CHAPTER 14: STRESS AND HEALTH

Madison Carr, Chase’ Freeman, CJ Jasinski, Bianca Morales,

India Speech

Stress and Health Behavioral medicine: an interdisciplinary

field that integrates behavioral and medicinal knowledge and applies that knowledge to health and disease

Health psychology: a subfield of psychology that provides psychology's contribution to behavioral medicine

Stress and Stressors Stress: The process by which we perceive

and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging.

Stress is how we cope with threats and challenges throughout life.

Stressors are the causes of stress, stress reactions are your physical and emotional responses to stress, and stress is the way you relate to your environment.

Pros of Stress Momentary stress can mobilize the

immune system for fending off infections and healing wounds

Arouses and motivates us to conquer issues

Conquering a stressful event leads to higher self esteem and a sense of purpose

Cons of Stress Severe stress can lead to a suppressed

immune system and progression of diseases

The Stress Response System

Walter Cannon Found that stress response is part of a unified mind-body system

Sympathetic nervous increases heart rate and respiration, diverts blood to the skeletal muscles, dulls pain, releases sugars and fat

Prepares for fight or flight

GAS General adaption syndrome: Selye’s

concept of the body’s adaptive response to stress in three stages

Stage one: Alarm reaction Stage two: Resistance to stress Stage three: Exhaustion – vulnerability to

disease

Stressful life events Catastrophes: unpredictable large scale

change, example: 9/11 Significant life changes: life transitions

and insecurities example: leaving home, death

of a loved one Daily hassles: everyday annoyances

example: school

Stress and the heart Large amounts of stress lead to elevated

blood pressure and increase the risk of coronary disease

Coronary disease: The clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle; the leading cause of death in most developed countries

Personalities Type A: Friedman and Roseman’s term for

competitive, hard driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger prone people. These people are more likely of heart diseaseexample: when your history IA is due in one day

Type B: Friedman and Roseman’s term for easygoing, relaxed peopleexample: when your history IA is due in two days

Stress and Susceptibility to Disease

Psycho Physiological Illnesses: “Mind-body” illnesses; any stress related physical illness

Stress and the Immune System The nervous and endocrine system have

an influence on the immune system

Lymphocytes Lymphocytes: The two types of white

blood cells that are part of the body’s immune system: B lymphocytes form in the bone marrow and release antibodies that fight bacterial infection; T lymphocytes form in the thymus and other lymphatic tissue and attack cancer cells, viruses and foreign substances.

B for bone, T for thymus

Immune System Errors Strong response: May attack the body’s

own tissue, causing arthritis or an allergic reaction

Weak response: May allow a dormant disease to erupt or multiply

Stress’s Affect on the Body Wounds heal slowly: Unstressed participants

wounds healed 40% faster More vulnerable to disease: Unstressed

participants were 20% more unlikely to catch a disease

Weakened immune system: Stressed participants showed a 15% below average immune antibody response and a 23% increase in stress hormones

Life shortening: A noticeable characteristic of people who have lived over 100 is their ability to handle stress

Stress and Aids Aids is the fourth largest cause of death Infected people with stressful life

circumstances exhibit greater disease suppression and a faster disease progression

Stress and Cancer Stress and negative emotion have been

linked to cancer’s rate of progression People with a history of stress were

reported 5.5 times more likely to get colon cancer

Stress doesn’t cause cancer but it weakens the body allowing it to progress

Conditioning the Immune System

Placebo effect on stress When you think something bad or

stressful will occur before it does you still exhibit the symptoms

Coping with stress Coping: alleviating stress using

emotional, cognitive, or behavioral methods

Problem focused coping: attempting to alleviate stress directly – by changing the stressor or the way we interact with that stressor

Emotion focused coping: attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and attending to emotional needs related to one’s stress reaction

Coping with stress (cont.) Stress correlates with heart disease,

lowered immunity and other bodily ailments

We as individuals need to learn to cope with stress by finding ways to alleviate it

Perceived control When we perceive a loss of control, we

become more likely to get ill health Perceiving a lack of control can lead to

cardiovascular disease and a shorter life span because of an outpouring level of stress hormones

Explanatory style An influence on coping with stress is

whether we are more optimistic or pessimistic

Optimist are more likely to be able to deal with stress because they feel they have more control

Pessimist are statistically more likely to be stress and are more often sick than optimist

Social support Social support is a large factor in stress Feeling liked, affirmed, and encouraged

by friends or family greatly reduces stress People with larger amounts of social

support have lower blood pressure

Aerobic excersise Reduces stress, depression and anxiety Lowers blood pressure, increased arousal,

and have higher levels or neurotransmitters to boost blood, and enhances cognitive abilities

Biofeedback Biofeedback: system for electronically

recording, amplifying, and feeding back information regarding a subtle physiological state, such as blood pressure or muscle tension

Relaxation Can help alleviate headaches,

hypertension, anxiety, and insomnia

Meditattion Cardiologist Herbert Benson became

interested with meditative relaxation when he experienced that people that meditate could decrease their blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen consumption

Spirituality and faith communities

The two greatest healing traditions are religion and medicine

Studies have showed that religious people were half as likely to die than those without a religious affiliation

Smoking Tobacco kills nearly 5 million people out

of its 1.3 billion customers, that’s .3% of people

Nicotine is addictive Harms almost every organ

Helping smokers quit People that try to quit smoking alone are

less likely to quit Smoking rates remain high with high

school drop outs and people of lower socioeconomic level

Obesity and weight control Our bodies store fat because it’s a fuel

reserve to help to continue when food is scarce

However in most of the world food is no longer scarce which has raised the obesity rate

Obesity problems Heart disease Rise of diabetes High blood pressure Gallstones Arthritis Cancer Shortened life

The social effect of obesity Stereotypical obese people are….. Sloppy Lazy Slow

The physiology of obesity Become obese from consuming too many

calories Myth: Cutting your diet by 3,500 calories

makes you lose one pound When you cut calories your body turns to

starvation mode Genetics have an influence on body

weight Average American has become one inch

taller over 50 years, and 23 pounds heavier

Losing weight Most people that lose weight regain it

quickly Most dieters fall back because of stress This leads to….. Binge eating Food obsession Weight fluctuations Malnutrition Smoking Depression