Class – XII Psychology Meeting Life Challenges-Notes VL

STRESS

CHAPTER AT A GLANCE
Stress is the process that occurs in response to situations or events. (stressors) that
disrupt our physical or psychological functioning.
The General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) first reported by Hans Selye, describes how are
bodies to react to the effects of stress and include 3 distinct stages: alarm, resistance and
exhaustion.
Stressors can be major life events, such as death of spouse or daily hassles of everyday life,
such as receiving a minor traffic ticket or having to wait in line at a grocery store.
Sources of work related stress include work overload and under load, role conflict and
performance appraisals. Even relatively low levels of stress may interfere with task
performance.
Prolonged exposure to high levels of stress may lead to illness. Regular, moderately
intense exercise promotes both physical and psychological health.
Stress is like electricity. It gives energy, increases human arousal and affects performance.
However, if the electric current is too high, it can fuse bulbs, damage appliances, etc. High
stress too can produce unpleasant effects and cause our performance to deteriorate.
Conversely, too little stress may cause one to feel somewhat listless and low on motivation
which may lead us to perform slowly and less efficiently

STRESS: The pattern of responses an organism makes to stimulus event that disturbs the
equilibrium and exceeds a person’s ability to cope.

 All challenges, problems and difficult circumstances put us to stress.

STRESSORS: Events that cause stress

 Different stressors produce different patterns of stress reactions. Individuals have
different modes of response.
 Can be external such as environment (noise, air , pollution), social ( break up with a
friend, loneliness) or psychological (conflict, frustration) within the individual.
TYPES OF STRESS
1. Eustress: level of stress that is good for you and is one of the person’s best assets for
achieving performance and managing minor crisis .Helps enhance performance, drives you,
is good for you
2. Distress: Too much stress, can’t be managed, may lead to breakdown. It is latter
manifestation of stress that causes our body’s wear and tear.
 Stress is derived from the Latin word, stringere (tighten) and strictus (tight/narrow)
 These root words reflect the internal feelings of tightness and constriction of the muscles
and breathing reported by many people under stress. Stress is often explained in terms of
Characteristics of the environment that are disruptive to the individual.

STRAIN: Reaction to external stressors.

NATURE OF STRESS:
 HANS SELYE: Father of modern stress research.
 Stress- the non specific response to any demand that is regardless of the cause of the
threat ,the individual will respond with the same physiological pattern of reactions.
 Non specific response
 Regardless of cause, physiological reaction is the same.
 Many researchers do not agree with this definition as they feel that the stress response is not
nearly as general and non- specific as Selye suggests.

LAZARUS AND COLLEAGUES:

 Disagreed with Hans S
 Said stress response differs from individual depending on the appraisal and perception.
 Stress is not a factor that resides in the individual or the environment, instead it is
embedded in an ongoing process that involves individuals transacting with their social
and cultural environments, making appraisals of those encounters and attempting to cope
with the issues that arise. Stress is a dynamic mental/cognitive state. It is a disruption in
homeostasis or an imbalance that gives rise to a requirement for resolution of that
imbalance or restoration of homeostasis.

COGNITIVE theory of stress: using thought process

 How we respond depends on APPRAISAL.
 An individual's response to a stressful situation largely depends upon the perceived
 events and hoe they are interpreted or appraised
 Lazarus has distinguished between two types of appraisals.-
 Primary appraisal and Secondary appraisal

Appraisal

Primary Secondary

Negative Positive

Secondary
  Primary appraisal: Perception of a new environment- positive, negative or neutral in its
consequences.
 Negative-
 Harm: Assessment of the damage that has already been done by an event
 Threat: Assessment of possible future damage that may be bought by the change
 Challenge: Confident expectations of the ability to cope with the stressful event, potential to
overcome and even profit from the event.
 Suppose a non-stop heavy rain suddenly pours at your place. You might think that the
heavy rain is not important, since you don’t have any plans of going somewhere today.
Or, you might say that the heavy rain is good, because now you don’t have to wake up
early and go to school since classes are suspended. Or, you might see the heavy rain as
stressful because you have scheduled a group outing with your friends.
 After answering these two questions, the second part of primary cognitive appraisal is
to classify whether the stressor or the situation is a threat, a challenge or a harm-loss.
When you see the stressor as a threat, you view it as something that will cause future
harm, such as failure in exams or getting fired from job. When you look at it as a
challenge, you develop a positive stress response because you expect the stressor to
lead you to a higher class ranking, or a better employment.
 On the other hand, seeing the stressor as a “harm-loss” means that the damage has
already been experiences, such as when a person underwent a recent leg amputation,
or encountered a car accident

 Secondary appraisal: Is done with an event is perceived as stressful.

