Myers

1
Myers PSYCHOLOGY (5th Ed)

• Chapter 17
• Stress and Health
• James A. McCubbin, PhD
• Clemson University
• Worth Publishers

2
Stress and Health

• Behavioral Medicine
• interdisciplinary field that integrates
  behavioral and medical knowledge and applies that
  knowledge to health and disease
• Health Psychology
• subfield of psychology that provides psychologys
  contribution to behavioral medicine

3
Stress and Health

• Leading causes of death in the US in 1900 and 1991

4
What is Stress?

• Stress
• the process by which we perceive and respond to
  certain events, called stressors, that we
  appraise as threatening or challenging

5
(No Transcript)
6
What is Stress?

• General Adaptation Syndrome
• Selyes concept of the bodys adaptive response
  to stress as composed of three stages

7
Stressful Life Events

• Catastrophic Events
• earthquakes, combat stress, floods
• Life Changes
• death of a loved one, divorce, loss of job,
  promotion
• Daily Hassles
• rush hour traffic, long lines, job stress,
  burnout
• Perceived Control
• loss of control can increase stress hormones

8
Stress and Control

• Animal studies of control and helplessness

9
What is Stress?

• Burnout
• physical, emotional and mental exhaustion brought
  on by persistent job-related stress
• Coronary Heart Disease
• clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart
  muscle
• leading cause of death in the United States

10
Stress Coronary Heart Disease
11
Stress Coronary Heart Disease

• Type A
• Friedman and Rosenmans term for people who are
  competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally
  aggressive, anger-prone
• Type B
• Friedman and Rosenmans term for easygoing,
  relaxed people

12
Stress and Disease

• Psychosomatic Disease
• psychologically caused physical symptoms
• Psychophysiological Illness
• mind-body illness
• any stress-related physical illness
• distinct from hypochondriasis misinterpreting
  normal physical sensations as symptoms of a
  disease

13
Stress and Disease

• Lymphocytes
• two types of white blood cells that are part of
  the bodys immune system
• B lymphocytes form in the bone marrow and release
  antibodies that fight bacterial infections
• T lymphocytes form in the thymus and, among other
  duties, attack cancer cells, viruses and foreign
  substances

14
Stress and Disease

• Conditioning of immune suppression

15
Stress and Disease

• Negative emotions and health-related consequences

16
Promoting Health

• Aerobic Exercise
• sustained exercise that increases heart vand lung
  fitness
• may also alleviate depression and anxiety

17
Promoting Health

• Biofeedback
• system for electronically recording, amplifying,
  and feeding back information regarding a subtle
  physiological state
• blood pressure
• muscle tension

Patient observes
18
Promoting Health

• Modifying Type A life-style can reduce recurrence
  of heart attacks

19
(No Transcript)
20
Prevention

• 14 of US Gross Domestic Product is spent on
  health care
• 2/3 of organizations with gt50 employees have
  health promoting programs
• health assessments
• fitness training
• smoking cessation
• stress management

21
Prevention

• Prudentials experience with a fitness program
• reduced sick days by 20
• reduced medical costs by 46
• saved 1.93 for every dollar spent on health care

22
Smoking

• Some estimates show smoking kills about 20 loaded
  jumbo jets per day
• Smoking is a pediatric disease
• rebellious youth
• modeling behavior, social rewards
• targeted ad campaigns
• Why not quit?
• Nicotine delivery system

23
(No Transcript)
24
How to Quit

• Education
• eliminate the social reinforcement
• increase social support for quitting
• Cost
• tax it to shorten the time between behavior and
  punishment
• reduces smoking by 4 for every 10 increase in
  costs
• Nicotine Replacement- Patch Gum
• reduce pharmacological addiction
• then treat psychological addiction

25
Smoking Prevention

• Smoking has made a partial comeback among U.S.
  teens

26
Smoking Prevention

• Results of a smoking inoculation program

27
Weight Discrimination

• When women applicants were made to look
  overweight, subjects were less willing to hire

Willingness to hire scale (from1 definitely not
hire to 7 definitely hire)
28
Weight Control

• Effects of a severe diet

8 16 24 32
29
Weight Control

• Most lost weight is regained

30
Weight Control

• Obesity was more common among those who watched
  the most television