Psychology & Health

u Health Psychology

– The field of psychology which studies the role of psychological factors in the prevention and treatment of physical disorders.

– Includes psychological influences on how people stay healthy, why people become ill, and how people respond when they become ill.

Top 6 killers

Heart Disease: 700,142

Cancer: 553,768

Stroke: 163,538

Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 123,013

Accidents (unintentional injuries): 101,537

Diabetes: 71,372

Illness, stress, and exercise slides

Stress and Stressors

u Stress defined as the physiological response of the body to physical and psychological demands. The physiological response of the body to conditions that threaten or challenge a person and require some form of adaptation or adjustment

– Conflicts, traumas, pressures

u Stressors defined as a physical or psychological demand or event that induces physiological adjustment or adaptation

Seyle’s General Adaptation syndrome

Alarm – body prepares for action, increased arousal

Resistance – Attempts are made to deal/cope with specific stressors

Exhaustion – Body can no longer resist stressor, physiological breakdown begins

Body changes

Nervous system perceives stressors

Hypothalamus send signals to pituitary gland to rest of body through nerves and adrenals (hormonal changes)

Breathing and heart rate increase

Increase sweat production reduces heat from body’s increased activity (working feverishly)

Glucose stored becomes available for action

Blood supply to kidneys and intestines decreases (butterflies in stomach, unable to eat)

Blood and fuel are sent to muscles in preparation for movement, decrease to hands and feet (cold feet)

Types of Stressors

u Frustration - An emotion that results when prevented from achieving goal or satisfying need or motive.

• Difficulty finding a parking place on campus.

u Pressure - An emotion that results when we experience demands that are difficult or impossible to meet.

• Two tests scheduled for the same day.

u Conflict - A state in which 2 or more courses of action cannot be satisfied because they interfere with one another.

Avoidance-avoidance – the person is both repelled and attracted to the same goal (make an investment with the possibility of high rate of return, but risk losing money instead)

Approach-approach – the person is attracted to 2 incompatible goals at the same time (stay in town and go to basketball game or go on weekend ski trip)

Approach-avoidance – repelled by 2 undesirable alternatives at the same time, the person is inclined to try to escape, but other factors prevent such an escape (continue to have back pain or have surgery)

Double approach-avoidance – the person is caught between 2 goals, each of which has good and bad features (going back to school has the positive feature of possibly higher earnings and more satisfying work, but the negative features of the cost of education and loss of income while in school. Staying in present job has the good features of security and continued earnings but negative features of limited opportunity and boredom).

Sources of Stress: Catastrophes

u Unpredictable, large scale events

• war, natural disasters, rape, crashes, etc.

u Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

– Physical and psychological symptoms that appear in reaction to traumatic events - recurring anxiety, sleeplessness, flashbacks, nightmares, social withdrawal, psychological numbing, survivor’s guilt

– PTSD linked to greater risk of physical illness:

• Eruption of Mount Saint Helens led to increases in ER visits and more stress-related physical disorders.

• Miami - 33% showed signs of PTSD a few months after hurricane Andrew - more damage, worse the symptoms

Major Life Changes

u Big events that happen to us.

u Events both positive and negative

– death of a loved one, problems with the law, sexual difficulties, job change

– wedding, vacations, graduation, retirement

u Problems with scales

– Is change necessarily harmful? Correlations between negative events and illness, but what about positive?

– impact of change depends on person and how change is interpreted.

Sources of Stress: Daily Hassles

u Daily hassles (microstressors)

– Minor, irritating incidents that occur everyday (lines, traffic, bills, crime, family, time pressure).

u Accumulated daily hassles can contribute to burnout, headaches, colds, sore throats, and other health problems.

– Increased daily hassles are related to reduced immune system functioning.

– Most common – lack of time (college students – troubling thoughts about future and not getting enough sleep)

u The effect of daily hassles may be reduced by the presence of positive uplifts (positive life experiences).

College students – having a good time, older adults – health or family related

Factors that contribute to the intensity of the stress response

Intensity of stressor, duration of stressor, predictability of stressor, cognitive appraisal of the stressor, availability of social support, competence of the person, motivation of the person, physiological state of the person

Factors that Moderate Stress Reactions

u Physiological Reactivity - Individuals differ in their physiological reactions to stressors.

– Differences in heart rate, blood pressure, stress hormone secretion.

– Type A vs. Type B – originally thought to be related to heart disease – not necessarily

– Now – hostility (cynical and antagonistic), emotional inhibition

u Cognitive Appraisal

– Our personal evaluation of the severity of the stressor

Primary appraisal – evaluate stressful event to determine if effects are positive (challenge) or negative (harm, threat, loss)

Secondary appraisal – if judge in control, evaluate available resources – physical, social, psychological, material, time

Factors that Moderate Stress Reactions

u Social Support - A network of friends and family that can provide support, self help group

– Support can be: Intangible (Advice, encouragement, a shoulder to cry on.) or Tangible (Money or other resources). However, others can cause health problems

u Psychological Hardiness Personality characteristics

– Commitment - sense of purpose with regard to family, work

– Challenge - openness to new experiences

– Control - belief can influence future outcomes

u Explanatory Style

– Our typical way of understanding reasons for unpleasant events.

– A pessimistic explanatory style involves attributing unpleasant events to stable, global, & internal personal characteristics

• I can’t do anything right and that will never change because I am stupid.The hopeless person

expects bad things will happen in important areas of his/her life (pessimism) and/or that hoped for good things

will not happen, and he/she doesn't expect anything to change that miserable situation.

– Self Deception - distort information we have about ourselves. Make social comparison

• unrealistic optimism - belief will do better and are better than others – depressed people more realistic

u Locus of Control - A sense of control over stressors can reduce the impact of stress on illness.

• Lacking control show reduced natural killer cell activity, more colds, more hypertension

Humans warned of stressor before it occurs and have change of preparing selves experience less stress, improve health and well-being and lower death rates in nursing homes that give some sort of control over life

u Learned helplessness - when perceive lack of control over a situation, some people just give up. Seligman - dogs.

– Phase 1 - Group A put into a pen and shocked with no escape, Group B no shocks

– Phase 2 - put into escape box - Group B learned to escape, Group A did not

Methods for Coping with Stress

– Task-oriented (problem focused) coping

• Preparing adequately to face the stressor. Solving problem itself Response aimed at reducing, modifying, or eliminating the stressor (study harder, talking to professor, etc.)

– Emotion-oriented coping

• Changing our evaluation of the stressor. Talk about it, journal

u Reappraise as less severe or less negative than our initial reaction. (loss of job – think about options always wanted to do)

u Letting grievances go

– Avoidance-oriented coping

• Avoiding the stressor. Not thinking about it. Not healthy?

•Proactive coping

•Efforts and actions taken in advance of stressor to prevent occurrence or minimize consequences

Methods for Coping with Stress

u Relaxation

– Reduces physiological arousal associated with stress response.

– Relaxation techniques include:

• Hypnosis

• Meditation

• Biofeedback

• Deep rhythmic breathing

• Progressive relaxation

u Progressive relaxation (Jacobson 1929/1974)

– Progressively tense muscle groups.

– Release tension and relax muscles.

“To be excited and to be fully relaxed are physiological opposites. Both states cannot exist…at the same time.”

Exercise – long term aerobic exercise was related to lower levels of illness in adolescents experiencing high levels of stress

Methods for Coping with Stress