Psychology andPhysical Health

Adjustment in the 21st CenturyDr. Mehran Rostamzadeh

INTI International UniversityNilai ,2015

Learning outcomes• Describe the Type A personality and its link to hostility

and heart disease.

• Summarize evidence relating emotional reactions and depression to heart disease.

• Discuss the evidence linking stress to cancer, various diseases, and immune functioning.

• Evaluate the strength of the relationship between stress and illness.

Personality, Emotions, and Heart Disease

• As noted earlier, heart disease accounts for nearly 27% of the deaths in the United States every year.

• Coronary heart disease causes about 90% of heart-related deaths.

• Established risk factors for coronary disease include smoking,

• diabetes,• high cholesterol levels, • and high blood pressure

(Greenland et al., 2003; Khot et al., 2003).

Hostility and Coronary Risk

• In the 1960s and 1970s a pair of cardiologists, Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman (1974; Rosenman et al., 1975), were investigating the causes of coronary disease.

Friedman and Rosenman divided people into two basic types (Friedman, 1996; Rosenman, 1993). The Type A personality includes three elements:

(1) a strong competitive orientation,

(2) impatience and time urgency,

and (3) anger and hostility.

In contrast, the Type B personality is marked by relatively relaxed, patient, easygoing, amicable behavior.

Hostility refers to a persistent negative attitude marked by cynical, mistrusting thoughts, feelings of anger, and overtly aggressive actions.

Emotional Reactions and Heart Disease

• recent studies suggest that emotional reactions may also be critical.

• One line of research has supported the hypothesis that transient mental stress and the resulting emotions can tax the heart.

• Laboratory experiments with cardiology patients have shown that brief periods of mental stress can trigger acute symptoms of heart disease, such as myocardial ischemia and angina (Gottdiener et al., 1994).

•Related research considers the impact of suppressing emotions, particularly anger.

• Ironically, perhaps, keeping negative emotions to oneself is potentially more harmful than expressing anger toward others.

• A related form of suppressed emotion is rumination—engaging in repetitive and negative thinking about some event.

Depression and Heart Disease

• Another line of research has recently implicated depression as a major risk factor for heart disease (Dornelas, 2008; Glassman, Maj, & Sartorius, 2011).

Stress and Cancer

Cancer refers to malignant cell growth, which may occur in many organ systems in the body.

It is widely believed by the general public that stress and personality play major roles in the development of cancer (McKenna et al., 1999).

Some psychologists searched for evidence for the so-called Type C or “cancer-prone personality” but failed to find any link between disposition and the development of the disease (Temoshok, 2004)

Learning outcomes

● Identify some reasons that people develop health-impairing habits.

● Discuss the health effects of smoking and the challenges of quitting smoking.

● Summarize data on patterns of alcohol use and the health risks.

● Discuss obesity and health risks.

Smoking

• Cigarettes lead to the death of more people each year than suicides, car accidents, homicides, alcohol, illegal drugs, and AIDS combined (American Cancer Society, 2008).

• Smoking is actually the most preventable cause of mortality in the United States.

•Why do people smoke?

• Social factors, such as peer pressure among adolescents (Stewart-Knox et al., 2005) and the influence of advertising (Pierce et al., 2005), are obvious candidates, but some people smoke in order to control their weight (Jenks & Higgs, 2007), and many smokers claim that cigarettes elevate their mood, suppress hunger pangs (which they believe helps them stay thin), and enhance alertness and attention.

Health Effects

• Why are mortality rates higher for smokers? In the first place, tobacco contains around 500 chemicals, and the smoke emanating from it holds another 4000 chemicals (Dube & Green, 1982).

• At least 60 of the latter are known cancer-causing agents, or carcinogens (American Cancer Society, 2008).

• Lung cancer and heart disease kill the largest number of smokers; in fact, smokers are almost twice as likely to succumb to cardiovascular disease as nonsmokers are.

• Smokers also have an elevated risk for oral, bladder, and kidney cancer, as well as cancers of the larynx, and pancreas; for atherosclerosis, hypertension, stroke, and other cardiovascular diseases; and for bronchitis, emphysema, and other pulmonary diseases (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2004)

Drinking

• Drinking is particularly prevalent on college campuses.

• When researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health surveyed nearly 11,000 undergraduates at 119 schools, they found that 81% of the students drank (Wechsler et al., 2002).

• Nonetheless, the central effect is a “Who cares?” brand of euphoria that temporarily boosts self-esteem as one’s problems melt away.

• Negative emotions such as tension, worry, anxiety, and depression are dulled, and inhibitions may be loosened.

Overeating

• Obesity is a common health problem. • The criteria for obesity vary considerably.• One simple, intermediate criterion is to classify

people as obese if their weight exceeds their ideal body weight by 20%.

