1. Stress

2. What is stress?
Stress – process of appraising and responding to a threatening or challenging event
Deals less with the actual event than how we perceive the event
Example:
You’ve prepared for a test and you’re certain of your knowledge of the material = looking forward to the challenge = eustress
If something prevented you from studying for the test, you may see the math test as a threat that could destroy your grade = distress

3. Two types of stress
Eustress - a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being
Usually occurs in the short-term
We perceive it as something we are able to cope with
Can feel exciting or motivating
Improves performance
Improves our focus

4. Two types of stress
Distress – negative form of stress that causes extreme anxiety, sorrow, or pain
short- or long-term.
Is perceived as outside of our coping abilities.
Decreases performance.
Can lead to mental and physical problems.

5. Stress Reactions
The stress response is a part of a unified body-mind system
Extreme cold, lack of oxygen (physical stressors), and emotional events (mental stressors) all trigger the same release of stress hormones from the adrenal glands
When you are stressed, your sympathetic nervous system initiates the fight-or-flight response
Heart rate and respiration increases, blood moves from organs to skeletal muscles (for movement), feelings of pain are dulled, and sugar and fat are released from your body’s stores for energy

6. General Adaptation Syndrome
The same three steps occur when the fight-or-flight response is initiated, every single time
1.) Alarm reaction
Sympathetic nervous system is activated – heart rate increases, blood flows to skeletal muscles (for movement)
2.) Resistance
Temperature and BP raises, adrenal glands pump stress hormones into blood
Summoning all resources to meet the challenge
3.) Exhaustion
Body’s reserves being to run out…more prone to illness, collapse or death

7. Stress and health Chronic stress tends to suppress the immune system
When the immune system is not working properly, we are more susceptible to getting sick
Stressed people are more vulnerable to colds
Researcher dropped a cold virus into stressed and relatively unstressed participants’ noses
47% of those who were stressed caught the cold
27% of those who were relatively unstressed caught the cold

8. Stress and Health
Stress is linked to coronary heart disease – clogged blood vessels that pump blood in and out of the heart
Study of tax accountants and their blood cholesterol levels showed that levels of cholesterol were in the normal range from January until march.
When tax season (April) arrived, they found that their blood cholesterol levels reached dangerous levels only to return to normal levels when tax season was over (May)

9. Stress and Health
The tax accountant study gave way to a much larger study regarding personality, stress and heart disease.
3,000 healthy men aged were interviewed and classified as ‘type A’ personality or ‘type B’ personality

10. Type A and Type B Personalities
Type A Personality Characteristics
Type B Personality Characteristics
Competitive
Impatient
Time-conscious
Supermotivated
Verbally aggressive
Easily angered
Relaxed
Less stress
Flexible
Expressive and emotional

11. Type A, Type B
The study contained roughly equal numbers of Type A and Type B personalities
9 years into the study, 257 of the men suffered heart attacks
69% of those men were Type A
0% of “pure Type B” personalities (the most laid back) ever suffered a heart attack
Many other studies like this one have been conducted and support the same results, those who are easily angered and are more prone to experiencing negative emotions tend to have more heart problems

12. Type A
Type A personalities are generally “combat ready” and will react aggressively when stressed
Blood is pulled away from the organs and to the skeletal muscles during our fight-or-flight response
One of these organs happens to be the liver which filters the blood of fat and cholesterol…
Over time, repeated fight-or-flight responses hinders the liver’s ability to filter fat and cholesterol
Fat and cholesterol starts to accumulate around the heart

13. Caveats to the study
It was later found that cigarette companies funded the large type A, type B study in an effort to confound the link between cigarette smoking and heart disease
Still, there have been hundreds of other studies that do show a link between being coronary-prone and reacting with anger frequently
Others say the link is so small, that it should not qualify as a risk factor and there should be more focus on other risk factors (like smoking)