Stress

• Positive stress (eustress) motivates individuals towards achieving goals and enhances performance.
• Stress can be positive, negative, or neutral depending on how it affects an individual.
• The stress response is the body's reaction to perceived threats or challenges.
• Negative stress (distress) is associated with negative outcomes such as anxiety, depression, and physical health problems.
• During the alarm stage of the General Adaptation Syndrome, the body mobilizes its fight-or-flight response to deal with the stressor.
• The resistance stage is characterized by the body's attempt to cope with the ongoing stressor, with high levels of physiological arousal.
• Stress can be acute or chronic depending on the duration and intensity of exposure to stressors.
• The physiological response to stress involves the sympathetic nervous system and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis.
• Stress is the physiological and psychological experience of significant life events, trauma, and chronic strain that can negatively impact an individual's health.
• Health Psychology is an area of psychology focused on understanding how psychology and health intersect.
• Acute stress activates the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis, leading to increased heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, and muscle tension.
• General Adaptation Syndrome: A term created by Hans Selye to refer to the three distinct phases of physiological change that occur in response to long-term stress: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): A medical syndrome that includes symptoms of anxiety, sleeplessness, nightmares, and social withdrawal, often experienced by victims or witnesses of violence or abuse, natural disasters, major accidents, or war.
• HPA Axis: A physiological response to stress involving interactions among the hypothalamus, the pituitary, and the adrenal glands.
• Cortisol: A stress hormone that releases sugars into the blood, helping prepare the body to respond to threat.
• Emotion Regulation: The ability to successfully control our emotions, which is influenced by body chemicals, particularly the neurotransmitter serotonin.
• Serotonin: A neurotransmitter that influences emotion regulation. Low levels of serotonin are tied to violence and impulsiveness in humans.
• Tend-and-Befriend Response: A behavioral reaction to stress that involves activities designed to create social networks that provide protection from threats.
• Stressors: Events or conditions that cause individuals to feel stress.
• Coping is the process of managing stress and reducing its impacts on health and well-being.
• Adrenaline: A hormone that increases heart rate, blood pressure, and energy supplies during a stress response.
• Chronic Stress: A state of prolonged exposure to stressors, which can lead to various health issues. It is also a major contributor to heart disease and can lead to hypertension. .
• Problem-focused coping: involves actively addressing the stressor and finding solutions to manage the challenge.
• Emotion-focused coping: Emotion-focused coping involves managing the emotional response to a stressor rather than directly addressing the stressor itself.
• Anxiety: A state of intense apprehension, uncertainty, and fear resulting from anticipation of a threatening event or situation. It's one of the symptoms of PTSD.
• ACTH (Adrenocorticotropic Hormone): A hormone released by the pituitary gland in response to stress. ACTH triggers the adrenal glands to secrete more hormones, including epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol.
• Epinephrine and Norepinephrin: Hormones secreted by the adrenal glands in response to stress. They are part of the body's fight-or-flight response.
• Hypertension: Also known as high blood pressure, it's a condition that can lead to serious health complications, including heart disease.
• Oxytocin known as the "love hormone", it promotes affiliation and is triggered in women during a tend-and-befriend response to stress.
• DNA-Damage: Stress can cause damage to DNA, making it less able to repair wounds and respond to the genetic mutations that cause diseases.
• Hostility: A form of negative affect where individuals respond to stress with aggression or vengeance. This can lead to more negative health outcomes.
• Fight-or-Flight Response: An emotional and behavioral reaction to stress that increases readiness for action. This response is more likely to be activated in men.
• Negative Affect: Describes a variety of negative emotions, including anger, anxiety, fear, and sadness.
• Impulsiveness: A tendency to act without thinking the consequences. It's linked to low levels of serotonin.
• Psychosocial Factors: These are influences that affect a person psychologically or socially. Such factors might be examined by health psychologists to understand their relation to health and disease.
• The three key strengths that have been the focus of sustained research programs within positive psychology.

  1. Forgiveness
  2. Gratitude
  3. Humility
• Humility: the ability to acknowledge one’s mistakes, imperfections, gaps in knowledge, and limitations
• Forgiveness: willfully putting aside feelings of resentment toward someone who has committed a wrong, been unfair or hurtful, or otherwise harmed you in some way.
• Gratitude is a feeling of appreciation or thankfulness in response to receiving a benefit.
• Self-Efficacy is the belief that you have control over a situation can have better health outcomes and improved ability to cope with stress.