Stress and Motivation

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• Chapter 12
• Stress and Motivation

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Stress and Health

• Behavioral Medicine
• interdisciplinary field that integrates
  behavioral and medical knowledge and applies that
  knowledge to health and disease
• Health Psychology
• subfield of psychology that provides psychologys
  contribution to behavioral medicine

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Stress and Illness

• Leading causes of death in the US in 1900 and 2000

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Stress and Illness

• Stress
• the process by which we perceive and respond to
  certain events, called stressors
• Threatening
• Challenging

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Stress Appraisal
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Stress and Illness

• General Adaptation Syndrome
• concept of the bodys adaptive response to stress
  in three stages

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Three Stages of the General Adaptation Syndrome

• 1) Alarm Reaction--general arousal caused by
• increase of adrenal glands
• reaction of sympathetic nervous system
• If stressor is not removed, organism moves to

2) Resistance--arousal subsidies because
of decrease in adrenal output counter reaction
of parasympathetic nervous system If stressor is
not removed, organism moves to
3) Exhaustion-- general arousal of Stage 1
reappears Powerful parasympathetic response
opposes arousal. If stressor is not removed in
time, death occurs.
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Stressful Life Events

• Catastrophic Events
• earthquakes, combat stress, floods, 911
• Life Changes
• death of a loved one, divorce, loss of job,
  promotion, moving, college, marriage, birth of a
  child
• Daily Hassles
• rush hour traffic, long lines, job stress,
  burnout, school, OGTs, ACTs, Marunas
  Classhahaha

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Stressful Life Events

• Chronic Stress by Age

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Stress and the Heart

• Type A
• term for competitive, hard-driving, impatient
  people
• Type B
• term for cooperative, calm, easygoing people
• Quiz Are you Type A or Type B?

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Personal Factors in Reactions to Stress

• Gender differences
• Women more likely to have lasting reactions to
  traumatic events
• Marriage and committed relationships have health
  benefits
• Social buffer against stress
• Live healthier, longer lives on average
• Loss of spouse affects men more
• Maybe marriage is choice of healthier people

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Personal Factors in Reactions to Stress

• Gender differences
• Fight-or-flight important to both sexes
• Men more likely to use fight-or-flight response
• Women more likely to tend-and-befriend
• Creates alliances for future if reoccurrence
• Average response to workplace stress

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Personal Factors in Reactions to Stress

• Ethnic differences
• Minority groups experience more stress
• Few advantages and opportunities
• Stressful interactions with majority culture due
  to stereotypes, discrimination, prejudice
• Rapid acculturation of immigrant children clash
  with family pressures to maintain old culture
  (ie language, customs)

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Stress and Disease

• Psychophysiological Illness
• Psychosomatic
• mind-body illness
• any stress-related physical illness
• some forms of hypertension
• some headaches
• distinct from hypochondriasis-- misinterpreting
  normal physical sensations as symptoms of a
  disease

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Stress and the Immune System

• Lymphocytes
• two types of white blood cells that are part of
  the bodys immune system
• B lymphocytes form in the bone marrow and release
  antibodies that fight bacterial infections
• T lymphocytes form in the thymus and, among other
  duties, attack cancer cells, viruses, and foreign
  substances

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Stress and the Immune System

• Stress does not directly cause disease
• When energy is diverted from immune system
  activities and directed toward stress-response
  system ? vulnerability to infection and disease
  increases

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Stress and Disease

• Negative emotions and health-related consequences
• Mind and body interact everything psychological
  is simultaneously physiological

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Promoting Health

• Coping with stress
• Problem-focused coping when we feel a sense of
  control and think we can change the situation
• Change the stressor or the way we interact with
  that stressor
• Emotion-focused coping when we feel we have no
  or little control over the situation
• Avoid or ignore a stressor
• Meet emotional needs

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Perceived Control

• Health consequences of a loss of control
• Higher than normal susceptibility to infections,
  cardiovascular disease, and possibly, a shorter
  life span
• Diminished immune system responses

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Explanatory style

• Optimists, more than pessimists, feel they have
  more control over stressor
• Cope better with stressors
• Better moods
• Stronger immune systems
• Live longer
• Laugh more, less sarcastic

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Social Support

• Supportive family members, friends, companionable
  pets help people cope with stress
• Fosters stronger immune systems
• Lowers blood pressure
• Nursing homes
• Therapy pets
• People feel loss of control, die sooner

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Promoting Health

• Social support across the life span

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Promoting Health

• Aerobic Exercise
• sustained exercise that increases heart and lung
  fitness

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Promoting Health

• Biofeedback
• system for electronically recording, amplifying,
  and feeding back information regarding a subtle
  physiological state
• blood pressure
• muscle tension

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Promoting Health

• Religious Attendance

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Promoting Health

• The religion factor is multidimensional

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Promoting Health

• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• unproven health care treatments not taught widely
  in medical schools, not used in hospitals, and
  not usually reimbursed by insurance companies

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