Chapter 14 Stress, Coping and Health

Table of Contents The Relationship Between Stress and Disease  Contagious diseases vs. chronic diseases  Biopsychosocial model  Why?  The Biomedical Model is unable to fully account for health  Mind-body question  Biomedical treatments only  Failures to account for many psychological factors and health  Placebo effects – how to explain  Health psychology  Health promotion and maintenance  Discovery of causation, prevention, and treatment  Primary prevention, secondary prevention, tertiary prevention  Changing pattern of what is the primary cause of death in last 100+ years. – F 13.1

Table of Contents Levels of Prevention Primary Prevention Prevent disease Identify causes Promote health behaviors Secondary Prevention Catch disease in early stages Prevent further deterioration Tertiary Prevention Manage illnesses with no cure

Table of Contents Figure 13.1 Changing patterns of illness

Table of Contents Stress: An Everyday Event  Major stressors vs. routine hassles  Cumulative nature of stress  Psychological Stress - Lazarus  Cognitive appraisals: primary and secondary  Major types of stress  Frustration – blocked goal  Conflict – two or more incompatible motivations  Approach-approach, approach-avoidance, avoidance- avoidance – Figure 13.2  Change – having to adapt  Holmes and Rahe – Social Readjustment Rating Scale – Life Change Units – Table 13.1  Pressure – expectations to behave in certain ways  Perform/conform  Figure 13.3 – pressure and psychological symptoms – Weiten (1988)  Overview of Stress Process – Figure 13.4

Table of Contents Appraisal Process  The primary appraisal process determines whether the environment is perceived as psychologically threatening, harmful, or challenging to the person.  The secondary appraisal process is a complex evaluative process in which a person considers resources available to cope with the primarily appraised stressor.

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Figure 13-3 – Pressure and psychological symptoms (Weiten, 1988, 1998)

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Responding to Stress Emotionally  Emotional Responses  Annoyance, anger, rage  Apprehension, anxiety, fear  Dejection, sadness, grief  Positive emotions  After 9/11 – correlations between emotion and resilience  Emotional response and performance  The inverted-U-hypothesis –performance and task complexity

Table of Contents Table 13-2, p. 518 XXXXXXXX Slide 12

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Responding to Stress Physiologically  Physiological Responses  Fight-or-flight response  Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome  Alarm  Resistance  Exhaustion  Brain-body pathways in stress – Figure 13.6  sympathetic adrenal medullary (SAM)  hypothalamic pituitary adrencortical (HPA)

Table of Contents Physiological Stress  Hans Selye first introduced the term stress to medicine in  He noted that animals were induced by a variety of stimuli to show the “syndrome of just being sick” which resulted in adrenal enlargement, gastrointestinal ulcers, shrinkage of the thymus and lymph nodes.  This reaction was termed the “general adaptation syndrome” and “stress is the nonspecific response of the body to any demand made upon it”.

Table of Contents Figure 13.6 – Brain-body pathways in stress: SAM and HPA systems Lundberg (2002), “[Two] neuroendocrine systems have been of particular interest in the study of stress; the sympathetic adrenal medullary (SAM) system with secretion of the two catecholamines, epinephrine and norepinephrine, and the the hypothalamic pituitary adrencortical (HPA) system with the secretion of cortisol.”

Table of Contents Responding to Stress Behaviorally  Behavioral Responses: Coping – emotion focused  Frustration-aggression hypothesis  catharsis  Defensive Coping – ego defense mechanisms – Freud – Table 13.2  Constructive Coping – problem focused

Table of Contents Table 13-3, p. 523 Table 13.2 XXXXXX

Table of Contents Emotion-focused coping and Problem-focused coping  “Emotion-focused (or palliative) coping refers to thoughts or actions whose goal is to relieve the emotional impact of stress. These are apt to be mainly palliative in the sense that such strategies of coping do not actually alter the threatening or damaging conditions but make the person feel better.” Monat and Lazarus (1991, p. 6)  “Problem-focused coping refers to efforts to improve the troubled person-environment relationship by changing things, for example, by seeking information about what to do, by holding back from impulsive and premature actions, and by confronting the person or persons responsible for one’s difficulty.” Monat and Lazarus (1991, p. 6)

Table of Contents Effects of Stress: Behavioral and Psychological  Impaired Task performance  Burnout – antecedent-components- consequences – Figure 13.7  Posttraumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD) – effects on hippocampus (cortisol) – prevelance of traumatic events – Slide 22  Reaction to traumatic stress – Figure 13.8  Psychological problems and disorders – more in Chapter 14  Positive effects – eustress – Positive Psychology – Flow (Csikszentmihalyi)

