1. Stress and Health By: Shelby Smith, Sydni White, Tony Ho, Justin Call, and Elton Luong

2. Introduction  Psychological states (nervousness, fear, joy) causes physical reactions (sweating, shaking, smiling)  Stress & unhealthy lifestyle are connected with the four leading causes of death; heart disease, cancer, stroke, & chronic lung disease  Health Psychology is psychology portion of behavioral medicine, increasing field over the years  Health psychologists ask “How do out emotions and personality influence our risk of disease?” and “How can we change stress or behavior to determine health?”

3. Stress and Illness  Our responses to stress can save or damage our lives (ex. Tensing up when hearing a rattlesnake or being stressed about a late office meeting)  High stress or psychological pressure results in less sleep and exercise  less healthy

4. Stress and Stressors  Stress is hard to define, either a threat or reaction  Stressor- something that causes stress  A reaction to it is known as a stress reaction  Stress is a process on how we analyze and cope with threats and challenges  Short-term stress can be beneficial, it boosts the immune system and gives motivation  Those who go through temporary stress come out more resilient and stronger self-esteem  Prolonged stress leads to chronic diseases

5. The Stress Response System  In 1920’s, Walter Cannon confirmed that stress causes a psychological and physiological response  Physical stress causes release of hormones  Additional hormone that related to stress; glucocorticoid, which helps regulate the body during stress and provides temporary energy boost  General adaptation syndrome (GAS) is the body’s consistent response to prolonged stress; alarm, resistance, and exhaustion  Prolonged stress causes physical damage such as shrunken hippocampus (affects memory), cells no longer dividing, and older cells, resulting in quicker death

6. Stressful Life Events  Catastrophes are unpredictable large-scale events that almost everyone sees as a threat (earthquakes, shootings)  Significant life changes also impact health; divorce, marriage, death, loss of a job  Daily hassles are the last kind of stressor; traffic, yelling, waiting in lines, tying shoelaces, or even thinking about stressful things

7. Stress and the Heart  Being stressed increases blood pressure, which leads to coronary heart disease, the closing of a heart vessel  Two types of people; Type A Personality are impatient, super motivated, aggressive, and time-conscious while Type B Personality are easygoing and relaxed  Type A are about 70% more prone to suffer from heart attacks than Type B because Type A is more physiologically reactive to stress (hormone secretion, pulse, etc.)  More hormones means more plaque buildup in artery walls  heart attacks  Pessimists are also more likely to develop heart diseases  Depression is lethal in terms of unnatural cardiovascular death

8. Stress and Susceptibility to Disease  Psychophysiological illnesses are physical illnesses derived from a psychological reaction

9. Stress and the Immune System  Immune system has two kinds of white blood cells; lymphocytes and macrophages  Immune system can either attack too strongly or respond too weakly  Immune system is connected to brain hormone regulation, therefore stress greatly affects white blood cell production  It restrains immune system because fight or flight response doesn’t require immune defense

10. Stress and Aids  AIDS is world’s fourth leading cause of death  Higher stress levels push the development of HIV to AIDS

11. Stress and Cancer  Carcinogens are cancer-producing substances  Higher chance of developing cancer and faster rate of progression

12. Conditioning the Immune System  Immune system can be conditioned (ex. Putting immune-lowering chemicals in sweet drinks for rats, and slowly lowering the dosage of chemical until none, yet the rat’s systems still are lowered)  Stress is a good motivator and pushed out lives forward

13. Promoting Health  Implementing strategies to reduce illness and enhance wellness

14. Coping with Stress  Stress is unavoidable, thus learn to cope with it  Problem-focused coping is dealing with stress by going directly to the source (talking to someone after having an argument)  Emotion-focused coping is more common and is reaching out to other emotional sources to deal with our stress (friends, familial support)  Problem-focused is used when we feel we have control and emotion-based is when we feel a lack of control  Problem-focused is more effective at getting rid of stress while emotion-focused is less adaptive (going to a party to forget a test the next day)

15. Perceived Control  Feelings of helplessness accelerate ulcers and lower immunity  Control is linked to economic status and longevity, more wealth is more health

16. Explanatory Style  Our basic outlook (pessimism or optimism) is an influence on how we cope with stress  Optimists perceive more control = less stress, longer lives, and lower changes in blood pressure

17. Social Support  Isolation and loneliness have a long-term impact on health and happiness  Researchers have found that close relationships promote health  Close ties and support allow us to confide painful feelings which foster the immune system, as does writing in diaries or journals

18. Managing Stress  Develop a base of social support can help us experience less stress and improve health  You can’t alleviate stress without managing it

19. Aerobic Exercise  Provides mood boost, energy increase, and lowered tension  Exercise increases blood flow, emotional stability, lowers overreaction to stress, and promotes heart health  Exercise increases disease-resisting proteins in the body

20. Biofeedback, Relaxation and Mediation  Biofeedback is subtly changing your physiological responses voluntarily (regulating heartbeat, internal temperature)  Works best on tension headaches  Relaxation procedures lower headaches, anxiety, and insomnia  Meditation relaxation decreased blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen consumption

21. Spirituality & Faith Communities  There is a faith factor related to religious people being healthier  Religious devotion is a predictor of longevity, not necessarily a cause  Religious people have healthier lifestyles and are more social

22. Modifying Illness-Related Behaviors  About 20% of care patients suffer from an illness cause by psychosocial factors  This means health programs have ability to save money

23. The Risks of Smoking  Smoking, on average, takes away twelve minutes per cigarette  WHO reports that it harms nearly every organ in the body  Smoking more correlated with depressions, anxiety, divorce, chronic disease, and general health

24. Helping Smokers Quit  Pediatric diseases are habits beginning in adolescence that carry on into adulthood, like smoking  Teens are targeted because they are easily influenced by social pressure and instinct to fit in  Smokers become dependent upon cigarettes and tolerant, needing a higher dose every time to satisfy their addiction  Nicotine reinforced habit by being addictive and calming, used in times of stress or depression

25. Obesity & Weight Control  Fat is our body storing energy for later usage  Changing society and availability of fatty and sugar foods means more fat  Being overweight has health risks like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, gallstones, and cancer

26. The Social Effects of Obesity  Being obese is socially toxic because of the stereotypes  Obesity seen as evidence of lack of self- discipline  Weight discrimination has been shown to far outweigh racial or sexual

27. The Physiology of Obesity  Adults have 30-40 million fat cells, which can swell or deflate with fat  Once they get full, they divide, but never go away  People who lose weight just shrink their fat cells; the cells themselves deflate, but don’t dissipate  A set-point is the weight needed to be reached for the body to start taking energy from fat cells  Lean people tend to be more fidgety and energetic than obese  Researchers found that leptin, a hormone that induces physical activity and weight loss, are effective in mice  Genes have an influence on weight change through internal bacteria and hormone regulation  Genes determine why one person is heavier than another; environment determines why someone is heavier today than fifty years ago

28. Losing Weight  Some solutions include; taxing unhealthy food, eliminating junk food advertisements, support the spread of healthier foods, and design physically- based activities everywhere (bike trails, paths)  Those who repeatedly lose weight and try are more likely to succeed