 Is assessment of whether one’s coping abilities and skills and if they’ll be enough to meet
harm/threat/challenge of event
 Resources may be mental, physical, social or personal.
 If one thinks they have the positive attitude, health, skills and social support to deal with
the crises, the person will feel less stressed
 Two level appraisal process determines cognitive, behavioral, emotional and physiological
responses .
 Secondary appraisals involve those feelings related to dealing with the stressor or the stress it
produces. Uttering statements like, “I can do it if I do my best”, and “If this way fails, I can
always try another method” indicates positive secondary appraisal.
 In contrast to these, statements like, “I can’t do it, I know I will fail”, “I will not do it because
no one believes I can” and, “I won’t try because my chances are low indicate negative
secondary appraisal.
 Although primary and secondary appraisals are often a result of an encounter with a stressor,
stress doesn’t always happen with cognitive appraisal

 FACTORS THAT DETERMINE SECONDARY APPRAISAL

 PAST EXPERIENCE: If one has handled similar situations well in the past, they would be
perceived as less threatening
 CONTROLLABLE: Whether one has mastery or control over the situation- A person who
believes that they can control the onset/consequences of a negative situation will experience
less amount of stress.- Self efficacy and confidence determines whether the person will
view a situation as a challenge or threat.
  DIMENSIONS of STRESSORS vary in terms of:
Effects on stress
 Intensity (low intensity vs high intensity)
 Duration (short term vs long term)
 Complexity (less complex vs more complex)
 Predictability (unexpected vs predictable)
Intense, prolonged, complex and unexpected stressors have more
negative consequences.
 INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS
 Physiological: People with poor health, weak constitution are more
vulnerable
 Cultural: Expected response style, determines meaning of event
 Psychological: Mental health, temperament, self concept are relevant to
the experience of stress
 RESOURCES OF A PERSON:
 Physical: Money, food, shelter
 Personal: coping style, social skills etc
 Social: support network
 STRESS REACTIONS
 Physiological:
 Hypothalamus initiates actions along two pathways
 First pathway involves autonomic nervous system
 Adrenal gland releases catecholamines (epinephrine and
norepinephrine)→leads to fight or flight response
 Second pathway involves pituitary gland which secretes corticosteroid
(cortisol) which provides energy
 Cognitive
 Inability to concentrate- Lower attention
 Intrusive , repetitive or morbid thoughts
 Poor decision making
 Forgetfulness
 Emotional: Aggression, withdrawal, irritation, sadness, anxiety, helplessness, fear ,
embarrassment , depression or denial
 Behavioural – virtually limitless
 Can be fight (confront stressor) or flight (withdraw from threatening event, keep
to self).
 To deal may stop eating, use cigarettes, alcohol, drugs

SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF STRESS

 Response to stress varies depending upon personality of an individual. Every person
has his or her own pattern of stress response.
 Warning signs of stress vary from individual to individual depending upon intensity.
 Physical symptoms of stress can be paloitation or sweating, emotional symptoms can
be confusion and irritability which are manifested in behavioral symptoms such as
withdrawal or restlessness
 If any of these symptoms are left unresolved, they may lead to suicide, burn out, a
psychological disorder or a medical disease.

