Managing Stress and Coping with Loss

1. Managing Stress and Coping with Loss Chapter 4: Sec 1 Stress and Your Health

2. Objectives • Describe five different causes of stress. • Describe the body’s physical response to stress. • Differentiate between positive and negative stress. • Describe how stress can make you sick.

3. What Causes *Stress? • STRESS • The body’s and mind’s response to a demand.

4. Type of Stressors • A STRESSOR is any situation that puts a demand on the body or mind.

5. Environmental Stressors • Conditions or events in our physical surroundings • Natural disasters • Noise • Crowds • Pollution • Poverty

6. Biological Stressors • Conditions that make it difficult for your body to take part in daily activities • Illness • Injury • Disability

7. Thinking Stressor • Mental challenge • Taking a test

8. Behavioral Stressor • Unhealthy behaviors • Smoking • Not getting enough sleep or exercise • Using drugs

9. Life change Stressors • Any major life change • Divorce • Death of a loved one • Getting married • Having trouble with a teacher • Having more arguments with parents

10. Research Highlight Procrastination, Performance, and Health • Researchers found that the procrastinators suffered significantly more stress and had more health problems than non procrastinators. • Space out your studying and try to complete your assignments as early as possible. Procrastination can be hazardous to your health, as well as your grades. Source: Huffman, K. Vernoy, M., and Vernoy, J. (2002). Psychology inAction (5th Ed.). Davers: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

11. *Physical Response to Stress • The physical changes that prepare your body to respond quickly and appropriately to stressors is called the fight-or-flight response. • Past vs. Present: the fight-or-flight response might even be maladaptive at times. Today, we are taught not to fight or flee but to stay calm and resolve stressful situations rationally. • Your body provides energy, reflexes, and strength to respond to a stressor. • Your body releases epinephrine hormones. • Breathing speeds up, heart beats faster, muscles tense up, pupils get wider, sweating increases, digestion stops, blood pressure increases, and blood sugar increases.

12. Emotional and Behavioral Response to Stress • Eustress is a positive stress that energizes one and helps one reach a goal. • Try to make stress positive. • Alert, focused, motivated, energized, and confident. • Distress is negative stress that can make a person sick or keep a person from reaching a goal. • Nervous, forgetful, frightened, confused, and unsure.

13. Stress-Related Disorders and Diseases • Tension headache • Cold and flu • Asthma • Migraine headache • Backache • Temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMJ) • Heart disease • Stroke • High blood pressure • Chronic fatigue • Ulcer • Anxiety disorder • Insomnia • Depression

14. Long-Term Stress Can Make You Sick • The general adaptation syndromeis a model that describes the relationship between stress and disease. • Alarm stage • Your body and mind become alert (flight-or-fight response) • Headaches, stomachaches, difficulty sleeping, and anxiety • Resistance stage (adaptation) • If stress continues, your body becomes more resistant to disease and injury than normal • Exhaustion stage • Your body cannot take the resistance to the stressor any longer. You become exhausted, organs and immune system may suffer…

15. Closure • What do you think would be the consequences of not having a fight-or-flight response? • Is all stress bad? • What is the difference between stress and depression?

16. Creative Activity • Create a post card or flyer relating to the issue of coping with loss. • Group (table activity). Write all group members name of the card. Everyone should participate. • Based on new knowledge, provide words of encouragement and show your support for a person who recently experienced a loss • Be creative and have fun