PSY340H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Hans Selye, Herpes Labialis, Health Psychology
Document Summary
When you"re stressed you dampen your immune system and can get cold sores. Health psychology is the integration of psychology and medicine. How you think and behave influencing your physiological well-being. How psychological and social variables affect health and illness. Health psychologists develop programs to reduce the levels of risk factors related to diseases. Hans selye developed the concept of stress as the nonspecific response of the body to demands to adjust to a wide range of changes. Stressors are the environmental events that cause an organism to adjust and display this nonspecific stress response. Circumstances that could lead to stress: catastrophes, major life events such as divorce, acculturative stress (stress of adapting to a new culture, traumatic events such as criminal victimization, hassles (accumulation of hassles) A set of symptoms that may follow deeply disturbing events. The symptoms include reliving the event, difficulty in concentrating, sleep disturbances, anxiety, and guilt.
