Stress, Health, and Human Flourishing Chapter 10

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Stress, Health, and Human FlourishingChapter
10
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Stress, Health, and Human Flourishing

• Stress Some Basic Concepts
• Stressors Things That Push Our Buttons
• Stress Reactions From Alarm to Exhaustion
• Stress Effects and Health
• Stress and AIDS
• Stress and Cancer
• Stress and Heart Disease
• Stress and Health The Role of Personality

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Stress, Health, and Human Flourishing

• Human Flourishing
• Coping With Stress
• Personal Control

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Stress Some Basic Concepts

• Stress is defined as the process by which we
  perceive and respond to certain events called
  stressors that we appraise as threatening or
  challenging.

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Stress Appraisal

• Stress arises less from the event itself than
  from how we appraise it. (Lazarus, 1998)

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Three Main Types of Stressors

• Catastrophes
• Unpredictable large-scale events
• Significant life changes
• Leaving home, getting married, changing jobs,
  death of a loved one, etc.
• One is more disease-prone following such changes
• Daily hassles
• More significant hassles include low wages, poor
  health, neighborhood problems
• Can lead to high blood pressure and other health
  problems

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Stress Reactions

• Stress response involves mind and body.
• Walter Cannon (1929) found extreme cold, lack of
  oxygen, and emotion arousal all trigger release
  of stress hormones from adrenal glands.
• Sympathetic nervous system engages
  fight-or-flight response, which mobilizes energy
  and activity for attacking or escaping a threat.

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Stress Reactions

• Hans Selye (1936) studied animals reactions to
  stressors.
• Discovered that the body has a common pattern of
  responding to a variety of stressors, which he
  called the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)
• Alarm
• Resistance
• Exhaustion

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General Adaptation Syndrome
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Other Ways of Dealing with Stress

• Withdraw, pull back, and conserve energy
• Some may become paralyzed with fear in the face
  of disaster.
• Tend-and-befriend under stress, some people
  (especially women) often both provide support to
  and seek support from others
• Men are more likely to withdraw, self-medicate,
  or become aggressive.

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Stress Effects and Health

• Psychoneuroimmunology a field that studies how
  psychological, neural, and endocrine processes
  affect our immune system and health
• Immune response includes two types of lymphocytes
  (white blood cells)
• macrophages, and natural killer (NK) cells.

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The Immune Response
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Immune System Errors

• Responding too strongly the immune system may
  attack the bodys own tissues
• Arthritis, allergies
• Underreaction May allow dormant virus to erupt
  or cancer cells to multiply
• Women have stronger immune systems.
• This makes them less likely to get infections,
  but more susceptible to diseases like lupus and
  MS.

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Stress Effects and Health

• The immune system becomes less active when the
  body is flooded with stress hormones.
• Wounds heal more slowly
• More vulnerable to colds

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Stress and AIDS

• People with AIDS already have a damaged immune
  system.
• Stress and negative emotions speed the transition
  from HIV to AIDS.
• Stress leads to a faster decline in those with
  AIDS.
• Reducing stress can help control AIDS.

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Stress and Cancer

• Stress does not create cancer cells, but
• Stress may weaken a persons ability to fight off
  cancer.

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Stress and Heart Disease

• Stress is closely linked with coronary heart
  disease the clogging of the vessels that
  nourish the heart.
• Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of
  death in North America.
• Study of tax accountants risk of heart disease
  peaks right before April 15.

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Stress and Health The Role of Personality

• Nine-year study of 3000 men, aged 35-39. At
  start, they were interviewed and categorized
• Type A competitive, hard-driving, impatient,
  verbally aggressive, anger-prone, combat-ready
• Type B easygoing and relaxed
• At end of study, 257 heart attacks
• 69 were Type A

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Is Stress All Bad?

• Stress motivates us, invigorates our lives,
  makes our life challenging and productive.
• But stress makes us less resistant to disease.

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Stress and Health
The Stress Effect
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Depression More on Mental Health Affecting the
Heart

• Study Depression increases risk of worsening
  heart problems by 400
• Study Depression increases risk of death as much
  as smoking does.

