Emotions, Stress and health: how to cope

1. Emotions, Stress and health: how to cope Sec 4

2. Objectives • Describe personality types • List positive emotions and explain emotional inhibition • summarize how to cool off and solve the problem

3. chapter 13 Emotions and illness Hostility and heart disease Type A personality: determined to achieve, sense of time urgency, irritable, quick to respond to threat or challenge, impatient with obstacles. Type B personality: calmer, less intense Cynical or antagonistic hostility is a major risk factor for heart disease

4. chapter 13 Positive emotions Longitudinal study of 180 Catholic nuns found that longevity was related to frequency of positive emotions Happiness Interest Love Hope Etc. Nuns whose life stories contained the most positive emotion words lived an average of nine years longer.

5. chapter 13 Emotional inhibition A personality trait involving a tendency to deny feelings of anger, anxiety, or fear; stressful situations cause heart rate and blood pressure to rise sharply People with this trait are more likely to fall ill than people who can acknowledge feelings.

6. chapter 13 Letting grievances go Confession: divulging private thoughts and feelings that make you ashamed or depressed Can also give up thoughts that produce grudges and replace them with different perspectives. Forgiving thoughts

7. chapter 13 Cooling off Relaxation training Learning to alternately tense and relax muscles, lie or sit quietly, or meditate by clearing the mind Lowers stress hormones, enhances immune function Massage therapy Exercise

8. chapter 13 Solving the problem Emotion-focused and problem-focused coping Effective cognitive coping methods Reappraising the situation Learning from the experience Making social comparisons Cultivating a sense of humor

9. chapter 13 Looking outward Friends can help People who have network of close connections live longer than those who do not. After heart attack, those with no close contacts were twice as likely to die. Relationships can also cause stress. Giving support to others can be a valuable source of comfort.

10. chapter 13 When friends aren’t helpful Many are stressed by the responsibility of caring for others. In close relationships, the support person may also be the source of stress. Married couples who argue in a hostile way have increased elevations of stress hormones and weakened immune systems. Friends may be unsupportive or block your progress toward a goal.

11. summary • Personality types • Cooling off • Solving the problem