biological - cortisol and chronic stress

• What is chronic stress?

  Persistent stress, going through a divorce.
• What happens when the brain detects a stressor?


  Signals the adrenal glands to release cortisol.
• What is cortisol?

  A stress hormone

  
  

  Increases glucose in the bloodstream

  
  

  Enhances brain activity

  
  

  Repairs bodily tissues

  
  

  Cortisol also slows functions that aren't essential to fight or flight responses, supressing the immune system.
• What happens if you suffer from long term stress and overexposure to cortisol?

  Can disrupt all your body's processes, putting you at risk to health problems e.g. depression, heart disease, digestive problems.
• What does cortisol do?

  - a steroid hormone known as glucocorticoid

  - plays a role in central nervous system, involving learning and memory

  - when released in response to stress it lowers sensitivity to pain and releases glucose for energy, making us able to deal with ongoing stressor
• What is cortisol's effect on memory?

  Can impair memory.

  
  

  Kuhlmann; found ppts given cortisol showed significantly reduced recall of a list of words - mostly negative.
• What is cortisol's effects on health?

  Immunosupression;

  - during stress the immune system is shut down o divert energy to other areas of the body that needs it e.g. muscles.

  - cortisol achieves this by reducing inflammation caused by the immune response
• Evaluation - real world application

  A strength of this explanation is that stress has practical value.

  
  

  Addison's disease is a rare disorder of the adrenal glands, people with this cant produce cortisol so the body cant mobilse energy to deal with a stressor.

  
  

  The lack or cortisol in addisons disease can trigger life threatening addisonian crisis (mental confusion)

  
  

  To treat addisons disease hydrocortisone, to boost cortisol levels.
• Evaluation - Cognitive Appraisal

  Limitation - ignore psychological factors in stress, specifically cogntitve apprasial, working out whether a stressor is a threat.

  
  

  Speisman; asked students to watch a gruesome medical procedure on film with their heart rates being measured, the heart rates changed when interpreting whats happening during the film, if they believed the procedure to be traumatic they would have increased heart rate.