Chapter 10 (stress, health, and human flourishing) - Lecture notes 10 PDF

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Notes on stress, health, and human flourishing from professor Michael Bakst...

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Stress, Health, & Human Flourishing o Stress is part of daily life  Transition to college, Paying for school, Incurring debt, Deadlines, Family/relationship demands  Stress is compounded when responsibilities overlap - it's never just one thing  Stress: process of appraising and responding to a threatening or challenging event.  The event is a Stressor  Anxiety is a part of stress because of the feeling of apprehension  Stress is a normal motivator, but too much stress is harmful and can have physiological illnesses o Stress overview:  Stress: Physiological and psychological response to a condition that threatens or challenges or requires some form of adaptation or adjustment  Stressor: any stimulus or event capable of producing physical or emotional stress  Catastrophes- uncontrollable, unpredictable, large scale event  Significant life changes- war, college, baby, divorce, losing job  Daily hassles- deadlines, illness, etc  Fight or Flight: response to stress in which the brain and body prepare to fight or flee from a stressor  SRRS:  Social readjustment rating scale  Holmes & Rahe  Created a list of 53 stressors in order of least to most stressful, and found that the more stressors and the more heavily stressing stressors a person had experienced, the more likely they are to develop physical health problems  Kanner: hassles scale  Small stressors and irritating demands that can add to stress and sometimes cause more stress than major life changes  Kanner's scale is better than SRRS bc it recognizes that the amount of stress produced by an item will vary from person to person  Stress in the workplace:  Workload, clarity of job description, physical demands/physical environment, job status, accountability, task variety, human contact, physical challenge, mental challenge  Women: sexual discrimination, sexual harassment, difficulties w/ work & family, increase the neg effects on health/well-being of women  Consequences of job stress:  Reduced effectiveness, absenteeism, tardiness, accidents, substance abuse, lower morale  Unemployment: far more stressful than job stress o Stress reactions:  Air traffic controllers have a very high stress job. Amount of job stress converted into heart disease at a very young age  Response to stress involves the body AND mind  Cannon: emotion arousing events trigger outpouring of stress hormone from adrenal gland  Selye: general adaptation syndrome

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Alarm stage: burst of energy (fight or flight) Resistance stage: intense physiological effort to resist or adapt Exhaustion stage: failure to resist or adapt to stressor He concluded most harmful effects of stress are due to prolonged secretion of glucocorticoids which can lead to permanent increases in blood pressure, weakened immune system & muscles, damage to hippocampus Stress effect in health  Stress correlates w specific illnesses  High blood pressure, heart disease, stroke  Immune system  Psycho-neuro-immunology  Psychologists, biologists, medical researchers combine their expertise to study effects of psychological factors on immune system  Neg effects on immune system  Suppressed immune system w too much stress  Decrease levels of T and B cells  Continues long after stressful event is over Stress and wellness  Major causes of death are lifestyle involved  Smoking, drinking, etc  Increase risk of heart disease, infection, cancer, AIDS  Stress does not create cancer or AIDS, but reduced immune system makes them spread faster  Smoking is often used to cope with stress, but has a plethora of neg health effects  Heart disease: stress can cause more plaque and cholesterol to fill up an artery (worsened by diet, stress, sedentary living, smoking)  "Type A" personality (openly hostile, angry, impatient) at increased risk for heart disease  "Type D" personality (emotional distress with tendency to suppress negative emotions) at increased risk for heart disease...