Stress & Health
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Stress is the process of appraising and responding to a
threatening or challenging event.
Fig. 38.1: The events of our life flow through a psychological
filter. How we appraise an event influences how much stress
we experience and how effectively we respond. (m 505 c
f12.22 487)
Segerstrom, 2007: A momentary stress can mobilize the
immune system to fend off infections and heal wounds.(m 505
c 487)
Landauer & Whiting, 1979: Some stress early in life is
conducive to later emotional resilience. Adversity can beget
growth.(m 505 c 487)
Repetti et al., 2002: Children who suffer severe or prolonged
abuse are later at risk of chronic disease.(m 505 c 487)
Boscarino, 1997: Vietnam war veterans suffered greatly
elevated rates of heart, lung and infectious diseases.( m505 c
487)
Stress & Health
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Catastrophes (Greek for “against the dance of life”) are
universally appraised as threatening.
Saulny, 2006: After Hurricane Katrina in 2004, New Orlean's
suicide rate reportedly tripled.( m 505 c 488)
Marovizky & Samid, 2008: Those who are forced to relocate
have twofold stresors. In the first half-year, before their morale
begins to rebound, newcomers often experience culture shock
and deteriorating well-being.(m 506 c 488)
Newport & Pelham, 2009: Fig. 38.2: a survey of 650,000
Americans during 2008 and 2009 found daily stress highest
among young adults, women consistently higher than men.( m
506 c 488 f 12.23)
Kaprio et al., 1987: A Finnish study of 96,000 widowed people
found death-risk doubled in the week after their partner's
death.(m 506 c 488)
The Stress Response System
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Fight or Flight: Cannon, 1929: Extreme cold, lack of oxygen,
and emotion-arousing events all trigger an outpouring of the
stress hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine from the
core of the adrenal glands.
On orders from the cerebral cortex via the hypothalamus and
pituiatary gland, the outer part of the adrenal glands secrets
glucocorticoid stress hormones such as cortisol.
Epinephrine jumps into action; cortisol helps to plan strategies.
(Sapolsky, 2003 m 507 c489 ).
Selye, 1976: Fig. 38.3: The General Adaptation Syndrome, a
three-phase system.(m 508 c 480)
Although the human body adapts well to temporary stress,
prolonged stress can damage it.
Effects of Long-Term Stress
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Under prolonged stress, the brain's production of new neural
connections slows and some neural circuits degenerate. (DiasFerreria et al., 2009 m 508 c 490)
Telomere shortening--a normal part of the aging process-occurs here. Even fearful, easily stressed rats die sooner (600
days) than their more confident siblings (700 days) (Cavigelli &
McClintock, 2003 m 508 c 490).
A common response to such stressors is tend-and-befriend.
(Taylor et al., 2006) Women more often respond to stress by
nurturing and banding together (m 508 c 490).
This may be due to oxytocin, a stress-moderating hormone
associated with pair-bonding in animals and released by
cuddling, massage, and breast-feeding (Campbell 2010 m 508
c 490).
Under stress, womens' face-processing centres become more
active, men's less so (Mather et al., 2010 m 508 c 490).
Psychoneuroimmunology
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Sternberg, 2009: The nervous and endocrine systems have an
immense effect on the immune system. Fig. 38.4( m 509 c 491)
An imbalanced immune system can err in two directions: if it is
too strong, it will attack the body's own tissues; if too weak, it
will allow dormant viruses or cancer cells to multiply.
Pido-Lopez, 2001: Women have stronger immune systems
than men, but this very strength makes them more vulnerable
to self-attacking diseases, such as lupus and multiple
sclerosis.(m 510 c 492)
Kiecolt-Glaser, 2005: Surgical wounds heal more slowly in
stressed people.(m 510 c 492)
Pedersen et al., 2010: Stressed people are more vulnerable to
colds.(m 510 c 492)
Stress & Cancer
Negative Stress does not create cancer cells; but a weakened
immune system may not have enough lymphocytes,
macrophages, and killer cells to fight off a metastasizing cell
cluster.
Sklar & Anisman, 1981: Rats exposed to uncontrollable stress
(electric shocks) had weakened immune systems, and
developed cancer(m 512 c 494).
The stress cancer link is questionable in humans: in a large
Swedish study, the risk of colon cancer was 5.5 times greater in
people with a history of workplace stress. (Courtney et al,. 1993
m 512 c 494).
But...concentration camp survivors did not exhibit elevated cancer
rates.
Stress & Heart Disease
Friedman & Ulmer, 1984: tested the idea that stress increases
vulnerability to heart disease by measuring the blood
cholesterol level and clotting speed of 40 tax accountants at
different times of the year. At tax time, their serum cholesterol
levels had risen to dangerous levels( m 512 c 494).
This study created the pop psychology definitions of Type A and
Type B behaviour.
The correlation between Type A behaviour and heart disease is
negative emotions, especially anger, even if suppressed.
(Kupper & Denollet, 2007). During 'combat ready anger', the
liver doesn't work as usual, such that fats and cholesterol are
not removed from the blood(m 513 c 495).
