16 Psy 101

Specific events or chronic pressures that place demands on a person or threaten the person's well-being

The physical and psychological response to internal or external stressors

The subfield of psychology concerned with ways psychological factors influence the causes and treatment of physical illness and the maintenance of health

Sources of stress that occur continuously or repeatedly

Living near an airport

When there is nothing you can do about it. People want to be in control of what happens to them.

Stressors

• Major life events (even happy ones)
• Catastrophic events
• Chronic hassles

• Brain activation in the hypothalamus
• Stimulating pituitary gland to release the hormone ACTH which travels through the blood to the adrenal glands.
• Adrenal glands release cortisol and catecholamine
• Sympathetic nervous system activiation

• Alarm: Body rapidly metabolizes resources to respond to the threat
• Resistance: Body adapts to its high state of arousal as it tries to coup with the stressor
• Exhaustion: If GAS occurs long enough the body's resistance collapses

An emotional and physiological reaction to an emergency that increases readiness for action

A three stage physiological response that appears regardless of the stressors that is encountered

• It does its best to re-cap our chromosomes with telomeres.
• Ultimately it cannot keep up at a sufficient pace and over time the cells lose their ability to divide causing aging and in the end cell death

Stressors can cause hormones known as glucocorticoids to flood the brain  which can wear down the immune system and make it less able to fight invaders

Caps at the end of each chromosome that protect the ends of chromosomes and prevent them from sticking to each other

An enzyme that rebuilds telomeres at the tips of chromosomes

A complex response system that protects the body from bacteria, viruses and other foreign substances

White blood cells that produce antibodies that fight infection, including T cells and B cells

The sympathetic nervous system causes blood pressure to go up and stay up, therefore gradually damaging the blood vessels

Hostility, particularly in men.

A threat is a stressors you think you cannot control, a challenge is a stressor you think you can control.

The tendency toward easily aroused hostility, impatience, a sense of time urgency and competitive achievement strivings

A state of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion created by long term involvement in an emotionally demanding situation and accompanied by lowered performance and motivation

Using work to define you or being in especially emotionally charged work is diffifult

It's interpreted as something that can be overcome or not

Psychological response to stress

This causes susceptibility to infection, aging, tumor growth, organ damage and death

Three phases of stress response that occur regardless of the type of stressors: alarm, resistance, exhaustion

• Useful: When things could be a trigger and make daily functioning difficult
• Problem: When avoiding it takes over your life and it makes daily functioning difficult

Avoiding situations or thoughts that are reminders of a stressors and maintaining an artificially positive viewpoint

Facing a stressors and working to overcome it

• Acceptance: Coming to recognize that the stressors exists and cannot be wished away
• Exposure: Attending to the stressor, thinking about it and even seeking it out
• Understanding: Working to find the meaning of the stressors in your life

It allows people to reframe the event, as well as think and write about it with a control over it.

Finding a new or creative way to think about a stressors that reduces its threat

A reframing technique that helps people to cope with stressful situations by developing positive ways to think about the situation

The practice of intentional contemplation

• It's restful as well as focuses on attention
• Improved connectivity between parts of the brain involved in conflict monitoring and cognitive and emotional control

A technique for reducing tension by consciously relaxing muscles or the body

A condition of reduced muscle tension, cervical activity, heart rate, breathing rate and blood pressure

The use of an external monitoring device to obtain information about a bodily function and possibly gain control over that function

• EEG readings
• Brain waves

• Reduction in depression
• Physical and mental health benefits for schizophrenia sufferers
• Increased physical and mental health

The aid gained through interacting with others

• Its a hormone secreted by the pituitary gland in pregnancy/nursing.
• In the presence of estrogen it can trigger social responses: a tendency to seek out social contacts, nurture others and create and maintain cooperative groups

• Could be a number of things
• Social group strengthening
• Religious health recommendations
• Prayer could have benefits like meditation but that needs to be studied

• Humor can reduce sensitivity to pain and distress
• Humor can reduce the amount of time needed to recover from a stressful situation
• Evidence suggests humor is just a short term fix

Strategies for influencing the mind, body and situation

• Attempting to reduce stress symptoms through
• Meditation
• Relaxation
• biofeedback
• Aerobic exercise

Seeking out social support engaging in religious experiences or attempting to find humor in stressful events

• Misery is a part of the sickness response.
• It is more likely to keep you home, away from people you could infect and preserving energy

• People who complained more in a study testing the brain's reaction to pain and a person's reported tolerance showed more activation in the anterior consulate cortex, somatosensory cortex and prefrontal cortex which are all areas known to respond to painful body stimulation.
• This suggests that even though people report differently on their levels of pain they can in fact report accurately on their pain levels

An interaction between mind and body that can produce illness

The set of psychological disorders in which a person with at least one bodily symptom displays significant health related anxiety, expresses disproportionate concerns about their symptoms and devotes excessive time and energy to their symptoms or health concerns

A socially recognized set of rights and obligations linked with illness

The mind and the body influence each other, so being overly sensitive in a psychological or physical way can negatively affect both of them too much

• Malingering: To fake symptoms to achieve something they want
• There is the ability to rest, excuses from doing something you don't want to or being helped by others.

A substantial percentage of patients who seek medical care do so for treatment of psychological and emotional problems.

Recognize illness and seek treatment

Stem from excessive sensitivity to physical problems

Get the sick role and gain sick rights

Interact with their patients to understand both the physical state and psychological state

Positive emotions are better for healing when sick and preventing getting sick. It helps with physical health because they tend to partake in healthier things like exercise and eating well

The exercise of voluntary control over the self to bring the self into line with preferred standards

Because self regulation requires inner strength and discipline and it might be able to become fatigued.

Because unprotected sex is often the result of impulse control issues and planning ahead means you're more likely to protect yourself.

Only one more time than you start up

The influences of personality and self -regulation of behavior on health

Reduced risk for illnesses, perhaps because people with these traits can fend off stress

Self regulation is easily disrupted by stress; strategies for maintaining self control can pay off with significant improvements in health and quality of life