressor, has a more negative impact on those who perceive it as _______than on those who see it as ___________. Their impact depends partly on how people perceive them.
A threat ; A Challenge.
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___________ stressors tend to have more impact than those that are _________.
Unpredictable; Rredictable
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The ________________can also mediate the effects of stressors.
Perception of control. If people can exert some control over them, stressors usually have less impact on health.
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According to Selye, stress can be mediated and regulated by:
By balancing challenges, setting realistic goals, and establishing appropriate priorities. The best way to regulate stress involves keeping regular hours, establishing good eating habits, engaging in physical exercise, and withdrawing from stressful situations. The impact of stressors can also be reduced by the use of effective coping methods (problem-focused coping and focused coping)
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Effective coping methods
- Problem-focused coping: involves efforts to alter or eliminate a source of stress through social seeking, confronting and planned problem-solving.
- Emotion-focused: are techniques aimed at regulating the negative emotional consequences of the stressor. Some people use both kinds of coping, the emotion focus coping, just helps in the short run, not in the long run. It involves self-controlling, distancing, positive reappraisal, accepting responsibility and escape/avoidance (wishful thinking).
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Coping
Is defined as the cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific demands that people perceive as taxing their resources.
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Social support
The network of friends and social contacts on whom one can depend for help in dealing with stressor like eliminating stressors or reducing them. Second, social support refers not only to relationships with others but also to the recognition that others care and can be depended on to help. Third, having too much support or the wrong kind of support can be as bad as not having enough.
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What is the impact of stressors and psychological and physical responses on the immune system ?
- Wee see impacts on the progression of HIV/AID, depression, concealment of gay identity, negative expectancies, and reliance on passive, emotion-focused coping methods such as denial have all been related to faster disease progression.
- Openly expressing emotions, collaborating closely with doctors, having optimistic expectations, remaining involved in normal activities, finding meaning in the situation, and other active, problem-focused coping strategies have all been associated with slower disease progression.
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Certain personality characteristics help insulate people from the ill effects of stress, one example is?
Disease- resistant personalities, people with this personality tend to think of stressors as temporary challenges to be overcome, not catastrophic threats, and they do not constantly blame themselves for bringing them about. One particularly important component of the disease-resistant personality to be dispositional optimism, the belief or expectation that things will work out positively. Gender can also play a role in stress responses. Optimistic people tend to live longer, to experience fewer health consequences following major stressors, and to have more resistance than pessimists to cold and other infectious diseases.
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Optimism, happiness, and other positive emotions such as hope and curiosity has been associated with:
Better health and longer life.
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The hormones that release the body’s energy supplies and fight inflammation are known as:
Corticosteroids.
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Stress mediatiors are
Appraisal, predictibility, control, social support, coping resources and methods.
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Fantasising about winning money is a(n) ___________ focused way of coping with financial stress.
Emotion
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Thinking of a new difficult job as a challenge will create less discomfort than focusing on the threat of failure is an example of:
Appraisal mediator
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Stress can lead to physical illnesses by affecting the ______________ and ____________.
Immune system and the cardiovascular system.
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Psychoneuroimmunology
Is a field of research on the interaction of psychological, social, behavioural, neural, hormonal and immune system processes that affect the body’s defences against diseases
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Immune System
The body’s first line of defence against invading viruses, bacterias substances and microorganisms that can cause harm to the body. The immune system is divided by innate immunity and Non specific immunity.
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If our immune system is impaired by stressors, for example, we are left more vulnerable to:
Colds, Mononucleosis and many other infectious diseases.
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Autoimmune disorders
Are chronic, progessive diseases like arthritis, diabetes and lupus. In these cases, cells of the immune system begin to attack and destroy normal body cells. Is when a person's immune system functions erroneously and mistakes its own healthy cells for invaders and repeatedly attacks them.
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Immunosuppression
Not only can the immune system function erroneously, It can break down and stop being able to perform its job. Immunosuppression is where a person becomes susceptible to any number of infections, illness and disease. For example, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a serious and lethal disease that is caused by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which greatly weakens the immune system by infecting and destroying antibody-producing cells, thus rendering a person vulnerable to any of a number of opportunistic infections.
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Psychoneuroimmunology
Is the field that studies how psychological factors such as stress influence the immune system and immune functioning.
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The immune system is especially affected by stress. People under stress more often develop infectious disease and experience:
Re-activation of latent viruses responsible for oral and genital herpes.