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Human Flourishing

• Coping With Stress

Study the single trait shared by 169 people over
100 was the ability to manage stress well
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Coping With Stress

• Problem-focused coping
• Emotion-focused coping

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Personal Control

• Personal control is our sense of seeing ourselves
  in control of our environment.
• Psychologists study this in two ways
• They correlate peoples fellings of control with
  behaviors and achievements.
• They experiment, by raising or lowering peoples
  sense of control and noting the effects.

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Control, Morale, and Health

• Seligman (1975) strapped dogs in a harness and
  gave them electric shocks
• When later placed in another situation where they
  could escape the punishment by simply leaping
  over a hurdle, the dogs cowered and did not move
• Other dogs that were able to escape the first
  shocks did not act this way

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Control, Morale, and Health

• Learned helplessness is the term for the
  hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or
  human learns when unable to avoid repeated
  aversive events.
• Perceived loss of control predicts health
  problems.
• Ability to control ones environment leads to
  greater happiness and productivity.

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Whos at the Controls?

• Is your life out of your control? Is the world
  run by a few powerful people?
• Do you control your own fate? Is being a success
  a matter of hard work?
• External locus of control the perception that
  chance or outside forces beyond personal control
  determine our fate
• Internal locus of control the perception that we
  control our own fate

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Internals and Externals

• Internals assume an internal locus of control.
• believe they control their own destiny
• achieve more in school and work, enjoy better
  health, and feel less depressed than there
  counterparts
• Externals assume an external locus of control.
• view that chance or outside forces control their
  fate

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Self Control

• Self Control The ability to control impulses
  and delay gratification
• Self-control is like a muscle
• it grows stronger with exercise
• Self-discipline in one area may strengthen
  self-control in general and lead to a less
  stressed life

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Is the Glass Half Full?

• Optimism is the anticipation of positive outcomes
• Pessimism is the anticipation of negative
  outcomes
• Optimists tend to have better health, and may
  live longer
• Success requires optimism but enough pessimism to
  us alert

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Social Support

• Feeling liked and encouraged by friends and
  family promotes both happiness and health.
• Social support can calm the cardiovascular system
  and foster stronger immune functioning.
• Both good and bad habits can quickly migrate to
  ones friends.

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Finding Meaning

• Doing a Google search of the meaning of life
  resulted 6,720,000 hits
• Those with a strong sense of meaning
• See a purpose for their lives and have strong
  values, and a sense of self-worth.
• Those who find meaning in a tragic event have
  fewer adverse health effects and lower rates of
  depression.

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Managing Stress Effects

• Sometimes we cannot avoid experiencing stress.
• What can we do to manage it?
• Aerobic exercise
• Relaxation
• Meditation
• Spirituality

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Aerobic Exercise

• Aerobic exercise, sustained activity that
  increases heart and lung fitness, may reduce
  stress, depression and anxiety
• Study mildly depressed women improved more with
  exercise than with relaxation exercises

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Relaxation Lifestyle Modification

• Study with Type A heart attack survivors a
  control group was given advice about medications,
  diet, and exercise.
• A second group was given this advice PLUS
  guidance in modifying their lifestyle
• Walking, laughing, eating slowly
• Can we tell which part of the intervention made
  the difference?

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Relaxation Meditation

• Relaxation procedures can provide relief from
  headaches, high blood pressure, anxiety, and
  insomnia.
• The relaxation response
• Sit quietly in a comfortable position. Close your
  eyes. Relax your musicles, starting with your
  feet and moving slowly upward. Breathe slowly,
  and on the exhale focus on a word, phrase or
  prayer. Repeat for 10-20 minutes.

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Spirituality

• The faith factor Religiously active people tend
  to live longer

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Possible explanations for the Faith Factor?

• Religiously active people tend to have healthier
  life-styles.
• less alcohol, dietary fat, and smoking
• Belonging to a faith community is to have access
  to a support network.
• Religion encourages marriage, another predictor
  of health and longevity
• Religion promotes positive emotion, optimism, a
  stable world-view, and relaxed meditation.

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What Accounts for the Faith Factor?
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How to Flourish

• Some qualities and influences can help us
  flourish by making us emotionally and physically
  stronger
• A sense of control
• Optimistic outlook
• Healthy habits
• Social support
• Relaxation
• A sense of meaning
• Spirituality