Madison Carr, Chase’ Freeman,
CJ Jasinski, Bianca Morales,
India Speech
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Behavioral medicine: an interdisciplinary field
that integrates behavioral and medicinal
knowledge and applies that knowledge to
health and disease
Health psychology: a subfield of psychology
that provides psychology's contribution to
behavioral medicine
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Stress: The process by which we perceive and
respond to certain events, called stressors, that
we appraise as threatening or challenging.
Stress is how we cope with threats and
challenges throughout life.
Stressors are the causes of stress, stress reactions
are your physical and emotional responses to
stress, and stress is the way you relate to your
environment.
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Momentary stress can mobilize the immune
system for fending off infections and healing
wounds
Arouses and motivates us to conquer issues
Conquering a stressful event leads to higher
self esteem and a sense of purpose
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Severe stress can lead to a suppressed immune
system and progression of diseases
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Walter Cannon Found that stress response is
part of a unified mind-body system
Sympathetic nervous increases heart rate and
respiration, diverts blood to the skeletal
muscles, dulls pain, releases sugars and fat
Prepares for fight or flight
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General adaption syndrome: Selye’s concept of
the body’s adaptive response to stress in three
stages
Stage one: Alarm reaction
Stage two: Resistance to stress
Stage three: Exhaustion – vulnerability to
disease
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Catastrophes: unpredictable large scale change,
example: 9/11
Significant life changes: life transitions and
insecurities
example: leaving home, death of a loved one
Daily hassles: everyday annoyances
example: school
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Large amounts of stress lead to elevated blood
pressure and increase the risk of coronary
disease
Coronary disease: The clogging of the vessels
that nourish the heart muscle; the leading cause
of death in most developed countries
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Type A: Friedman and Roseman’s term for
competitive, hard driving, impatient, verbally
aggressive, and anger prone people. These
people are more likely of heart disease
example: when your history IA is due in one
day
Type B: Friedman and Roseman’s term for
easygoing, relaxed people
example: when your history IA is due in two
days
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Psycho Physiological Illnesses: “Mind-body”
illnesses; any stress related physical illness
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The nervous and endocrine system have an
influence on the immune system
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Lymphocytes: The 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 infection; T lymphocytes form in the
thymus and other lymphatic tissue and attack
cancer cells, viruses and foreign substances.
B for bone, T for thymus
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Strong response: May attack the body’s own
tissue, causing arthritis or an allergic reaction
Weak response: May allow a dormant disease
to erupt or multiply
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Wounds heal slowly: Unstressed participants
wounds healed 40% faster
More vulnerable to disease: Unstressed
participants were 20% more unlikely to catch a
disease
Weakened immune system: Stressed participants
showed a 15% below average immune antibody
response and a 23% increase in stress hormones
Life shortening: A noticeable characteristic of
people who have lived over 100 is their ability to
handle stress
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Aids is the fourth largest cause of death
Infected people with stressful life
circumstances exhibit greater disease
suppression and a faster disease progression
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Stress and negative emotion have been linked
to cancer’s rate of progression
People with a history of stress were reported
5.5 times more likely to get colon cancer
Stress doesn’t cause cancer but it weakens the
body allowing it to progress
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Placebo effect on stress
When you think something bad or stressful
will occur before it does you still exhibit the
symptoms
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Coping: alleviating stress using emotional,
cognitive, or behavioral methods
Problem focused coping: attempting to
alleviate stress directly – by changing the
stressor or the way we interact with that
stressor
Emotion focused coping: attempting to
alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a
stressor and attending to emotional needs
related to one’s stress reaction
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Stress correlates with heart disease, lowered
immunity and other bodily ailments
We as individuals need to learn to cope with
stress by finding ways to alleviate it
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When we perceive a loss of control, we become
more likely to get ill health
Perceiving a lack of control can lead to
cardiovascular disease and a shorter life span
because of an outpouring level of stress
hormones
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An influence on coping with stress is whether
we are more optimistic or pessimistic
Optimist are more likely to be able to deal with
stress because they feel they have more control
Pessimist are statistically more likely to be
stress and are more often sick than optimist
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Social support is a large factor in stress
Feeling liked, affirmed, and encouraged by
friends or family greatly reduces stress
People with larger amounts of social support
have lower blood pressure
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Reduces stress, depression and anxiety
Lowers blood pressure, increased arousal, and
have higher levels or neurotransmitters to
boost blood, and enhances cognitive abilities
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Biofeedback: system for electronically
recording, amplifying, and feeding back
information regarding a subtle physiological
state, such as blood pressure or muscle tension
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Can help alleviate headaches, hypertension,
anxiety, and insomnia
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Cardiologist Herbert Benson became interested
with meditative relaxation when he
experienced that people that meditate could
decrease their blood pressure, heart rate, and
oxygen consumption
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The two greatest healing traditions are religion
and medicine
Studies have showed that religious people
were half as likely to die than those without a
religious affiliation
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Tobacco kills nearly 5 million people out of its
1.3 billion customers, that’s .3% of people
Nicotine is addictive
Harms almost every organ
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People that try to quit smoking alone are less
likely to quit
Smoking rates remain high with high school
drop outs and people of lower socioeconomic
level
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Our bodies store fat because it’s a fuel reserve
to help to continue when food is scarce
However in most of the world food is no longer
scarce which has raised the obesity rate
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Heart disease
Rise of diabetes
High blood pressure
Gallstones
Arthritis
Cancer
Shortened life
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Stereotypical obese people are…..
Sloppy
Lazy
Slow
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Become obese from consuming too many
calories
Myth: Cutting your diet by 3,500 calories
makes you lose one pound
When you cut calories your body turns to
starvation mode
Genetics have an influence on body weight
Average American has become one inch taller
over 50 years, and 23 pounds heavier
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Most people that lose weight regain it quickly
Most dieters fall back because of stress
This leads to…..
Binge eating
Food obsession
Weight fluctuations
Malnutrition
Smoking
Depression