Stress and how it affects your mind and your body - Essay

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Chapter 3

The Science of Stress

Olpin/Hessen, Stress Management for Life: A Research-Based, Experiential Approach , Fourth Edition. © 2016 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

Key Questions

Why do I need to understand the science of stress? I just want to learn to relax.

What is the purpose of the fight-or-flight response?

What really happens in my body when I am feeling stress?

Is the physiological response to stress different in males and females?

Objectives

Describe the human fight-or-flight response

List the physiological changes associated with the stress response

Identify the stages of the general adaptation syndrome

Explain how the science of stress relates to stress management and prevention

The Science of Stress

Discovering what actually happens in your body and your mind will help you understand the mechanics behind the stress-prevention and stress-reduction skills

Knowledge of the science and theory of stress provides strong, credible support for why and how stress-management techniques work

Stress and the Big Bear

Why do we feel stress? What is its purpose?

Consider being out in the woods and encountering a large, hungry bear

After you recognize that the bear can harm you, what do you do?

Do you run, or do you stay and try to fight it off?

FYI: Men and Meat

Images of cooked meat make men calmer and less aggressive

Source: “Good Week for Carnivores,” The Week: The Best of the U.S. and International Media (10) (Dec.24, 2010–Jan.7, 2011): 4.

The Fight-or-Flight Response

Proposed by Walter Cannon to describe the body’s automatic response anytime we perceive a threat or danger

Designed to do one and only one thing:

Help us survive physical danger

The physiological and emotional limits at which the body functions efficiently and comfortably is referred to as homeostasis

Stress disrupts homeostasis

After stress, the body returns to homeostasis

The Fight-or-Flight Response Illustrated

FIGURE 3.1 Fight-or-Flight Response

Culture Connection: Tend-and-Befriend, Not Fight-or-Flight

Female responses to stress are characterized by a pattern of tend-and-befriend rather than fight-or-flight

This simultaneously maximizes the survival of self and offspring

Men and Women Respond Differently to Stress

Women respond to stress with brain chemicals that encourage them to bond with other women

Builds on the biobehavioral attachment–caregiving processes that depend in part on oxytocin, estrogen, and other sex-linked hormones

May partially explain why women live longer than men

Physiologic Responses to Stress

When the stress response is initiated, immediate and powerful changes come about because of the autonomic nervous system

The Two Branches of the ANS

Sympathetic nervous system (SNS)

Responsible for initiating the fight-or-flight response

Parasympathetic nervous system (PNS)

Designed to return the physiology to a state of homeostasis

The Hypothalamus

Autonomic nervous system is controlled by the hypothalamus, located in the diencephalon

Chief region for coordinating sympathetic and parasympathetic activities

Alarm system that delivers a message through the nervous system

Delivers a message to the endocrine system to initiate the secretion of hormones

Stress Hormones

Produced by the adrenal glands

Epinephrine and norepinephrine are released into the bloodstream from the adrenal medulla

Cortisol is released from the adrenal cortex

Autonomic nervous system responses

Effects of Stress on the Body

FIGURE 3.2 Effects of Stress on the Body

Source: The Effects of Stress on Body, Figure 3.2 in An Invitation to Health, 2009 “2010 Edition, by Dianne Hales, (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2009), p 60.

The Stress Response in Today’s World

The fight-or-flight emergency response is inappropriate in today’s social world

In the short term, we need to control our stress response to be effective in our daily life

In the long term, we need to keep it under control to avoid the consequences of burnout and poor health

Acute Stress

Helps us generate great strength, focus more clearly, increase our speed, and perform at a higher level

Lasts only 30 to 90 seconds

BUT, there are typically few acute threats in everyday life

FYI: Women’s Stress

In similar circumstances and at similar stages of life, women consistently report feeling more stress than men do

Women’s stress hormones and blood pressure, unlike those of men, tend to remain elevated at the end of the workday

Source: “Three for 2003: Reducing the Burden of Stress,” Harvard Women’s Health Watch, 10(5) 2003.

Chronic Stress (1 of 2)

When the stress response stays in the “on” position longer than necessary to escape danger, nearly all body processes are disrupted

Although stress is not listed among the top 10 causes of death in the United States, it is linked to many illnesses

Stress may not cause problems, but may contribute to problems

Chronic Stress (2 of 2)

FIGURE 3.3 Chronic Stress

General Adaptation Syndrome

History of the general adaptation syndrome

Developed by Hans Selye

Based on observations of the physiologic responses of rats to chronic stress

Selye theorized that the same pattern of changes occurs in the body in reaction to any kind of stress and that the pattern is what eventually leads to disease conditions

The Three Stages of Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome

FIGURE 3.4 The Three Stages of Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome

Source: General Adaptation Syndrome, Figure 3.1 in An Invitation to Health, by Dianne Hales (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning).

Alarm

Homeostasis is disrupted and body systems are activated

If the stress ceases, homeostasis is restored

Resistance

If the stressor continues, the body mobilizes its internal resources in an effort to return to a state of homeostasis

But because the perception of a threat still exists, the body does not achieve complete homeostasis

Exhaustion

If the stress continues long enough, the body can no longer function normally, organ systems may fail and the body breaks down in a variety of ways

Application of the General Adaptation Syndrome

As you prepare to take an exam, you experience an initial alarm reaction

If you understand the material, study for the exam, and do well (eustress), the body recovers and stress is dissipated

If you are not adequately prepared and fail the exam, you trigger the resistance stage and stay there until the next exam

If you continue to fail exams, you will eventually enter the exhaustion stage

The Stress Response and You

In thinking about your experience of stress, use the FIT formula

Frequency

How often is your stress response triggered?

Intensity

How severe or strong is your stress response when it is triggered?

Time or duration

How long is the stress response activated?

Time Tip

When you have a task you dread, start by doing it for just ten minutes

You can usually convince yourself to work on it for 10 minutes

If you continue past 10 minutes and finish the task, wonderful!

Otherwise, come back for another 10 minutes later

Five Myths about Stress (1-3)

In an ideal world, there would be no stress

Stress is not always bad for us

What is stressful to me is stressful to you

Stress is different for each of us

Only unpleasant situations are stressful

Change, whether positive or negative, is the key ingredient in causing stress

Five Myths about Stress (4-5)

No symptoms, no stress

Camouflaging symptoms with medications, other drugs, or alcohol may deprive you of the signals you need to begin reducing physiological and psychological stress

Stress is inevitable, so you can’t do anything about it

You can learn specific techniques that not only help you cope with stress, but actually prevent some stress from ever happening

Conclusion

Your body is designed to respond to acute stress in a predictable manner for one outcome—your survival

In today’s world, many of our challenges are not acute, physical challenges

Our stressors are primarily psychological and social

The stress response is not well suited to deal with these types of stressors

Lab 3-1 Fight-or-Flight – Part I

Review the immediate physiological effects of the fight-or-flight response

How would each of the physiological responses help ensure survival?

Write down a situation in which your life or the life of someone you know was really in danger

Describe how your body reacted in ways that are similar to those described with immediate activation of the stress response

Lab 3-1 Fight-or-Flight – Part II

Consider situations commonly viewed as stressful (listed in your text) and classify them as having or not having real physical threat

How do you explain the fact that you feel stressed in situations where there is no real danger involved?

What can you tell yourself to put the stressful event in perspective and keep your stress response in proportion to the actual risk?