TYPES OF STRESSORS:
 Environmental and physical: Physical stressors cause changes in our body’s state
(include sleep deprivation, lack of nutritious food, over exertion, injuries).
Environmental stressors are caused by air pollution, noise, heat of the summer,
 winter cold or disasters such as fire, floods, crowding and natural disasters such as
earthquake, floods, draughts ,land slides ,volcanic eruption etc. They’re
unavoidable
 Social: Induced externally, result from our interaction with others. Eg: strained
relationships, trouble with Neighbours, d. These results from interaction with
other people such as death or illness in the family.. for example attending a
party can be stressful for a person who is introvert and staying at for the
person who is party lover.
 Psychological: Internal sources of stress , personal and unique. We generate ourselves
in mind .
 Frustration: Obstacle blocking path to goal achievement. Causes of frustration
social discrimination, interpersonal hurt ,low grades in school etc.
 Conflict: Choosing between two or more incompatible goals. Eg: Study
psychology or dance. There may be a conflict of values when you are
pressurized to take any action that may be against the value held by
you.
 Internal pressures: putting pressure on self, unrealistically high expectations
from ourselves which only lead to disappointment . May of us drive ourselves
ruthlessly towards achieving unrealistic goals.
 Social pressures: Are external, from people who make excessive demands
from us, include when we interact with people with whom we face
interpersonal difficulties. Eg: peer pressure, pressure to get into college
(Social stressors include broken relationships, divorce- stress from your
relationships etc and external pressures include pressure that teachers, peers,
parents put on us)

SOURCES OF STRESSORS
 1. Life events: Major life events are stressful because they disturb our routine and
cause upheaval. May be planned (moving to a new house) or unpredicted (break up
of a long term relationship). Numerous changes in a short period of time→ difficult
to cope with them and prone to the symptoms of stress.
2. Hassles: Personal stresses we endure as individual due to daily happenings. Eg:
traffic jams, noisy surroundings, quarrelsome, neighbours , water shortage, electricity.
In some jobs, daily hassles are high, may not even be noticeable by outsiders and one
coping alone with them. More stress due to daily hassles→ poorer psychological well
being
3. Traumatic events: Extreme events such as fire, earthquake, robbery, road accident,
tsunami. Effects may occur after some lapse of time as symptoms of anxiety,
flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, and dreams. Severe trauma may strain relationships.
Professional help will be needed to help cope.

EFFECTS OF STRESS:

1. Emotional: Mood swings, erratic behaviour- may lead to alienation, decreasing

confidence leading to more serious emotional problems, suffer from anxiety,
depression, or increased physical tension and psychological tension
2. Physiological: Adrenaline and cortisol production increases. Changes in heart
rate, blood pressure, metabolism, physical activity, release of epinephrine and
noepinephrine, slowing down of the digestive systems, expansion of air passages
in the lungs , increased heart rate, and constriction of blood vessels. This physical
reaction will help us to function more effectively when we are under pressure for
short period of time but it can be extremely damaging to the body in the long term
effects.
3. Cognitive: Mental overload, faulty decisions, poor concentration, reduced short
term memory
4. Behavioural: Eat less nutritional food, increase intake of stimulants including
caffeine, cigarettes, alcohol, other drugs such as tranquillizers. Transquizillers
can be addictive and have side effects such as loss of concentration .disturbed
seep patterns, increased absenteeism, reduced work performance and disrupted
sleep patterns, poor coordination and dizziness.
GENERAL ADAPTATION SYNDROME
 Given by Hans Selye
 Studied influence of prolonged stress on our body by subjecting animals to stressors such
as high temperature, x – rays , insulin injections in the laboratory over a long period of
time.
 He also observed patients with various injuries and illness in hospitals. Noticed similar
pattern of bodily response – called – general adaptation syndrome (GAS)
 Three stages:
1. Alarm reaction
2. Resistance
3. Exhaustion
 Alarm reaction: Presence of a stressors leads to activation of adrenal-pituitary-cortex
system. This Triggers release of hormones producing stress response. Now Individual
is ready for fight or flight
 Resistance: If stress is prolonged, resistance begins. Parasympathetic nervous system
calls for more cautious use of body’s resources in which Organism makes effort to deal
with the threat through confrontation.
 Exhaustion: Body is drained of its resources after sustained exposure to stressor, leads
to exhaustion. physiological systems in alarm reaction and resistance become
ineffective, susceptibility to stress related diseases such as high BP increases. May lead
to burnout- fainting, breakdown, fever, eruptions. Lead to psychosomatic ailments
(heart disease, asthmatic attacks)

 Criticism: Very limited role to psychological factors in stress. Psychological researchers

have reported that psychological appraisal of events is important for the determination of
stress.