Table of Contents Figure 13.7 – The antecedents, components, and consequences of burnout

Table of Contents Effects of Stress: Physical  Psychosomatic diseases  Heart disease  Cholesterol and inflammation (C-reactive protein) and risks – Figure 13.9  Type A behavior - 3 elements  strong competitiveness  impatience and time urgency  anger and hostility (note in F most related to cornary events)  Emotional reactions and depression – Figure – study by Pennix et al. (2001) – anger and coronary risk  Stress and immune functioning  Reduced immune activity  Possible health problems linked to stress – Table 13.3  Stress-illness correlation – Figure 13.12

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Table 13.3a Health Problems that may be Linked to Stress

Table of Contents Table 13.3b Health Problems that may be Linked to Stress

Table of Contents XXX 13.12

Table of Contents Factors Moderating the Impact of Stress  Social support  The perceived comfort, caring, esteem or help received from others.  Types: emotional, belongingness, instrumental (tangible), informational, esteem/relational, and network (Facebook and MySpace?)  The existence or quantity of social relationships  the amount of assistance individuals believe is available to them  the amount of assistance individuals receive  Alameda County Study in 1965 – related to health outcomes, tend to live longer  Increased immune functioning  Optimism  expectation of good things will happen and bad things will not happen, contrasted to pessimism  Related to psychological well-being, physical well-being  More adaptive coping  Pessimistic explanatory style  Conscientiousness  Fostering better health habits  Autonomic reactivity  Cardiovascular reactivity to stress

Table of Contents Health-Impairing Behaviors  Smoking – prevalence in U.S.  Smoking cessation  Poor nutrition – obesity – “Super Size” generation  Cholesterol and coronary risk  High fructose corn syrup effects  Lack of exercise – increased T.V. watching effects study  Obesity – BMI – United States 2005 & 2008 data – CDC – changes over the years  Alcohol and drug use  Risky sexual behavior  Transmission, misconceptions, and prevention of AIDS – AIDS Risk Knowledge Test

Table of Contents BMI Classifications  BMI = 19-25; Normal; Low Risk  BMI = 25-30; Moderately overweight; Some Risk  BMI = 30-35; Class 1 obesity; High Risk  BMI = 35-40; Class 2 obesity; Very High Risk  BMI> 40; Class 3 obesity; Extreme Risk BMI > 30, or ~ 30 lbs. overweight for 5'4" person for CDC

Table of Contents BMI Classifications  BMI = 19-25; Normal; Low Risk  BMI = 25-30; Moderately overweight; Some Risk  BMI = 30-35; Class 1 obesity; High Risk  BMI = 35-40; Class 2 obesity; Very High Risk  BMI> 40; Class 3 obesity; Extreme Risk BMI > 30, or ~ 30 lbs. overweight for 5'4" person for CDC

Table of Contents Reactions to Illness  Seeking treatment  Ignoring physical symptoms  Communication with health care providers  Barriers to effective communication  Following medical advice  Noncompliance  Biopsychosocial factors in health

Table of Contents Figure – Biopsychosocial factors in health

Table of Contents Stress Management  Relationship to coping to self-esteem  Cognitive reappraisal – Ellis’s model  Humor  Relaxation Response – Benson  Stress Inoculation Training  Physical fitness and mortality

Table of Contents Figure – Albert Ellis’s A-B-C model of emotional reactions

Table of Contents Fig , p. 543 Figure – Possible examination for the link between humor and wellness

Table of Contents Stress management techniques - adapted from Monat & Lazarus (1991)  Environment/Lifestyle: time management, proper nutrition, exercise, finding alternatives to frustrated goals, stopping bad habits  Personality/Perception: assertiveness training, thought stopping, refuting irrational ideas, stress inoculation, modifying type A behavior  Biological responses: progressive relaxation, relaxation response, meditation, breathing exercises, biofeedback, autogenics

Table of Contents Relaxation Response – Benson –  Meditation - a self-generating practice of a variety of techniques designed to induce the relaxation response by use of a repetitive focal device  Progressive relaxation - relax selected muscles by first tensing then relaxing the muscles

Table of Contents Stress Inoculation Training developed by Donald Meichenbaum  Stage 1 - education - the person is given a framework for understanding his/her stress response  Stage 2 - rehearsal - the person learns to make cognitive self-statements as a form of coping and problem solving  Stage 3 - application - the person uses the information and skills learned in the first two stages in actual stress situations, moving from lower to higher stress situations