1. Health Psychology: Stress, Coping, and Well-being
Chapter 11
Health Psychology: Stress, Coping, and Well-being

2. MODULE 34: Stress and Coping
How is health psychology a union between medicine and psychology?
What is stress, how does it affect us, and how can we best cope with it?

3. Introduction
Health psychology: Investigates the psychological factors related to wellness and illness, including the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of medical problems
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI): Study of the relationship among psychological factors, the immune system, and the brain

4. Stress: Reacting to Threat and Challenge
People’s response to events that are threatening or challenging
Stressors
Circumstances and events in life
Stressors produce threats to our well-being

5. The Nature of Stressors: My Stress Is Your Pleasure
Stress varies according to individuals
Bungee jumping
For people to consider an event stressful, they must:
Perceive it as threatening or challenging
Lack all the resources to deal with it effectively

6. Categorizing Stressors
Occur suddenly and typically affect many people simultaneously
Cataclysmic Events
Major life events
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Personal Stressors
Daily hassles
Uplifts: Minor positive events
Background Stressors

7. The High Cost of Stress Both biological and psychological consequences
Psychophysiological disorders: Medical problems influenced by an interaction of psychological, emotional, and physical difficulties
Stress affects us in multiple ways
Increases the risk of illness
Slow recovery from diseases
Reduce ability to cope with stress in future

8. The General Adaptation Syndrome Model: The Course of Stress
Physiological response to stress follows the same set pattern regardless of the cause of stress
Three phases:
Alarm and mobilization
Resistance
Exhaustion

9. Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI)
PNI focuses on the outcomes of stress
Main consequences of stress:
Physiological results
Harmful behaviors
Indirect health-related behaviors

10. Figure 5 - Three Major Types of Consequences of Stress

11. Coping with Stress Emotion-focused Coping
Managing emotions in the face of stress, seeking to change the way one feels about or perceives a problem
Emotion-focused Coping
Attempting to modify the stressful problem or source of stress
Problem-focused Coping
Use more direct escape routes, such as drug or alcohol use
Least effective
Avoidant Coping

12. Coping with Stress People also use:
Defense mechanisms - Unconscious strategies to reduce anxiety by concealing the source from themselves and others
Emotional insulation - Stops experiencing emotions and thereby remains unaffected and unmoved by both positive and negative experiences

13. Coping with Stress Learned helplessness
Occurs when people conclude that unpleasant or aversive stimuli cannot be controlled
Cease trying to remedy the aversive circumstances even if they actually can exert some influence on the situation
Experience more physical symptoms and depression

14. Coping with Stress Coping styles: The hardy personality
Hardiness: Characteristic associated with a lower rate of stress-related illness
Three components:
Commitment
Challenge
Control
Resilience - Ability to withstand, overcome, and thrive after profound adversity

15. Coping with Stress Social support: Turning to others
Mutual network of caring, interested others
Enables us to experience lower levels of stress and be better able to cope with stress we do undergo

16. MODULE 35: Psychological Aspects of Illness and Well-Being
How do psychological factors affect health- related problems such as coronary heart disease, cancer, and smoking?

17. The As, Bs, and Ds of Coronary Heart Disease
Type A behavior pattern: Cluster of behaviors involving hostility, competitiveness, time urgency, and feeling driven
Type B behavior pattern: Characterized by a patient, cooperative, noncompetitive, and nonaggressive manner
Type D behavior pattern: Insecurity, anxiety, and the negative outlook puts them at risk for repeated heart attacks

18. Psychological Aspects of Cancer
Emotional responses of cancer patients to their disease may affect its course
Some psychological therapies have the potential for improving quality of life and even extending the lives of cancer patients

19. Smoking Why people smoke Heredity Genetics Environmental factors
Seen as “cool”
Media exposure
A “rite of passage”

20. Smoking Smoking Quitting smoking Nicotine replacement drugs
Behavioral strategies
Changes in societal norms and attitudes toward the habit
Long-term effect of information about the negative consequences

21. MODULE 36: Promoting Health and Wellness
How do our interactions with physicians affect our health and compliance with medical treatment?
How does a sense of well-being develop?

22. Following Medical Advice
Noncompliance
Result of misunderstanding medical directions
Creative nonadherence
Alter a treatment prescribed by a physician by substituting their own medical judgment

23. Communicating Effectively with Health-Care Providers
Make a list of health-related concerns before your visit
Before visit write down names and dosages of all medications
Determine whether your provider will communicate via
If you feel intimidated, bring along an advocate who can help you communicate
Take notes during the visit

24. Following Medical Advice
Increasing compliance with advice
Provide clear instructions to patients regarding drug regimens
Honesty about nature of medical problems and treatments
Positively framed messages - Change in behavior will lead to a gain
Negatively framed messages - Highlight what can be lost by not performing a behavior

25. Well-Being and Happiness
Subjective well-being: People’s sense of their happiness and satisfaction with their lives
Characteristics of happy people
Have high self-esteem - Positive illusions
Have a firm sense of control
Are optimistic
Men and women are generally made happy by the same sorts of activities
But not always
Like to be around other people

26. Well-Being and Happiness
Money does not buy happiness
Set points for happiness
Most people’s set point is relatively high
30% rate selves as “very happy”
Despite the ups and downs of life, most people adapt to life by returning to a steady-state level of happiness