Stress and Health

Stress and Health By: Shelby Smith, Sydni White, Tony Ho, Justin Call, and Elton Luong

Introduction • Psychological states (nervousness, fear, joy) causes physical reactions (sweating, shaking, smiling) • Stress & unhealthy lifestyle are connected with the four leading causes of death; heart disease, cancer, stroke, & chronic lung disease • Health Psychology is psychology portion of behavioral medicine, increasing field over the years • Health psychologists ask “How do out emotions and personality influence our risk of disease?” and “How can we change stress or behavior to determine health?”

Stress and Illness • Our responses to stress can save or damage our lives (ex. Tensing up when hearing a rattlesnake or being stressed about a late office meeting) • High stress or psychological pressure results in less sleep and exercise  less healthy

Stress and Stressors • Stress is hard to define, either a threat or reaction • Stressor- something that causes stress • A reaction to it is known as a stress reaction • Stress is a process on how we analyze and cope with threats and challenges • Short-term stress can be beneficial, it boosts the immune system and gives motivation • Those who go through temporary stress come out more resilient and stronger self-esteem • Prolonged stress leads to chronic diseases

The Stress Response System • In 1920’s, Walter Cannon confirmed that stress causes a psychological and physiological response • Physical stress causes release of hormones • Additional hormone that related to stress; glucocorticoid, which helps regulate the body during stress and provides temporary energy boost • General adaptation syndrome (GAS) is the body’s consistent response to prolonged stress; alarm, resistance, and exhaustion • Prolonged stress causes physical damage such as shrunken hippocampus (affects memory), cells no longer dividing, and older cells, resulting in quicker death

Stressful Life Events • Catastrophesare unpredictable large-scale events that almost everyone sees as a threat (earthquakes, shootings) • Significant life changesalso impact health; divorce, marriage, death, loss of a job • Daily hasslesare the last kind of stressor; traffic, yelling, waiting in lines, tying shoelaces, or even thinking about stressful things

Stress and the Heart • Being stressed increases blood pressure, which leads to coronary heart disease, the closing of a heart vessel • Two types of people; Type A Personality are impatient, super motivated, aggressive, and time-conscious while Type B Personality are easygoing and relaxed • Type A are about 70% more prone to suffer from heart attacks than Type B because Type A is more physiologically reactive to stress (hormone secretion, pulse, etc.) • More hormones means more plaque buildup in artery walls  heart attacks • Pessimists are also more likely to develop heart diseases • Depression is lethal in terms of unnatural cardiovascular death

Stress and Susceptibility to Disease • Psychophysiological illnesses are physical illnesses derived from a psychological reaction

Stress and the Immune System • Immune system has two kinds of white blood cells; lymphocytes and macrophages • Immune system can either attack too strongly or respond too weakly • Immune system is connected to brain hormone regulation, therefore stress greatly affects white blood cell production • It restrains immune system because fight or flight response doesn’t require immune defense

Stress and Aids • AIDS is world’s fourth leading cause of death • Higher stress levels push the development of HIV to AIDS

Stress and Cancer • Carcinogensare cancer-producing substances • Higher chance of developing cancer and faster rate of progression

Conditioning the Immune System • Immune system can be conditioned (ex. Putting immune-lowering chemicals in sweet drinks for rats, and slowly lowering the dosage of chemical until none, yet the rat’s systems still are lowered) • Stress is a good motivator and pushed out lives forward

Promoting Health • Implementing strategies to reduce illness and enhance wellness

Coping with Stress • Stress is unavoidable, thus learn to cope with it • Problem-focused coping is dealing with stress by going directly to the source (talking to someone after having an argument) • Emotion-focused coping is more common and is reaching out to other emotional sources to deal with our stress (friends, familial support) • Problem-focused is used when we feel we have control and emotion-based is when we feel a lack of control • Problem-focused is more effective at getting rid of stress while emotion-focused is less adaptive (going to a party to forget a test the next day)

Perceived Control • Feelings of helplessness accelerate ulcers and lower immunity • Control is linked to economic status and longevity, more wealth is more health

Explanatory Style • Our basic outlook (pessimism or optimism) is an influence on how we cope with stress • Optimists perceive more control = less stress, longer lives, and lower changes in blood pressure

Social Support • Isolation and loneliness have a long-term impact on health and happiness • Researchers have found that close relationships promote health • Close ties and support allow us to confide painful feelings which foster the immune system, as does writing in diaries or journals

Managing Stress • Develop a base of social support can help us experience less stress and improve health • You can’t alleviate stress without managing it

Aerobic Exercise • Provides mood boost, energy increase, and lowered tension • Exercise increases blood flow, emotional stability, lowers overreaction to stress, and promotes heart health • Exercise increases disease-resisting proteins in the body

Biofeedback, Relaxation and Mediation • Biofeedback is subtly changing your physiological responses voluntarily (regulating heartbeat, internal temperature) • Works best on tension headaches • Relaxation procedures lower headaches, anxiety, and insomnia • Meditation relaxation decreased blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen consumption

Spirituality & Faith Communities • There is a faith factor related to religious people being healthier • Religious devotion is a predictor of longevity, not necessarily a cause • Religious people have healthier lifestyles and are more social

Modifying Illness-Related Behaviors • About 20% of care patients suffer from an illness cause by psychosocial factors • This means health programs have ability to save money

The Risks of Smoking • Smoking, on average, takes away twelve minutes per cigarette • WHO reports that it harms nearly every organ in the body • Smoking more correlated with depressions, anxiety, divorce, chronic disease, and general health

Helping Smokers Quit • Pediatric diseases are habits beginning in adolescence that carry on into adulthood, like smoking • Teens are targeted because they are easily influenced by social pressure and instinct to fit in • Smokers become dependent upon cigarettes and tolerant, needing a higher dose every time to satisfy their addiction • Nicotine reinforced habit by being addictive and calming, used in times of stress or depression

Obesity & Weight Control • Fat is our body storing energy for later usage • Changing society and availability of fatty and sugar foods means more fat • Being overweight has health risks like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, gallstones, and cancer

The Social Effects of Obesity • Being obese is socially toxic because of the stereotypes • Obesity seen as evidence of lack of self-discipline • Weight discrimination has been shown to far outweigh racial or sexual

The Physiology of Obesity • Adults have 30-40 million fat cells, which can swell or deflate with fat • Once they get full, they divide, but never go away • People who lose weight just shrink their fat cells; the cells themselves deflate, but don’t dissipate • A set-point is the weight needed to be reached for the body to start taking energy from fat cells • Lean people tend to be more fidgety and energetic than obese • Researchers found that leptin, a hormone that induces physical activity and weight loss, are effective in mice • Genes have an influence on weight change through internal bacteria and hormone regulation • Genes determine why one person is heavier than another; environment determines why someone is heavier today than fifty years ago

Losing Weight • Some solutions include; taxing unhealthy food, eliminating junk food advertisements, support the spread of healthier foods, and design physically-based activities everywhere (bike trails, paths) • Those who repeatedly lose weight and try are more likely to succeed

Stress and Health