Stress Management and Prevention:
Applications to Daily Life
Jeffrey A. Kottler & David Chen
Chapter One:
The Meaning of Stress
In this Chapter:
Multiple Meanings of Stress
 Responses to Stress
 Assessing Stress
 The Function of Stress
 The Stress Response
 Stress Prevention and Management
Model

Definition of Stress
Stress can be defined as a
psychological and physiological
reaction to a real or perceived threat
that requires some action or
resolution
 Perception is the key factor in this
definition
 People will respond differently to the
exact same stimuli

Multiple Meanings of Stress

Stress can be triggered by a real or
imaginary stimulus

Stress is a response that operates on
cognitive, behavioral, and biological levels

Stress is a survival mechanism to
increase internal awareness of danger and
transform all the body’s resources to a
heightened state of readiness
Multiple Meanings of Stress
What’s your story….what are things
that have created stress for you from
childhood?
 What stresses you now?
 How do you recognize stress in your
life?
 How do you respond to anticipated
or actual stress?

What’s in a Name?

The word stress is derived from the Middle
English stresse, meaning “hardship”, and
the Old French estrece, meaning
“oppression”
 Today’s interpretation of stress was
spurred by Canadian biologist Hans Selye
 Today, doctors warn about the epidemic
of health problems that result from
excessive stress
How is Stress a Problem?

About 75 to 90 percent of all visits to a
primary care physician are because of
stress-related disorders
 Stress is linked to the six leading causes
of death in North America. Name the 6.
 About 90 % of all adults report that they
have experienced stress at some time in
their lives
A Selected History of Stress

Ancient Contributions
 Claude Bernard developed the concept of
internal environment –homeostasis
 Charles Darwin theorized that fear and
stress are adaptive mechanisms for
survival
 Freud developed a theory of
psychological disturbance based on the
conscious and unconscious fears that
motivate behavior
A Selected History of Stress
(cont’d)
Walter Cannon was the first
physiologist to begin talking about
stress in the context of emotional
responses
 Cannon coined the term “the fight-orflight response” to describe the
stress response that becomes
activated during perceived threats

A Selected History of Stress
(cont’d)

Hans Selye, often recognized as the father
of stress research, studied rats under
chronic stress conditions
 He noticed a consistent pattern of bodily
changes emerging (i.e., General
Adaptation Syndrome), including an
enlargement of the adrenal glands,
shrinkage of thymus, and ulceration of the
stomach lining
Selye’s General Adaptation
Syndrome
(GAS)
Alarm Stage – Acute stress reactivity
characterized by disruption of the body’s
homeostasis
 Resistance Stage – Presence of the
stressor necessitates bodily adaptations
and coping mechanisms resulting in
stress products
 Exhaustion Stage – Prolonged exposure
to stressors leads to the depletion of
resistance energy resulting in illness or
even death

A Selected History of Stress
(cont’d)

Allostasis and Allostatic Load
– Sterling and Eyer coined this term to
mean the combined physiological and
psychological adaptation to the
experience of threats or adversities
– McEwen created the concept of
allostatic load to describe what happens
when the same adaptive system that
was designed to protect us actually
tears us apart
Responses to Stress

People respond to stress in different ways,
physiologically, emotionally, cognitively,
and systematically
 Humans are the only species that worry
themselves over imagined fears
 Fight-or-flight response is a survival
mechanism with many unique and specific
physiological reactions
Major Responses to Stress
Physiological
Cognitive
Emotional
Behavioral
Heart palpitations
Impaired memory
Fear
Crying
Sweating
Disorientation
Worry
Rage
Dry mouth
Unrealistic demands
Panic
Withdrawal
Fatigue
Disasterizing
Guilt
Substance abuse
Insomnia
Illogical thinking
Anger
Self-medication
Nausea
Externalized blame
Denial
Impulsiveness
Dizziness
Obsessiveness
Hopelessness
Phobias
Loss of appetite
Loss of humor
Numbness
Hyperactivity
High blood pressure
Suicidal ideation
Depression
Lethargy
Personality traits
Surrender
Despair
Aggression
Weight loss or gain
Excessive fantasies
Impatience
Rambling
Types of Stress

Short-term stress (acute) is activated by
sudden threat or danger
 Long-term stress (chronic) brings on
wear-and-tear of the body
 Hyperstress is an excessive amount of
stress that overloads the system
 Hypostress means inadequate stress to
keep the body tuned and ready for action
Types of Stress (cont’d)

Selye defined three further terms: distress,
neustress, and eustress
 Distress is the negative, harmful,
destructive type of stress
 Neustress is neutral stress having little
impact on you
 Eustress is good stress, the type that
inspires and motivates you
Sources of Stress
External sources
 Internal sources
 The interaction of both internal and
external sources.

Sources of Stress (cont’d)




Physical – when the human body is affected
adverse conditions such as sleep deprivation and
infections
Psychological – caused by the interpretations of
the events in our life; they are determined by our
values, beliefs, attitudes, and philosophies of life.
Psychosocial - arises from interactions with
people and the society in which you live.
Biochemical - Excessive use of certain
substances such as sugar, nicotine, caffeine,
alcohol and exposure to substances in the
environment
Stress Management & Prevention
Stage 1: Life Situations/Chronic Stressors
Stage 2: Perception/Evaluation
Stage 3: Stress Response
Stage 4: Consequences
Five principles of stress
prevention and management





Prevention is more effective than
management
Small changes can lead to big effects
Don’t count on a magic bullet for solving
all your stress problems
Tailor a program to your own schedule
and means
Develop a comprehensive plan for stress
prevention and management