Presented to you by: Chloe Kenda TK

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

 Hans Selye was a Canadian scientist who studied stress for 40 years. After an unsuccessful desire to find new hormones in rats he became depressed. One day, he wondered if there was a nonspecific reaction of the body to any kind of damage.  To check his hypothesis, he studied animal’s reactions to various stressors like electric shock, surgical trauma, and immobilizing restraint.  The body’s adaptive response was general which is why he named his studies general adaptation syndrome.

 General adaptation syndrome (GAS) - Selye’s concept of the body’s adaptive response to stress in three stages- alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.  He saw three phases of people’s reactions and response to a stressful event:  Phase 1- someone experiences an alarm reaction due to the sudden activation of that person’s sympathetic nervous system. The heart rate increases at this stage.  Phase 2- resistance occurs here where someone’s temperature, blood pressure, and respiration remains high, and there is a sudden outpour of hormones released to maintain a state of readiness.  Phase 3- with exhaustion someone’s parasympathetic nervous system returned to its physiological state to normal. Here people are more vulnerable to illness or fall to death in some severe cases.

 Prolonged stress can produce physical deterioration. More people may die younger due to stress because DNA pieces (telomeres) get too short and the cell cannot divide so it eventually dies.  Stress causes heart conditions and emotional difficulties such as depression. Our bodies can remain ready for a challenge only so long before our resources are depleted and we are vulnerable do disease.

I. Measuring Stress Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe SRRS (social readjustment rating scale): Measures the changes in life Ex: -Selling a home -Changing jobs The greater the change the more LCU (life changing units: units of measurement for SRRS) assigned to that event Both negative and positive events receive LCU The higher you score on the SRRS the more likely you are to have a stress related disease

II. Other measurements of Stress Other tests have been designed to measure stress Take into account the perceptions the person perceives of a stressful event More accurate

Problem-Focused Coping Attempting to alleviate stress directly by changing the stressor or the way we interact with that stressor. EX: You get into an upsetting argument with your mom, and later talk things out with her in order to feel better. Emotion-Focused Coping Attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and attending to emotional needs related to one’s stress reaction. EX: Feeling stressed over project assignments and choosing to party to get them off of your mind.

 Why do we choose certain ways to cope? We often implement problem-focused coping when we feel a sense of control over a situation and think we can change the circumstances. We turn to emotion-focused coping when we believe that we cannot change a situation.

 GueE&context=C349d2ffADOEgsToPDskLWKSd fOzdWhW71iNyw2W2v GueE&context=C349d2ffADOEgsToPDskLWKSd fOzdWhW71iNyw2W2v