Lifestyle, stress, and health

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Lecture 7

• Lifestyle, stress, and health

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Outline

• Introduction
• Stress and health
• Biological components
• Psychological components
• Coping with stress
• Cognitive reappraisal
• Social support
• Relaxation and Leisure Activities

3
Definitions

• Stress
• a pattern of physiological, behavioural,
  emotional, and cognitive responses to real or
  imagined stressor
• Stressor
• stimuli that are perceived as threatening
  well-being
• Distress
• negative psychological response to stressor(s)

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Types of Stressors (Sources of Stress)

• Major Life Events
• Daily Hassles

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Types of Conflict

• Approach-Approach
• Approach-Avoidance
• Avoidance-Avoidance

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Stress and Health

• General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS Selye, 1956
  1993)
• In reaction to chronic exposure to severe
  stressors, the body goes through 3 stages,
  including
• alarm reaction
• resistance
• exhaustion

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Biological Components

• Hormonal responses
• Psychoneuroimmunological responses

8
Psychological Components

• Cognitive appraisals

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Coping with Stress

• Coping strategy
• A plan of action that a person follows to reduce
  the perceived level of stress, either in
  anticipation of encountering a stressor or in
  response to its occurrence.
• Problem-focused coping
• Any coping behaviour that is directed at reducing
  or eliminating a stressor
• Emotion-focused coping
• Any coping behaviour that is directed toward
  changing ones own emotional reaction to a
  stressor

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Coping with StressCognitive Reappraisal
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Coping with StressSocial Support
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Coping with StressRelaxation and Leisure
Activities