STRESS

What is Stress? It is the term used to describe the physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to events that are appraised as threatening or challenging . . . whereas stress-causing events are called stressors. There are two kinds of stressors. The ones which cause distress and the ones which cause eustress.

Distress occurs when people experience unpleasant stressors Eustress results from positive events that still make demands on a person to adapt or change.

Trivia:Hans Selye (1936) was the one who coined the term eustress.

Update:Researchers now define eustress as the optimal amount of stress that people need to promote health and well-being.

What kinds of external events can cause stress?

1. Catastrophe is an unpredictable, large-scale event that creates a tremendous need to adapt and adjust as well as overwhelming feelings of threat.

2. Hassles are the daily annoyances of everyday life.

What are some psychological factors in stress?

Pressure It is the psychological experience produced by urgent demands or expectations for a person s behavior that come from an outside source.

Uncontrollability The degree of control a person has over a particular event or situation. The less control a person has, the greater the degree of stress.

Frustration It occurs when people are blocked or prevented from achieving a desired goal or fulfilling a perceived need. External frustration Internal frustration or personal frustration

Typical Responses To Frustration

1. Persistence The continuation of efforts to get around whatever is causing the frustration.

2. Aggression Actions meant to harm or destroy.

Displaced aggression: Taking out one s frustrations on some less threatening or more available target, a form of displacement. Displacement: Psychological defense mechanism in which emotional reactions and behavioral responses are shifted to targets that is more available or less threatening than the original target. Such targets often become scapegoats, or habitual targets of displaced aggression.

3. Escape or withdrawal Leaving the presence of a stressor, either literally or by a psychological withdrawal into fantasy, drug abuse, or apathy.

PERSONALITY FACTORS IN STRESS

In the early 1930s, psychologists have had evidence that personality characteristics are a major factor in predicting health. A study (begun in 1932) found that personality was almost as important to longevity as genetic, physical and lifestyle factors.

PERSONALITY TYPES

1. Type A personality People with this personality are ambitious, time conscious, extremely hardworking, and tend to have high levels of hostility and anger as well as being easily annoyed.

2. Type B personality People with this personality are relaxed and laid-back, less driven and competitive than Type A, and slow to anger.

3. Type C personality A person with this personality is pleasant but repressed, who tends to internalize his or her anger and anxiety and who finds expressed emotions difficult.

4. Type H personality (Hardy Personality) A person with this personality seems to thrive on stress but lacks the anger and hostility of the Type A personality.

C s of hardiness Commitment Control Challenge

ATTITUDE TOWARDS THINGS

Optimists People who expect POSITIVE outcomes

How to keep a positive outlook (by Dr. Susan Vaughan) Alternative Thinking: Optimists tend to take bad things that happen less personally, coming up with alternative explanations for why the bad thing happened. Downward Social Comparison: Many people make themselves feel better by comparing their performance to that of less competent others, making them feel better and protecting self-esteem Relaxation: Optimists use relaxation as a way to improve mood.

Pessimists People who expect NEGATIVE outcomes

How to become a OPTIMISTIC THINKER When a bad mood strikes, stop and think about what just went through your head. When you ve recognized he negative statements, treat them as if they came from someone else someone who is trying to make your life miserable. Think about the damage the statement is doing to you. Argue with those thoughts. Challenge each negative statement and replace it with a more positive statement.

Social Factors in Stress: People Who Need People

1. Poverty Lack of sufficient money to provide the basic need of the life can lead to: Overcrowding Lack of medical care Increased rates of disabilities due to poor prenatal care Noisy environments Increased rate of illness Violence Substance abuse

2. Job Stress Sources Workload A lack of variety or meaningfulness in work Lack of control over decisions Long hours Poor physical work conditions Lack of job security

Symptoms Headaches High blood pressure Indigestion Anxiety Irritability Anger Depression Drug use Poor job performance Changes in family relationships

3. Burnout Negative changes in thoughts, emotions, and behavior as a result of prolonged strss frustration. Symptoms: Dissatisfaction Pessimism Lowered job satisfaction Desire to quit

Emotional exhaustionassociated with burnout can be lessened when a person is at risk of burnout is a member, within the work environment, and a social group that provides support and also the motivation to continue to perform being exhausted.

How Culture Affects Stress

Acculturation process of adapting to a new or different culture, often the dominant culture. Acculturative stress the stress resulting from the need to change and adapt to the dominant or majority culture

1. Integration the individual tries to maintain a sense of the original culture identity while also trying to form a positive relationship with members of the dominant culture. For people who choose this, acculturative stress is usually slow.

2. Assimilation the minority person gives up the old cultural identity and completely adopts the majority culture s ways. - Leads to moderate levels of stress, most likely due to the loss of cultural patterns and rejection by other members of the minority culture who have not chosen this.

3. Operation a pattern in which the minority person rejects the majority culture s ways and tries to maintain the original cultural identity. - Results in a fairly high degree of stress, and that stress will even be higher if the separation is forced (by discrimination from the majority group) rather than voluntary (self-imposed withdrawal from the majority culture).

4. Marginalization greatest acculturative stress - Neither maintaining contact with the original culture nor joining the majority culture. - Marginalized individuals do not have the security of the familiar culture of origin or the acceptance of the majority culture and may suffer a loss of identity and feel alienated from the others. - Marginalized people - have little in the way of a social support system to help them ideal with both everyday stresses and major life changes.

Positive Benefits of Social Support

Social support system the network of friends, family members, neighbors, coworkers, and others who can help to a person in need.

Help is in the form of Advice Physical or monetary support Information Emotional support Love and affection Companionship Marriage good predictor of healthy aging and longevity

Social Support - has a positive effect on the immune system and improves the mental health and physical functioning of people who have lupus as well as those with cancer and HIV. - Can make stressor seem less threatening because people with such support know that there is help available.

Coping Strategiesare actions that people can take to master, tolerate, reduce or minimize the effects of stressors, and they can include both behavioral and psychological strategies.

Ways people cope with stress reactions Problem Focused Coping work on eliminating or changing the stressor itself. People try to eliminate the source of a stress or reduce its impact through their direct actions. Emotion-focused coping coping strategies that change the impact of a stressor by changing the emotional reaction to the stressor.