STRESS AND HEALTH

 Stress may lead to stomach ache, body aches, nausea, diarrhoea, fever
 Chronic daily stress can divert individual attention from caring for herself and himself.
 When stress is prolonged, it affects physical health and impairs psychological
functioning.
 Exhaustion and attitudinal problems when stress is high, constraints are high and
resources are low and little support is available from family and friends
 Chronic fatigue, weakness and low energy- Physical exhaustion
 Irritabilty, anxiety, helplessness, hopelessness- Mental exhaustion
 BURNOUT: State of physical, emotional and psychological exhaustion
 Affects immunity system and increase the chances of someone becoming I’ll.
 Increases chances of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and psychosomatic
disorders like asthma, ulcers, allergies, headaches
 50-70% of illness is stress related, 60% medical visits for stress related symptoms

STRESS AND THE IMMUNE SYSTEM

 Release of stress hormone results in weakening of our immune system thus affecting
mental and physical health. Weakened immune system has a serious effect on the
individual ‘s health.
 Immune system guards the body against attackers within and outside
 Excessive release of stress hormones affects immune system
 Stress impairs working of immune system
 Psychoneuroimmunology: link between mind, brain and immune system. It studies
the effects of stress on the immune system.
 Leucocytes (white blood cells) identify and destroy antigens (foreign bodies) such
as viruses
 Also leads to the production of antibodies
 Leucocytes are of three types:
1. T cells: T cells destroy invaders and T-helper cells increase immunological
activity. T helper cells are attacked by HIV leading to AIDS
2. B cells: Produce antibodies
3. Natural killer cells: Involved in fight against tumour and viruses
 Stress affects natural killer cell cytotoxicity (defence against infections and viruses)
which is of Major importance in the defence against various infections and cancer.
 Reduced levels of cytotoxicity have been found in stressed people including
people facing important exams, bereaved people and severely depressed people.
 Individuals with social support have better immune functioning
 People with already weakened systems are affected more
 Psychological stress is accompanied by negative emotions and associated behaviours
like Depression, hostility, anger and aggression accompany stress
 Psychological disorders increase with long term stress- prone to panic attacks,
obsessive behaviour, mood swings, phobias, depression, anger
  Feeling of hopelessness- worsening disease, increased risk of injury and death
 Worries may surface as a frightening, painful physical sensations

STRESS AND IMPACT ON LIFESTYLE

 Lifestyle is the overall pattern of decisions and behaviour that determine
a person’s health and quality of life.
 Stressed individuals are more likely to expose themselves to pathogens (agents
causing physical sickness)
 Poor nutritional habits, sleep less and engage in smoking and drinking
 Have long term risks
 Health promoting behaviour like having a balanced diet, regular sleep schedule,
exercise, family support helps
 Fast paced lifestyle, drinking, eating junk affects our health negatively

COPING WITH STRESS

Coping is a dynamic situation-specific response to stress.
 Concrete responses intend to resolve the problem and reduce stress
 Coping depends on rigid deep seated beliefs based on experience
 To manage stress- reassess way we think, learn coping strategies
 Individual differences in coping strategies
1. Lazarus and Folkman: Conceptualized coping as dynamic process instead of an
individual trait.
 Coping refers to Constantly changing cognitive ad behavioural efforts to master,
reduce or tolerate the internal or external demands that are created by stressful
interactions
 Allows individual to manage or alter a probem and regulate emotional response
 According them, coping responses were of two types:
 Problem focussed:
 Attack the problem itself with behaviours designed to gain information, to
alter the event and to alter beliefs and commitments
 Increases person’s awareness, level of knowledge and range of
behavioural and cognitive coping options
 Act to reduce threat value of event
 Eg: I made a plan of action and followed it
 Emotion-focussed:
 Psychological changes designed to limit the degree of emotional disruption
caused by an event with minimal effort to alter the event itself .
 Eg: I did some things and let it out of my system.
2. Endler and Parker:
 Task oriented strategy:
 Obtaining information about the stressful situation and about alternative
courses of action and their probable outcome
 Involves deciding priorities and acting as to deal with directly with the
stressful situation
  Eg: Schedule my time better, think about how I’ve solved similar
problems

 This involves using alternative courses of action for coping.