• If this criterion is used, 31% of men and 35% of women in the United States qualify as obese (Brownell & Wadden, 2000), and this problem is projected to persist well into the middle of the twenty-first century.

other possible connections between eating patterns and health

1. Heavy consumption of foods that elevate serum cholesterol level (eggs, cheeses, butter, shellfish, sausage, and the like) appears to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

2. Vulnerability to cardiovascular diseases may also be influenced by other dietary factors. For example, low fiber diets may increase the likelihood of coronary diseases and high intake of red and processed meats, sweets, potatoes, and refined grains is associated with increased cardiovascular risk .

3. High salt intake is thought to be a contributing factor in the development of hypertension

4. High caffeine consumption may elevate one’s risk for hypertension (James, 2004) and for coronary disease.

5. High-fat diets have been implicated as possible contributors to cardiovascular disease (Melanson, 2007) and to some forms of cancer, especially prostate cancer (Rose, 1997), colon and rectal cancer (Shike, 1999), and breast cancer (Wynder et al., 1997).

Some studies also suggest that high-fiber diets may reduce one’s risk for breast cancer, colon cancer, and diabetes (Timm & Slavin, 2008).

understanding the effects of drugs

• Narcotics (or opiates) are drugs derived from opium that are capable of relieving pain.

• The most widely abused opiates are heroin, morphine, and a relatively new painkiller called Oxycontin (oxycodone).

• The main effect is an overwhelming sense of euphoria.

• This “Who cares?” feeling makes the heroin high an attractive escape from reality.

• Common side effects include nausea, lethargy, drowsiness, constipation, and slowed respiration.

• Narcotics carry a high risk for both psychological and physical dependence

understanding the effects of drugs

• Sedatives

• Sedatives are sleep-inducing drugs that tend to decrease central nervous system and behavioral activity.

• People abusing sedatives generally consume larger doses than are prescribed for medical purposes.

• These overly large doses have a euphoric effect similar to that produced by drinking large amounts of alcohol.

• Risks

Sedatives have the potential to produce both psychological and physical dependence.

• Stimulants• They create a feeling of alertness and energetic awareness.

• Stimulants are drugs that tend to increase central nervous system and behavioral activity.

•such as caffeine and nicotine, to stronger, carefully regulated stimulants, such as cocaine and amphetamines (“speed”).

• Cocaine, an organic substance is usually consumed as a crystalline powder that is snorted through the nasal cavities, although it can be consumed orally or intravenously.

• “Crack” is a processed variant of cocaine, consisting of little chips of cocaine that are usually smoked.

• Smoking crack tends to be more dangerous than snorting cocaine powder because smoking leads to a more rapid absorption of the drug into the bloodstream and more concentrated delivery of the drug to the brain.

• However, speed is also sold as a crystalline powder (called “crank” or “crystal meth”) that may be snorted or injected intravenously. A smokable form of methamphetamine, called “ice,” is seen in some regions.

• Effects • They produce a buoyant, elated, enthusiastic, energetic, “I can conquer the world!”

feeling accompanied by increased alertness.

• Risk• Psychological dependence on stimulants is a more common problem.

• Both cocaine and amphetamines can suppress appetite and disrupt sleep.

• Thus, heavy use of stimulants may lead to poor eating, poor sleeping, and ultimately, a deterioration in physical health.

• Hallucinogens•

Hallucinogens are a diverse group of drugs that have powerful effects on mental and emotional functioning, marked most prominently by distortions in sensory and perceptual experience. The principal hallucinogens are LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin, which have similar effects, although they vary in potency.

• Mescaline comes from the peyote plant, psilocybin comes from a particular type of mushroom, and LSD is a synthetic drug.

•Effects

•Hallucinogens intensify and distort perception in ways that are difficult to describe, and they temporarily impair intellectual functioning as thought processes become meteoric and jumbled. These drugs can produce awesome feelings of euphoria that sometimes include an almost mystical sense of “oneness” with the human race. This is why they have been used in religious ceremonies in various cultures

•RisksThere is no potential for physical dependence on hallucinogens, and no deaths attributable to overdose are known to have occurred. Psychological dependence has been reported but appears to be rare. Reports that LSD increases chromosome breakage were based on poor methodology.

• Marijuana•

Cannabis is the hemp plant from which marijuana, hashish, and THC are derived.

• Marijuana (often called “pot,” “weed,” “reefer,” or “grass”), the most commonly used and available illegal drug in the United States, is a mixture of dried leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds taken from the plant, while hashish comes from the plant’s resin.

•THC, the active chemical ingredient in cannabis, can be synthesized for research purposes (for example, to give to lab animals).

• Effects• Emotionally, the drug tends to create a mild, relaxed state of euphoria.

Perceptually, it enhances the impact of incoming stimulation, thus making music sound better, food taste better, and so on. Cannabis tends to produce a slight impairment in cognitive functioning.

• RisksOverdose and physical dependence are not problems with marijuana, but as with any other drug that produces pleasant feelings, it has the potential to produce psychological dependence (Grinspoon, Bakalar, & Russo, 2005). Marijuana can also cause transient problems with anxiety and depression in some people.