Chapter 16 life-Style, Stress, and Health

By Nickolas Scillia

Life-Style Choices and Consequences

Cultural evolution- a culture’s change to current environmental pressures.

Results from cultural evolution:• Life-style- the aggregate behavior of a person, or the

way a person leads his or her life.• Has produced a higher standard of living• It has also produced threats • Law of Effect- behaviors that produce favorable

consequences tend to be repeated and those that produce unfavorable consequences tend not to repeated.

Healthy and Unhealthy Life-Styles

Healthy life-style- one that enhances and individual’s physical and psychological well being.

Unhealthy life-style- one that diminishes physical and psychological well-being

Aspects that are involved in Healthy or Unhealthy Life-Style

Nutrition

Physical Fitness

Cigarette Smoking

Drinking Alcohol

STD’s

Nutrition

• Best to eat Diets high in fiber and low in fat.

• Especially don’t want Saturated Fat

• If you don’t follow good Nutrition bad things can happen

Problems associated with a bad Diet:

Coronary Heart Disease This is mainly cause from bad

cholesterol- which is a chemical that occurs naturally in the bloodstream.

Cancer

Physical Fitness

Lack of exercise is correlated with increased risk of CHD.

Exercise seems to help people to have low body fat and be less vulnerable to negative effects of stress.

People who exercise are more likely to live longer.

Aerobic Exercise- increases blood flow and respiration.

People who switch from smoking high-nicotine cigarettes to smoking low-nicotinecigarettes

a. Dramatically reduce their chances of suffering from cancer and other smoking-related illnesses.b. Actually smoke more cigarettes to compensate for the loss of nicotine. C. Report that they enjoy the psychological benefits of smoking more now than when they were smoking the high-nicotine cigarettes. D. No longer enjoy smoking as much as they did before they switched.

b. Actually smoke more cigarettes to compensate for the loss of nicotine.

Cigarette Smoking and Drinking

350,00 premature deaths are related to tobacco

Smoking is addictive Suffer physical

dependence, psychological dependence and withdrawal symptoms.

Nicotine contained in smoke exerts powerful effects on the central nervous system.

Alcoholism- an addiction to ethanol in the alcoholic beverage

There are negative physical, psychological, and cultural consequences in drinking.

“Drinking and using other drugs don’t mix”

STD’s and AIDS

STD’s are bad, so be safe and smart.

The worst STD someone can get is AIDS.

World Health Organization believes that nearly 30 to 40 million are infected with the HIV virus.

Preventing Unhealthy Life-Styles

Self-Control- behavior that produces a larger, long-term reward when one is faced with the choice between it and a short-term reward.

Howard Rachlin and George Ainslie Choice between short-term

reward and long-term reward, you will most likely choose the short-term reward.

Health Psychology

Stress and Health

Stress- pattern of physiological, behavioral, emotional and cognitive responses to real or imagined stimuli that are perceived as blocking our goal or hurting our well-being.

Stressor- stimuli that are perceived as endangering one’s well-being.

Biology of Stress

Stress is governed by the automatic nervous system.

When individual senses a stressor, the hypothalamus sends signals to the automatic nervous system and pituitary gland.

No matter what the nature of stressor is, the biological response is the same.

Stress can produce anxiety

Prolonged and severe stress can increase risk of illness.

Selye and GAS- alarm, resistance, exhaustion stages.

Fight- or- Flight response- physiological reactions that prepare us for the strenuous efforts required by fighting or running away.

An example of a glucocorticoid is

a. Cortisol

b. Epinephrine

c. Norepinephrine

d. Reserpine

a. Cortisol

Hormonal responses of Stess

Epinephrine releases stored form of glucose in muscles

Glucocorticoid- steroid secreted by the adrenal gland. Most harmful effects of

stress are produced by prolonged secretion of this.

Helps in aging process

The effect that certain stressors, such as those that cause anxiety and fear, have on a person depends on his or her

a. Behavioral responsiveness

b. Level of physical fitness

c. Perception and emotional reactivity

d. Lifestyle and expectations for success

c. Perception and emotional reactivity

How People React to Stress

o Cognitive Appraisal- one’s perception of a stressful situation.

1.) we evaluate the threat

2.) we assess whether or not we have resources to cope with the threat

o Whether or not stress will make a person become ill depends on how people look at it.

Personality Types with Stress

Type A pattern- excessive competitive drive and hostility, impatience, fast movements, and rapid speech.

Type B pattern- less competitive, less hostile, more patient, easygoing.

Type C pattern- cooperativeness, unassertiveness, patience, suppression of negative emotions, acceptance of external authority.

More likely to have CHD, however if contracted then more likely to survive

Target personality. Has a little bit of both.

More likely to form cancer

The Immune SystemPsychoneuroimmunology- study of interaction between the

immune system and behavior.Immune system- system that protects us from bad things. White blood cells Two types of specific immune reactions Antigens- unique proteins found on surface of bacteria Antibodies- proteins that help recognize antigens and kill invading

microorganism B lymphocytes- release immunoglobulins to defend body against

antigens T lymphocytes- produce antibodies which protect body against fungi,

viruses, and multicellular parasites Autoimmune diseases

Sources of Stress

Changes in life Get married, death of a

loved one, work promotion, injury, or illness

Daily Stress Studying for a test or go to a

party

Measure of Stress: Social Readjustment

Rating Scale (SRRS) Any change is a stressor Life-Change Units

(LCU”S)

Daily Hassles an Uplifts Scale Events of day either

troublesome or pleasant

Coping with Stress

Coping Strategy- a plan that people follow to reduce the perceived level of stress. Two Types.

Problem-focused coping- directed toward the source of the stress

Emotion-focused coping- directed toward a person’s own personal reaction to the stressor.

Coping Strategies that work Aerobic Exercise

increased heart rate and lung efficiency coupled with the lower blood pressure makes people feel better.

Have control of there lives Cognitive Reappraisal

Reappraising a stressor as being less threatening Teaches individual that he or she can control stressful situations

Relaxation Training Progressive Relaxation Technique-three steps

Social Support Benefit from experience of others Other people can provide encouragement to overcome stressor

Stress Inoculation Training

• This type of training focuses on people helping people to develop skills that will decrease their susceptibility to negative effects of stress.

• Meichenbaum developed this

• Three different phases Conceptualization phase Skills acquisition phase Application and Follow-

through phase

7 different Goals that go in those phases:

1.) Understanding the transactional nature of stress

2.) Learning to appraise social situations realistically through self-monitoring

3.) Acquiring specific problem-solving behaviors targeted at reducing stress

4.) Learning to control emotions and developing self-control in the face of the stressor

5.) Using maladaptive responses as cues to implement the plan of action

6.) Practicing the plan of action

7.) Applying new coping abilities in expected and unexpected socially stressful situations

That’s It