Stress & Health

1. Stress & Health • Stress is the process of appraising and responding to a threatening or challenging event. • Fig. 38.1: The events of our life flow through a psychological filter. How we appraise an event influences how much stress we experience and how effectively we respond. (m 505 c f12.22 487) • Segerstrom, 2007: A momentary stress can mobilize the immune system to fend off infections and heal wounds.(m 505 c 487) • Landauer & Whiting, 1979: Some stress early in life is conducive to later emotional resilience. Adversity can beget growth.(m 505 c 487) • Repetti et al., 2002: Children who suffer severe or prolonged abuse are later at risk of chronic disease.(m 505 c 487) • Boscarino, 1997: Vietnam war veterans suffered greatly elevated rates of heart, lung and infectious diseases.( m505 c 487)

2. Stress & Health • Catastrophes (Greek for “against the dance of life”) are universally appraised as threatening. • Saulny, 2006: After Hurricane Katrina in 2004, New Orlean's suicide rate reportedly tripled.( m 505 c 488) • Marovizky & Samid, 2008: Those who are forced to relocate have twofold stresors. In the first half-year, before their morale begins to rebound, newcomers often experience culture shock and deteriorating well-being.(m 506 c 488) • Newport & Pelham, 2009: Fig. 38.2: a survey of 650,000 Americans during 2008 and 2009 found daily stress highest among young adults, women consistently higher than men.( m 506 c 488 f 12.23) • Kaprio et al., 1987: A Finnish study of 96,000 widowed people found death-risk doubled in the week after their partner's death.(m 506 c 488)

3. The Stress Response System • Fight or Flight: Cannon, 1929: Extreme cold, lack of oxygen, and emotion-arousing events all trigger an outpouring of the stress hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine from the core of the adrenal glands. • On orders from the cerebral cortex via the hypothalamus and pituiatary gland, the outer part of the adrenal glands secrets glucocorticoid stress hormones such as cortisol. • Epinephrine jumps into action; cortisol helps to plan strategies. (Sapolsky, 2003 m 507 c489 ). • Selye, 1976: Fig. 38.3: The General Adaptation Syndrome, a three-phase system.(m 508 c 480) • Although the human body adapts well to temporary stress, prolonged stress can damage it.

4. Effects of Long-Term Stress • Under prolonged stress, the brain's production of new neural connections slows and some neural circuits degenerate. (Dias-Ferreria et al., 2009 m 508 c 490) • Telomere shortening--a normal part of the aging process-- occurs here. Even fearful, easily stressed rats die sooner (600 days) than their more confident siblings (700 days) (Cavigelli & McClintock, 2003 m 508 c 490). • A common response to such stressors is tend-and-befriend. (Taylor et al., 2006) Women more often respond to stress by nurturing and banding together (m 508 c 490). • This may be due to oxytocin, a stress-moderating hormone associated with pair-bonding in animals and released by cuddling, massage, and breast-feeding (Campbell 2010 m 508 c 490). • Under stress, womens' face-processing centres become more active, men's less so (Mather et al., 2010 m 508 c 490).

5. Psychoneuroimmunology • Sternberg, 2009: The nervous and endocrine systems have an immense effect on the immune system. Fig. 38.4( m 509 c 491) • An imbalanced immune system can err in two directions: if it is too strong, it will attack the body's own tissues; if too weak, it will allow dormant viruses or cancer cells to multiply. • Pido-Lopez, 2001: Women have stronger immune systems than men, but this very strength makes them more vulnerable to self-attacking diseases, such as lupus and multiple sclerosis.(m 510 c 492) • Kiecolt-Glaser, 2005: Surgical wounds heal more slowly in stressed people.(m 510 c 492) • Pedersen et al., 2010: Stressed people are more vulnerable to colds.(m 510 c 492)

6. Stress & Cancer Negative Stress does not create cancer cells; but a weakened immune system may not have enough lymphocytes, macrophages, and killer cells to fight off a metastasizing cell cluster. Sklar & Anisman, 1981: Rats exposed to uncontrollable stress (electric shocks) had weakened immune systems, and developed cancer(m 512 c 494). The stress cancer link is questionable in humans: in a large Swedish study, the risk of colon cancer was 5.5 times greater in people with a history of workplace stress. (Courtney et al,. 1993 m 512 c 494). But...concentration camp survivors did not exhibit elevated cancer rates.

