CRM 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Hans Selye, Outline Of Health Sciences, Cortisol
Chapter 9 PHYSICAL DISORDERS AND HEALTH
PSYCHOLOGY
Physical Disorders and Health Psychology
• “Second revolution” in public health
o Shift from infectious disease to factors they can control to help them be healthier
• Behavioural medicine
o Health profession trying to apply behaviour science
o Conditioning and learning, life styles , different health style factors
• Health psychology
o Just psychology
Psychological and Social Factors That Influence Health
• Holmes‐Rahe Life Stress Inventory
o Types of life event stress source, if any of these stress happened to me, we score the
numerical values to the right. We add the values of all stress factors and get the stress
value I got.
o Even happy and good things in life can be stressful.
Stress:
• is simply a reaction to a stimulus that disturbs our physical or mental equilibrium.
• In other words, it's an omnipresent part of life.
• A stressful event can trigger the “fight-or-flight” response, causing hormones such as
adrenaline and cortisol to surge through the body.
How Do You Adapt/Cope With Stress?
• People adapt to or cope with stress in a variety of ways. Which of the following is
consistent with your style?
• In the face of stressful situations, I tend to ...
1. Take some kind of action to try to solve the problem
2. Try to strategize about possible actions to take
3. Make time to consider my options and do some planning
4. Make myself wait for an opportune or right time to do something about it
5. Find out what other people would do in a similar situation
6. Talk to and get emotional support from others about my problem
7. Try to focus on the positive aspects of what is happening
8. Accept what is happening and learn to live with it
9. Seek guidance from God or my higher power
10. Get upset and vent my emotions
11. Deny a problem exists and refuse to believe it is happening
12. Give up trying to get what I want
13. Try to take my mind off the problem by turning to work or other activities
14. Use alcohol or other drugs to avoid thinking about the problem
15. Indulge myself by means of food, drugs, spending money, etc.
Psychological and Social Factors That Influence Health
1. The nature of stress- short answer questions
• General adaptation syndrome (GAS)
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o Go through different phases when we are under stress
o Contributions to the stress response
o Theory of how stress looks like: Hans selye: stages
o 1. Alarm: stresser like exam. Pyshiology state is aroused: panic or shock.
▪ Increase BP. Fight or flight
▪ response to immediate danger or threat
▪ Immediately faced with some stressor
▪ Ex. You have to take a plane
▪ Physically hyped at that point
o 2. resistance: body fighting the stressor. Hormones increase affect
▪ we mobilize various coping mechanisms to respond to the stress.
▪ Body start to fight back
▪ Start to figure out how to cope with it
▪ Ex. Plane going smoothly, read magazine
▪ Still high heart rate, active body
▪ Over a period of time and that doesn’t go away enter
o 3. exhaustion: stress still continuous but body breaks down where cant stay at high
state of stress or we would die.
▪ the psychological state would affect the exhaustion if the stress is too intense
or lasts too long,
2. Contributions to the Stress Response
• stress is influenced by psychological and social factors
• chronic stress may inflict permanent bodily damage or contribute to disease
• Sapolsky: studied baboons - Baboons in Kenya – social hierarchy
o baboons arrange themselves in a social hierarchy with dominant members at the
top and submissive members at the bottom
o continual bullying from the dominant animals, and they have less access to food,
preferred resting places, and sexual partners
o levels of cortisol in the baboons as a function of their social rank in a dominance
hierarchy.
▪ Subordinate baboons – bullying, less access to food/resting places/sexual
partners
▪ Lower = less access to the good stuff (sexual access, food, safe place to
sleep, bullying)
o Greater levels of stress hormone ‐ cortisol
▪ Same in human
▪ Not a good thing, we don’t want too much
▪ Fertility issues, immune system = weakens
▪ Don’t want to have too much stress hormones
•
3. Stress, anxiety, depression, and excitement
• Break up = don’t feel good.
o Brain affected- activating effect of sympathetic nervous system- and parts get
activated related to cocaine addition (like to message ex)
o Chest pain: it feels like it hurts in the heart
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Psychological and social factors that influence health: holmes rahe life stress inventory, types of life event stress source, if any of these stress happened to me, we score the numerical values to the right. We add the values of all stress factors and get the stress value i got: even happy and good things in life can be stressful. Stress: is simply a reaction to a stimulus that disturbs our physical or mental equilibrium. In other words, it"s an omnipresent part of life: a stressful event can trigger the fight-or-flight response, causing hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol to surge through the body. How do you adapt/cope with stress: people adapt to or cope with stress in a variety of ways. Fight or flight response to immediate danger or threat. You have to take a plane: physically hyped at that point, 2. resistance: body fighting the stressor.