 Emotion oriented strategy:
 One’s efforts to maintain hope and efforts to control ones emotions
 Involving venting feelings of anger and frustration
 Deciding that nothing can be done to change things
 Eg: worrying about what I’m going to do.
 Avoidance-oriented strategy:
 Denying or minimizing the seriousness of the situation
 Involves conscious suppression of stressful thoughts, replacement by
self protective thoughts
 Eg: Watching Tv/talking to a friend instead of studying

STRESS MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES

Stress is a silent killer. It is estimated to play a significant role in physical illness and disease.
Hypertension, heart disease, ulcers, diabetes and even cancer are linked to stress. Due to
lifestyle changes stress is on the increase. Therefore institutions are concerned about knowing
techniques to manage stress.

1. Relaxation techniques:
 Reduces stress symptoms and decreases incidences of stress related illness like
heart disease and high BP
 Relaxation starts from lower part to the facial muscles in such a way that the
body can be relaxed.
 Accompanied by deep breathing- calm minds, relax bodies
2. Exercise:
 Active outlet for physiological arousal experienced due to stress
 Exercise improves heart efficiency, improves lung function, maintains good
circulation, reduces BP, reduces fat and improves immune system
 Swimming, walking, running, cycling helps reduce stress
 4 times a week, 30 minutes a time minimum
 Warm up, exercise and cooldown phases
3. Biofeedback
 Procedure to monitor and reduce physiological aspects of stress by providing
feedback about current physiological activity and often accompanied by
relaxation training
 Three stages:
a) Developing an awareness of the particular physiological response (eg: heart
rate)
b) Learning ways to control that physiological response in quiet conditions
c) Transferring that control into the conditions of everyday life
4. Meditation procedures
 Involves a sequence of learned techniques for refocusing attention that brings
about an altered state of consciousness
 Through deep concentration, mediator becomes unaware of any
outside stimulation and reaches a different state of consciousness
5. Cognitive behavioural techniques
 Stress inoculation training- by Meichenbaum
 Replace negative and irrational thoughts with positive rational thoughts
 Three main phases:
 a) Assessment: discussing nature of problem, eeing it from viewpoint of
person/client
b) Stress reduction techniques: learning techniques of reducing stress such
as relaxation, stress reduction
c) Application+ follow through
6. Creative visualisation:
 Subjective experience that uses imagery and imagination
 Before visualising- set a realistic goal as it helps build confidence
 Easier to visualize if one’s mind is quiet, body relaxed, and eyes are
closed
 This reduces risk of interference from unbidden thoughts and provides
creative energy to turn imagined scene into reality.

PROMOTING POSITIVE HEALTH AND WELLBEING

 Many people sail through and rebuild their lives positively
 Have constructive attitudes and emotional and social support
 Need to manage these pressures+ use energy to create something positive-more stress fit for
future crises

Stress resistant personality:

 Given by Kobasa
 People with high levels of stress but low levels of illness share three
characteristics which are referred to as personality traits of hardiness
 Hardiness is set of beliefs of ones self, environment and their interaction
 Three Cs
 Commitment: Personal commitment, commitment to work, family,
hobbies, social life
 Control: Control over life, have sense of purpose and direction
 Challenge: See changes as normal and positive rather than as a threat
Since all of us don’t have these characteristics, we relearn specific life skills instead to cope
with demands of everyday life
LIFE SKILLS
 Abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to
deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life
 Ability to cope depends on how well we’re prepared to deal with everyday
demands and maintain equilibrium
 Can be learnt and improved upon
1. Assertiveness:
 Behaviour or skill that helps to communicate, clearly and confidently
our feelings, needs, wants and thoughts
 Ability to say no to a request, state opinions without being self conscious, or to
express emotions such as love, anger etc openly
  Assertive- confident, high self esteem, solid sense of your identity
2. Time management
 Learning how to plan and delegate time relieves pressure and organizing our
life
 Way you spend time- determines quality of life
 To reduce time stress- change one perception of time
 Spend time doing things you value/help you achieve goals
 Depends on being realistic about what you know, understanding it must be
done in a time frame and knowing what you want to do- have to find a
balance
3. Rational thinking
 Stress related problems: result of distorted thinking
 Way you think and way you feel is connected
 When stressed, we have inbuilt bias to attent to negative thoughts and images
from the past which affects our perception of the past and future
 Principles of rational thinking:
i. Challenging distorted thinking and irrational beliefs
ii. Driving out potentially intrusive negative anxiety provoking thoughts
iii. Making positive statements
4. Improving relationships
 Communication is essential
 Need to avoid jealousy+ sulking behaviour
 Three skills:
i. Listening to what the other person has to say
ii. Expressing how you feel and what you think
iii. Accepting others opinions and beliefs even if they differ from ours
5. Self care
 Must keep ourselves healthy, fit and relaxed to deal with stressors
 Breathing patterns- reflect our state of mind- stressed and anxious: rapid and
shallow breathing from high in chest with frequent sighs, relaxed breathing:
slow, stomach-centred breathing from diaphragm
 Environmental stressors like noise, pollution, space, light exert an influence on
our mood
6. Overcoming unhelpful habits
 Includes perfectionism, avoidance, procrastination etc
 Perfectionists: have to get everything just right, have difficulty in varying
standards according to factors like time, effort needed, consequences of
not being able to stop work
 Find it difficult to relax, v critical of themselves and others, may be inclined to
avoid challenges
 Avoidance: push issue under carpet and refuse to accept it or face it
 Procrastination: putting off what we need to do- are actually avoiding
confronting their fears of failure of rejection

POSITIVE HEALTH
 Health is not just absence of disease, but is physical, mental, social and spiritual
well being
 Positive health comprises of:
i. Healthy body
ii. High quality of personal relationships
iii. Sense of purpose in life
iv. Mastery of life’s tasks
v. Resilience to stress, trauma and change

Factors that facilitate positive heath and act as stress buffers:

1. Diet:
 Balanced diet improves one’s mood, gives energy, feeds muscles,
improves circulation, prevents illness, strengthens the immune system and
makes one better cope to deal with stresses
 Eat three main meals
 Eat a varied well balanced diet
 Nutrition: depends on activity level, genetic makeup, cimate, health history
 What people eat and how much they weigh- depends on behavioural
processes
 When stressed- we seek comfort foods- high in fat, salt, sugar
2. Exercise:
 Regular exercise- manages weight and stress-positive effect on reducing
tension anxiety, depression
 Stretching exercises (yogic asanas) and aerobic exercise such as jogging,
swimming, cycling are essential
 Stretching: calming effect, aerobic activity: increases arousal level of body
 Health benefits of exercise: works as stress buffer, can maintain mental
and physical health being even in face of negative life events
3. Positive attitude:
 Factors leading to positive attitude-
 Accurate perception of reality
 Sense of purpose in life and responsibility
 Acceptance and tolerance for different viewpoints
 Taking credit for success and accepting blame for failure
 Open to new ideas
 Sense of humour- ability to laugh at ourselves- helps us remain centred
and see things in a proper light
4. Positive thinking:
 Optimism-linked to psychological and physical well being
 Optimists assume that adversity can be handled successfully whereas
pessimists anticipate disasters
 Optimists: problem focussed coping strategies, seek advice and help
from others
  Pessimists ignore the problem- may give up goal with which stress is
interfering or deny stress exists
5. Social support: Existence and availability of people we can rely on, people who
let us know they care/value/love us.
 Someone who believes that they belong to a social network of
communications and mutual obligations experiences social
support
 Perceived support: quality of social support is positively related to health
and well being
 Social network: quantity of social support is unrelated to well being,
because its time consuming and demanding to maintain a large social
network
 Provides protection against stress, help people cope with stress
 Eg: Women who experienced life stresses and had a close friend, were
less likely to be depressed
 Reduces psychological distress like depression and anxiety- linked to
psychological well being
 Mental health benefits for giver and receiver
Types of social support:
i. Tangible support: involves material support- money, goods, services Eg: Providing
financial support to cope with a crisis
ii. Informational support: Eg- If a student is about to face a stressful exam and his
friend (who has given the exam before) provides him with information, he would be
able to identify procedure, resources and coping strategies that could be used to
successfully pass the exam
iii. Emotional support: Reassuring individual they are valued, loved and cared for.