Bunde & Suls, 2006: Hostility correlates with other risk factors,
such as smoking, drinking and obesity (m 513 c495). Use this
reference for your long essay
Stress & Heart Disease
Kubzansky et al., 2001: Fig. 38.6 Pessimism in men doubled their
risk of heart disease over a ten-year period (m 513 c 495).
Wulsin et al., 1999: Depression substantially increases the risk of
death, especially death by unnatural causes and heart disease
(m 514 c 496).
Frasure-Smith & Lesperance, 2005: In the years following a heart
attack, people with high scores for depression are four times
more likely than their low-scoring counterparts to develop
further heart problems (m 514 c 496).
Miller & Blackwell, 2006: Research suggests that heart disease
and depression may both result when chronic stress triggers
persistent inflammation. Fig. 38.7 (m 514 c 496)
Cole et al., 2010: There appears to be a molecular mechanism by
which stress activates genes that control heart inflammation.(m
514 c 496)
Promoting Health
Connor-Smith & Flachbart, 2007: When challenged, some of us
respond with cool problem-focused coping, others with emotionfocused coping.(m 517 c 498)
This leads to perceived locus of control (Weiss, 1977). Fig. 39.1.
The executive rat at the left can switch off the tail shock by
turning the wheel. Because it has control over the shock, it is no
more likely to develop ulcers than the unshocked control rat at
the right. The subordinate rat in the center receives the same
shocks as the executive rat, but with no control over the shocks.
It is more likely to develop ulcers.(m 517 c 498 f 12.30)
Sapolsky, 2005: When rats cannot control shock (or humans
unable to control their environment) stress hormone levels rise,
blood pressure increases, and immune reponses drop. High
economic status predicts a lower risk of heart and respiratory
diseases. (m 518 c 499)
Social Support
Graham et al., 2006: Social support calms us, reducing blood
pressure and the release of stress hormones ( m 519 c 500).
Coan et al., 2006: The fMRI -electric ankle shock--handholding
experiment. While awaiting occasional shocks, women holding
their husband's hand showed less activity in threat-response
areas (m 519 c 500).
Cohen et al., 2004: Social support fosters stronger immune
functioning. Healthy volunteers inhaled nasal drops laden with a
cold virus, quarantined and observed for five days (m 519 c
500).
Age, race, sex, smoking and other health habits being equal, those
with the most social ties were least likely to catch a cold.
Lieberman et al., 2007: Talking about a stressful event can
temporarily arouse us, but in the long run it calms us, by
calming limbic system activity.(m 520 c 501)
Aerobic Exercise
Aerobic exercise is sustained, oxygen consuming exercise that
increases heart rate and lung capacity (aka cardiovascular).
Anaerobic exercise increases muscle fibre density and mass
(weights).
Ford, 2002: Aerobic exercise helps to fight heart disease by
strengthening the heart, increasing bloodflow, keeping blood
vessels open, and lowering both blood pressure and blood
pressure reaction to stress (m 521 c 502).
Aerobic exercise makes the muscles hungry for fats, that if not
used by the muscles, contribute to clogged arteries.
Kramer & Erickson, 2007: Regular exercise in later life predicts
better cognitive functioning and reduced risk of dementia and
Alzheimer's(m 521 c 502).
In modern inactive humans, muscle cells genes produce lower
quantities of proteins. Susceptibility increases.
Aerobic Exercise
McCann & Holmes, 1984: Fig. 39.2 One classic experiment
randomly assigned mildly depressed female college students to
three groups: (1) aerobics; (2) yoga & pilates; (3) a nontreatment group. Ten weeks laters, the women in the aerobic
exercise program reported the greatest decrease in
depression.(m 522 c 503 f 12.31)
Salmon, 2001: Aerobic exercise acts as an antidepressant drug. It
increases the levels of norepinephrine, serotonin, and the
endorphins. (m 523 c 504)
Nestoriuc et al., 2008: Simple relaxation procedures can alleviate
headaches, hypertension, anxiety and insomnia.(m 523 c 504)
Fig. 39.3 Recurrent heart attacks and life-style modification. Those
patients who were guided in modifying their Type-A life-style
suffered fewer repeat heart attacks.(m 524 c 505)
Meditation
Tibetan Buddhists and Franciscan nuns report a diminished sense
of self, space, and time. Brain scans reveal the neural footprints
of such spiritual feelings. A part of the parietal lobe that tracks
our location in space is less active than usual, and a frontal lobe
area involved in focused attention is more active. (Cahn &
Pohlich, 2006 m 524 c 505).
Davidson et al., 2003: Is this increased frontal lobe activity caused
by meditation or simply a correlation? Baseline scans of
volunteers brain activity were taken, then random assignment to
a control group or a mindfulness meditation group. This
group showed significantly more left-hemisphere activity after
the training, and also improved immune functioning (m 524 c
505).
Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Table 39.1(m 526 c 507)
Predictors of long life: Fig. 39.4 (m 527 c 508 f 12.33)