chapter 14: stress and health
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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 - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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