Stress and health psychology

liudexiang

Overview

• Source of stress• Coping with stress• How stress affects health • Staying healthy• Extreme stress

Stress

• Stress: A state of psychological tension or strain.

• Health psychology: A subfield of psychology concerned with the relationship between psychological factors and physical health and illness.

Sources of stress

• Stressor: Any environmental demand that creats a state of tension or threat and requires change or adaptation.

Sources of stress

• Change • Everyday hassles• Self-imposed stress• Stress and individual differences

Everyday hassles

• Pressure: A feeling that one must speed up, intensify, or change the direction of one’s behavior or live up to a higher standard of performance.

• Frustration: The feeling that occurs when a person is prevented from reaching a goal.

Everyday hassles

• Conflict: Simultaneous existence of incompatible demands, opportunities, needs, or goals.

Types of conflict

• Approach/approach conflict• Avoidance/avoidance conflict• Approach/avoidance conflict

Approach/approach conflict

• Approach/approach conflict : According to Lewin, the result of simultaneous attraction to two appealing possibilities, neither of which has any negative qualities.

Avoidance/avoidance conflict

• Avoidance/avoidance conflict: According to Lewin, the result of facing a choice between two undesirable possiblities, neither of which has any positive qualities.

Approach/avoidance conflict

• Approach/avoidance conflict: According to Lewin, the result of being simultaneously attracted to and repelled by the same goal.

Coping with stress

• Direct coping • Defensive coping

Direct coping

• Confrontation: Acknowledging a stressful situation directly and attempting to find a solution to the problem or to attain the difficult goal.

Direct coping

• Compromise: deciding on a more realistic solution or goal when an ideal solution or goal is not practical.

• Withdrawal: Avoiding a situation when other forms of coping are not practical.

Defensive coping

• Defense mechanisms: Self-deceptive techniques for reducing stress, including denial, repression, projection, identification, regression, intellectualization, reaction formation, displacement, and sublimation.

Defense mechanisms

• Denial: Refusal to acknowledge a painful or threatening reality.

• Repression: Excluding uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and desires from consciousness.

• Projection: Attributing one’s repressed motives, feelings, or wishes to others.

Defense mechanisms

• Identification: Taking on the characteristics of someone else to avoid feeling incompetent.

• Regression: Reverting to childlike behavior and defenses.

• Intellectualization: Thinking abstractly about stressful problems as a way of detaching oneself from them.

Defense mechanisms

• Reaction formation: Expression of exaggerated ideas and emotions that are the opposite of one’s repressed beliefs or feelings.

• Displacement: Shifting repressed motives and emotions from an orginal object to a substitute object.

• Sublimation: Redirection repressed motives and feelings into more socially acceptable channels.

Staying healthy

• Reduce stress• Adopt a healthy lifestyle

Reduce stress

• Calm down • Reach out • Religion and altruism• Learn to cope effectively

Adopt a healthy lifestyle

• Diet • Exercise• Quit smoking • Avoid high risk behaviors

Extreme stress

• Unemployment • Divorce and separation• Bereavement• Catastrophes• Combat and other threatening personal att

acks

Posttraumatic stress disorder(PTSD)

• Psychological disorder characterized by episodes of anxiety, sleeplessness, and nightmares resulting from some disturbing past event.

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