Stress and Stressors Management

Basic Definitions & Terminology of Stress

Stress – a demand placed beyond capabilities of mind & body

• Physiological response to a perceived threat

Yerkes-Dodson Principle – a certain amount of stress can be helpful and useful

Eustress – stress stemming from a positive experience

• college, interview, etc.

Distress – negative side of stress, surpasses our ability to cope

• failing a test, death, etc

Stressor – anything that causes stress

Acute stress – short term reaction to unexpected stress, within a few minutes the situation will resolve itself, no long term effects

Chronic stress – long term, continuous stress, doesn’t appear to let up, constantly something you have to deal with

• Comes with long term health effects: fatigue, poor mental and physical health.
• Your body can not handle the demands of what the stress is putting on you
  • bills, jobs, etc

Holistic Health – focuses on increasing our capabilities and capacities to manage stress and its effects

• Health is more than the absence of disease, we know now it is much more

Includes the following dimensions:

• Physical dimension
  
  
  Physical health: when everything in our body is working appropriately together.
  • Stress is a risk factor for some physical conditions. Stress can cause disease and illness & illness and disease can cause stress
  Intellectual dimension
  • Mental health refers to our ability to think, learn, analyze our situations. Impacts our ability to learn about stress, this is the first step needed to actually start dealing and preventing stress
  Emotional dimension
  • Emotional health refers to your feelings, this involves experiencing and appreciating your emotions. How well you cope with life in general
  spiritual dimension
  • Spiritual health refers to the spirits and values that guide you, help you make choices that are good vs. wrong. Believe their life has value and is good, believe they have a role in society
    • A lot of stress we experience can stem from being out of touch with our values and beliefs
  • Social Dimension
    • Social Health is our relationships, how well we can interact with others, self esteem, self efficacy

Nature vs. Nurture

• Natureà what genetically I was given
• Nurtureà What I’ve experienced

Stressors for college kids: Time management/personal expectations

Homeostasis à Process that our body works thru to maintain the stability of our internal environment, body wants to stay stable and balanced

• Will have to respond to the internal or external changes

Stress on effect homeostasis

• Fight or flightà stress response helps us respond, works to get body back to homeostasis. Physiological changes set in
• Rest or digest & Fight or flight
  • Your body can only be in one of these at a time

Frequency (of stress)à how often a trigger occurs to initiate the stress response

• Depending on how frequently we are trigger the stress response determines the long term health effects

Intensity (of stress) à how severe is that stress

Duration (of stress) à how long the bodies normal physiology is altered before return to homeostasis

• Duration is the most important factor to be concerned with

Disorders or Diseases of Arousal

Anything from the common cold to cancer, very broad spectrum. There is proven research that says we can get anything on this spectrum from the stress effects on homeostasis

Stress Management

Dealing with stress, look at your life, your activities, and identify where most of your stress comes from?

Stress management involves managing the battle among three elements:

Beliefs and thoughts – how we mentally construct our world

Form and behavior – how we physically manifest our thoughts and beliefs

Spiritual awareness – how tuned in we are to spiritual energy

Quieting the external environment
(through cognitive awareness of life events and lifestyle)

Quieting the internal environment
(through calming or relaxation response)

Using detrimental stress by-products
(through physical activity)

A major key to stress management is the ability to produce a relaxed state.

Relaxation training yields these effects:

Reduced mind chatter; fewer arousing memories and anticipations

Thoughts that produce peace and tranquility

Increased philosophical awareness

Autonomic Nervous System à responsible for involuntary systems, things we have no control over (Digestion, heartbeat, blood pressure, etc)

• Sympathetic Nervous System – responsible for initiating the fight or flight response, each time we have a stressor the sympathetic nervous system kicks in to help you survive.
  • Increase, stimulates everything
  • We only have to think of an emotion for this to happen
• Parasympathetic Nervous System – responsible for returning the body to homeostasis, works to promote relaxation, calm, store energy, repair or grow new tissues. The rest & digest response

Autonomic Nervous system activity controlled by the hypothalamus, located in the central portion of the brain. Chief portion of the brain that coordinates the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, almost like a sound board

• It will also send a message to your endocrine system

Hormones

• Adrenaline (epinephrine, norepinephrine) is produced in the adrenal glands, this is the first group of hormones that will be triggered and released directly into the blood stream. Made in from the adrenal medulla
• Cortisol also produced in the adrenal glands, it comes directly from the adrenal cortex
  • These hormones will flood every cell in your body with specific messages to prepare the body to fight or flight. Depending on what you need it will deliver, more speed, more strength, more eyesight, etc.

When some systems kick into overdrive some systems will alter, the body will reroute all of its resources to prioritized body functions for fight or flight

• Immune system suppression
• Blood vessel constriction
  • The only ones remaining dilated would be the ones that lead to the muscles that you will use to run or fight, blood will direct there mostly
• Reproductive and sexual systems will shut down
  • You body doesn’t see these as life sustaining systems, prioritizing them down in fight or flight
• Digestive system
  • Stops metabolizing food correctly
• Excretory system
  • Eliminating waste, wont have to use the bathroom as often
• Salivary dysfunction
  • Production slows down
• Pain perception