3. STRESS: WHAT IS IT?
• ALTHOUGH WE ALL TALK ABOUT STRESS, IT OFTEN ISN’T
CLEAR WHAT STRESS IS REALLY ABOUT.
• MANY PEOPLE CONSIDER STRESS TO BE SOMETHING THAT
HAPPENS TO THEM, AS A NEGATIVE EVENT SUCH AS AN
INJURY OR A JOB LOSS. OTHERS THINK THAT STRESS IS
WHAT HAPPENS TO OUR BODY, MIND, AND BEHAVIOR IN
RESPONSE TO AN EVENT (E.G. HEART THUMPING, ANXIETY,
OR NAIL BITING).
4.
5. STRESS & STRESSOR
• STRESS : A PERSON’S RESPONSE TO EVENTS
THAT
ARE THREATENING OR
CHALLENGING.
• STRESSOR : A STIMULUS THAT CAUSES
STRESS
8. COPING WITH STRESS
• EFFORTS TO CONTROL, REDUCE, OR LEARN TO TOLERATE
THE THREATS THAT LEAD TO STRESS ARE KNOWN AS
COPING.
• WE HABITUALLY USE CERTAIN COPING RESPONSES TO DEAL
WITH STRESS.
Usually Health psychologists investigate the effects of psychological factors such as stress on illness. They examine the psychological principles underlying treatments for disease and illness. They also study prevention: how healthier behavior can help people avoid and reduce health problems such as stress and heart disease.
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When something happens to us, we automatically evaluate the situation mentally. We decide if it is threatening to us, how we need to deal with the situation, and what skills we can use. If we decide that the demands of the situation outweigh the skills we have, then we label the situation as “stressful” and react with the classic “stress response.”
Additionally, not all situations that are labeled “stressful” are negative. The birth of a child, being promoted at work, or moving to a new home may not be perceived as threatening. However, we may feel that situations are “stressful” because we don’t feel fully prepared to deal with them.
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Stress is a normal part of life—and not necessarily a completely bad part. For example, without stress, we might not be sufficiently motivated to complete the activities we need to accomplish. However, it is also clear that too much stress can effect on physical and psychological health.
The efforts to control, reduce, tor learn o tolerate the threats that lead to stress are known as coping. We habitually use certain coping responses to deal with stress.
Most of the time, we’re not aware of these responses—just as we may be unaware of the minor stressors of life until they build up to harmful levels.
We also have other, more direct and potentially more positive ways of coping with stress, which fall into two main categories
1. Emotion-focused coping
2. Problem-focused coping
In emotion-focused coping people try to become less emotionally reactive to the stressors they face, For example: Drug therapy can be seen as emotion focused coping as it focuses on the arousal caused by stress not the problem.
Another example is, a person can control his/her anger via emotion focused coping.
2. Problem-focused coping is the category of coping strategies that change stressful situations and it aim to remove or reduce the cause of the stressor, For
example: Starting a study group to improve poor classroom performance.
Another example is, taking a day off from caring for a relative with a serious, chronic illness to go a health club or spa can bring significant relief from stress.