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Stress and the Sympatho-adreno-medullary (SAM) system is also linked to issues with the cardiovascular system. Repeated activation of the SAM in response to stressors, especially chronic ones, has been associated with the development of:
Coronary heart disease (CHD), high blood pressure (hypertension), and stroke. This link is especially strong in those who display strong physiological reactions to stressors.
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Hostility, particularly when accompanied by irritability and impatience, has been associated with the appearance of _______________.
Coronary heart disease.
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Leucocytes
Consists of white blood cells, and are formed in the bone marrow and are called into action when foreign substances are detected. There are various types of leucocytes, including; B-cells, T-cells, Natural Killers and Macrophages.
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B-cells
Mature in bone marrow. They produce antibodies, circulating proteins that bind to specific foreign toxins and begin to deactivate them.
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T-cells
Mature in the thymus and kill other cells.
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Natural Killer cells
Destroy a wide variety of foreign organisms and have important antiviral and antitumour functions.
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Macrophages
Engulf foreign cells and digest them in a process called phagocytosis ‘eating cells’. These scavengers are able to squeeze out of the bloodstream and enter organs, where they destroy foreign cells, they patrol your body or they can wait for their cue.
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The activity of immune system cells can be either strengthened or weakened by a number of systems, including
The endocrine system, nervous system (the central and autonomic nervous systems). It is through these connections that stress-related psychological and emotional factors can affect the functioning of the immune system.
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A variety of stressors lead to supression of the immune system. The effects are especially strong in:
Elderly but they can occur in everyone.
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Stress hormones affect immune cells in a variety of ways like:
they help prepare to fight invators and heal after injury but chronic stress can dampen the functions of some immune cells making you more susceptible to infections and slow the rate you heal.
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Health promotion
Are health psychologists’ efforts to prevent, reduce, or eliminate behaviours that pose health risks and to increase healthy behaviour patterns.
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Health-belief models are cognitive approaches to health psychology and it was developed by Irwin Rosenstock, It consists on:
They have been useful in predicting a variety of health behaviours. People decide about health-related behaviours according to four main factors:
1. Perceiving a personal threat of, or susceptibility to, developing a specific health problem. (Do you believe that you will get lung cancer from smoking?).
2. Perceiving the seriousness of the illness and the consequences of having it. (How serious do you think lung cancer is, and what will happen if you get it?).
3. Believing that changing a particular behaviour will reduce the threat. (Will giving up smoking prevent you from getting lung cancer?).
4. A comparison of the perceived costs of enacting a health-related behaviour change and the benefits expected from that change. (Will the reduced chance of getting cancer in the future be worth the discomfort and loss of pleasure associated with not smoking now?).
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Stages of change or Transtheoretical Model by James Prochaska
1. Precontemplation: The person perceives no threat and does not plan to change.
2. Contemplation: The person recognises that a problem behaviour needs changing and is thinking about doing it. People often stop here.
3. Preparation: The person has a strong intention to change, has specific plans, and may take some initial steps.
4. Action: The person is successfully making a behaviour change. People must remain successful for up to six months before they officially reach the final stage.
5. Maintenance: The person uses their newly acquired skills to continue the healthy behaviour and prevent relapse.
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Stages in coping with stress
1. Assessment: identifying the sources and effect of stress.
2. Goal Setting: list the stressors and stress responses to be addressed. Designate which stressors are and are not changeable.
3. Planning: list the steps to be taken to cope with stress.
4. Action: implement coping plans.
5. Evaluation: determine the changes in stressors and stress responses that have occurred as a result of coping methods.
6. Adjustment: alter coping methods to improve results if necessary.
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Strategies for coping with stress can be:
Cognitive, emotional, behavioral or physical.
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Cognitive restructuring
Involves first identifying upsetting thoughts (such I will never figure this thing out) and then developing and practicing more constructive thoughts to use when under stress (such as all I can do is the best I can).
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Cognitive method for coping with stress is:
Thinking of stressors as challengers rather than threats, avoiding perfectionism.
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Emotional method for coping with stress is:
Seeking social support, getting advice.
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Having enhanced _________is associated with improved immune function and more rapid recovery from illnesss.
social support
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Behavioral method for coping with stress is:
Implementing a time-management plan; where possible, making life changes to eliminate stressors.
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Physical method for coping with stress is:
Progressive relaxation training; exercise and meditation.
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The most common behavioral coping strategy is
Drug use (prescription and without like alcohol etc).