7. Stress & Heart Disease Friedman & Ulmer, 1984: tested the idea that stress increases vulnerability to heart disease by measuring the blood cholesterol level and clotting speed of 40 tax accountants at different times of the year. At tax time, their serum cholesterol levels had risen to dangerous levels( m 512 c 494). This study created the pop psychology definitions of Type A and Type B behaviour. The correlation between Type A behaviour and heart disease is negative emotions, especially anger, even if suppressed. (Kupper & Denollet, 2007). During 'combat ready anger', the liver doesn't work as usual, such that fats and cholesterol are not removed from the blood(m 513 c 495). Bunde & Suls, 2006: Hostility correlates with other risk factors, such as smoking, drinking and obesity (m 513 c495). Use this reference for your long essay

8. Stress & Heart Disease Kubzansky et al., 2001: Fig. 38.6 Pessimism in men doubled their risk of heart disease over a ten-year period (m 513 c 495). Wulsin et al., 1999: Depression substantially increases the risk of death, especially death by unnatural causes and heart disease (m 514 c 496). Frasure-Smith & Lesperance, 2005: In the years following a heart attack, people with high scores for depression are four times more likely than their low-scoring counterparts to develop further heart problems (m 514 c 496). Miller & Blackwell, 2006: Research suggests that heart disease and depression may both result when chronic stress triggers persistent inflammation. Fig. 38.7 (m 514 c 496) Cole et al., 2010: There appears to be a molecular mechanism by which stress activates genes that control heart inflammation.(m 514 c 496)

9. Promoting Health Connor-Smith & Flachbart, 2007: When challenged, some of us respond with cool problem-focused coping, others with emotion-focused coping.(m 517 c 498) This leads to perceived locus of control (Weiss, 1977). Fig. 39.1. The executive rat at the left can switch off the tail shock by turning the wheel. Because it has control over the shock, it is no more likely to develop ulcers than the unshocked control rat at the right. The subordinate rat in the center receives the same shocks as the executive rat, but with no control over the shocks. It is more likely to develop ulcers.(m 517 c 498 f 12.30) Sapolsky, 2005: When rats cannot control shock (or humans unable to control their environment) stress hormone levels rise, blood pressure increases, and immune reponses drop. High economic status predicts a lower risk of heart and respiratory diseases. (m 518 c 499)

10. Social Support Graham et al., 2006: Social support calms us, reducing blood pressure and the release of stress hormones ( m 519 c 500). Coan et al., 2006: The fMRI -electric ankle shock--handholding experiment. While awaiting occasional shocks, women holding their husband's hand showed less activity in threat-response areas (m 519 c 500). Cohen et al., 2004: Social support fosters stronger immune functioning. Healthy volunteers inhaled nasal drops laden with a cold virus, quarantined and observed for five days (m 519 c 500). Age, race, sex, smoking and other health habits being equal, those with the most social ties were least likely to catch a cold. Lieberman et al., 2007: Talking about a stressful event can temporarily arouse us, but in the long run it calms us, by calming limbic system activity.(m 520 c 501)

11. Aerobic Exercise Aerobic exercise is sustained, oxygen consuming exercise that increases heart rate and lung capacity (aka cardiovascular). Anaerobic exercise increases muscle fibre density and mass (weights). Ford, 2002: Aerobic exercise helps to fight heart disease by strengthening the heart, increasing bloodflow, keeping blood vessels open, and lowering both blood pressure and blood pressure reaction to stress (m 521 c 502). Aerobic exercise makes the muscles hungry for fats, that if not used by the muscles, contribute to clogged arteries. Kramer & Erickson, 2007: Regular exercise in later life predicts better cognitive functioning and reduced risk of dementia and Alzheimer's(m 521 c 502). In modern inactive humans, muscle cells genes produce lower quantities of proteins. Susceptibility increases.

12. Aerobic Exercise McCann & Holmes, 1984: Fig. 39.2 One classic experiment randomly assigned mildly depressed female college students to three groups: (1) aerobics; (2) yoga & pilates; (3) a non-treatment group. Ten weeks laters, the women in the aerobic exercise program reported the greatest decrease in depression.(m 522 c 503 f 12.31) Salmon, 2001: Aerobic exercise acts as an antidepressant drug. It increases the levels of norepinephrine, serotonin, and the endorphins. (m 523 c 504) Nestoriuc et al., 2008: Simple relaxation procedures can alleviate headaches, hypertension, anxiety and insomnia.(m 523 c 504) Fig. 39.3 Recurrent heart attacks and life-style modification. Those patients who were guided in modifying their Type-A life-style suffered fewer repeat heart attacks.(m 524 c 505)

13. Meditation Tibetan Buddhists and Franciscan nuns report a diminished sense of self, space, and time. Brain scans reveal the neural footprints of such spiritual feelings. A part of the parietal lobe that tracks our location in space is less active than usual, and a frontal lobe area involved in focused attention is more active. (Cahn & Pohlich, 2006 m 524 c 505). Davidson et al., 2003: Is this increased frontal lobe activity caused by meditation or simply a correlation? Baseline scans of volunteers brain activity were taken, then random assignment to a control group or a mindfulness meditation group. This group showed significantly more left-hemisphere activity after the training, and also improved immune functioning (m 524 c 505). Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Table 39.1(m 526 c 507) Predictors of long life: Fig. 39.4 (m 527 c 508 f 12.33)