CHAPTER 14 LECTURE NOTES: STRESS & 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 psychology’s contribution to behavioral
medicine

Stress: process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we
appraise as threatening or challenging
Stressors
Catastrophes
Life changes
Hassles
Intervening
factors
Appraisal
Perceived control
Personality
Social support
Coping behaviors
Stress
reactions
Physiological
Emotional
Behavioral

Stress Appraisal:
Appraisal
Response
Threat
(“Yikes! This is
beyond me!”)
Panic, freeze up
Challenge
(“I’ve got to
apply
all I know”)
Aroused,
focused
Stressful event
(tough math test)

Burnout: physical, emotional and mental exhaustion brought on by persistent job-related
stress
The body’s resistance to stress can
only
Last so long before exhaustion sets
in
Stress
resistance
Stress
or
occurs
Phase 1
Alarm
reaction
(mobilize
resources)

Phase 2
Resistance
(cope with
stressor)
Phase 3
Exhaustion
(reserves
depleted)
General Adaptation Syndrome: Selye’s concept of the body’s
adaptive response to stress in three stages
The body’s resistance to stress can
only last so long before exhaustion
sets in
Stress
resistance
Stressor
occurs


Stressful Life Events:
Phase 1
Alarm
reaction
(mobilize
resources)
Phase 2
Resistanc
e
(cope with
stressor)
Phase 3
Exhaustion
(reserves
depleted)

Catastrophic Events: earthquakes, combat stress, floods

Life Changes: death of a loved one, divorce, loss of job, promotion

Daily Hassles: rush hour traffic, long lines, job stress, burnout
Stress and the Heart
o
Coronary Heart Disease

clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle

leading cause of death in many developed countries
o Type A:

Friedman and Rosenman’s term for competitive, hard-driving, impatient,
verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people
o Type B

Friedman and Rosenman’s term for easygoing, relaxed people
Stress and Disease
 Psychosomatic Disease
o psychologically caused physical symptoms

Psychophysiological Illness
 “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

Lymphocytes
o two types of white blood cells that are part of the body’s 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
Negative emotions and health-related consequences:
Heart
disease
Persistent stressors
and negative
emotions
Release of stress
hormones
Immune
suppression
Unhealthy behaviors
Autonomic nervous
system effects
(smoking, drinking,
poor nutrition and sleep)
(headaches,
hypertension)
Promoting Health

Aerobic Exercise:


sustained exercise that increases heart and
lung fitness
Biofeedback:

system for electronically recording,
amplifying, and feeding back information
regarding a subtle physiological state



blood pressure
muscle tension
Modifying Type A life-style can reduce recurrence of heart attacks
Percentage 6
of patients
with recurrent 5
heart attacks
(cumulative 4
average)
Control patients
Modifying lifestyle
reduced recurrent
heart attacks
3
2
Life-style modification patients
1
0
1978
1979
1980
Year
1981
1982
Life events
Personal appraisal
Challenge
Threat
Personality type
Easy going
Nondepressed
Optimistic
Hostile
Depressed
Pessimistic
Personality habits
Nonsmoking
Smoking
Regular exercise
Sedentary
Good nutrition
Poor nutrition
Level of social support
Close, enduring
Lacking
Tendency toward
Health
Illness

Predictors of mortality
1
Relative
risk
of dying
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
Not smoking
Men
Regular exercise
Weekly religious
attendance
Women
attendance
Subfields of Alternative Medicine:
Subfields of Alternative Medicine
Alternative systems of
medical practice
Health care ranging from self-care according to folk principles,
to care rendered in an organized health care system based on
alternative traditions or practices
Bioelectromagnetic
applications
The study of how living organisms interact with electromagnetic
(EM) fields
Diet, nutrition,
life-style changes
The knowledge of how to prevent illness, maintain health, and
reverse the effects of chronic disease through dietary or
nutritional intervention
Herbal medicine
Employing plan and plant products from folk medicine traditions
for pharmacological use
Manual healing
Using touch and manipulation with the hands as a diagnostic
and therapeutic tool
Mind-body control
Exploring the mind’s capacity to affect the body, based on
traditional medical systems that make use of the interconnectedness of mind and body
Pharmacological and
biological treatments
Drugs and vaccines not yet accepted by mainstream medicine
 Smoking-related early deaths
Number
of deaths
per 100,000
33,34
8
1,68
6
1,13
5
Smoking Suicide Vehicle
crash
55
6
20
2
HIV/
AIDS
Homicide
Cause of death
Obesity and Weight Control

Weight Discrimination: When women applicants were made to look overweight, subjects
were less willing to hire
7
Willingness to hire
scale
(from1: definitely
not hire)
to
7: definitely hire)
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Women
Normal
Men
Overweight