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 fightor-flight 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 wearand-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