Ch. 5 Coping With And Reducing Stress

Front 1

Coping:

Back 1

process by which people try to manage the perceived discrepancy between the demands and the resources they appraise in a stressful situation

Front 2

Approaches could include:

Back 2

1. mastery

2. alter perception of discrepancy

3. tolerate the harm or threat

4. escape/avoid situation

Front 3

Coping with Stress x3 methods

Back 3

1. Emotion - Focused Coping

Controlling the emotional response to the stressful situation

-Behavioural approaches-alcohol

-Cognitive approaches-reframe

2. Problem - Focused Coping

Reducing the demands of a stressful situation or expanding the resources to deal with it

3. Relationship - Focused Coping

Emotion and or problem focused coping aimed at social relationships during stress

dyadic coping=working together

Front 4

Research to identify what coping methods can be measured accurately and relate to health outcomes: x4

slide 6, ... need to come back? read textbook

Back 4

1. Engaging Positive Emotions

-listen to music

2. Finding benefits or meaning

-mother dies from cancer, advocating or donating to research facilities

3. Engaging in Emotional Approach

-emotional expression i.e. venting

4. Accommodating to a stressor

-carry on with life, i.e. tendonitis

Front 5

Coping is stressor dependent! Why? x4

What are reasons why ppl cope differently

Back 5

1. People tend to be consistent in their coping approach -same problem : same response

2. People seldom use just 1 method to cope with stressors, variance

3. Methods may be different for acute vs chronic stressors

4. twin studies suggest genetics may influence coping strategy

Front 6

Do coping strategies change across the lifespan?

Back 6

Not a lot of longitudinal research

-Based on what we know about child development we assume they move towards cognitive approaches as these facilities develop

Front 7

Gender and Socio-cultural Differences in Coping

Back 7

If you control for occupation and education few genderdifferences in coping are found between men and woman

Societal gender roles may affect the coping patterns of men and woman

Front 8

Reducing the Potential for Stress x6 ways

Back 8

Enhancing Social Support

Managing Interpersonal Problems

Improving Ones Personal Control

Organizing Ones World Better

Exercising: Links to Stress and Health

Preparing for Stressful Events

Front 9

Enhancing Social Support

-Social Factors affecting social support x3

Back 9

Support - decreases negative thoughts (dwelling)

1. Sex -men have greater social circles but women utilize them more effectively

2. Age - elderly are isolated

3. Education, income, social prestige , lower these are, the lower their social network

Front 10

Managing Interpersonal Problems

Can be reduced by effective interpersonal behaviour: x3

Back 10

↑Assertiveness

↓Aggressiveness

↓Unassertiveness

assertive people assess stressors as challenges unassertive people assess stressors as threats

Front 11

Improving Ones Personal Control

how??

Back 11

Recall the concept of self efficacy - belief that you can control your situation

People with low levels of personal control and/or selfefficacy - tend to end up feeling helpless in the face ofadversity

Decreasing pessimism and increasing self efficacy isassociated with improved coping and better health outcomes

how?showing a child love, care, setting them up to succeed,,... but there's no strategies in relation to oneself.

Front 12

Organizing Ones World Better x3ways

Back 12

Stress often results from time pressure - feeling late, not enough hours in the day or small organizational glitches

Time management

1. setting goals that are attainable

2. making daily to do lists

3. setting a schedule for the day

Front 13

Exercising: Links to Stress and Health

Does exercise reduce the potential for stress and its effects onhealth? Why or why not x2

Back 13

People who exercise routinely report having less stress andbetter health - difficult to interpret

1. Placebo - people who exercise expect to feel better basedon popular report

2. correlation doesn't equal causation, i.e. simply running can bring your mind out of a stressful situation rather than the literal exercise

Front 14

Preparing for Stressful Events

Irving Janis (1958)

Back 14

need to prepare people for stressful events Surgery as an example:

1. Behavioural control - reduce discomfort via strength training , meditating

2. Cognitive control - focus on benefits rather than draw back of procedure

3. Informational control* - provide information on the procedure

Front 15

Reducing Stress Reactions:

Stress Management-definition

x5 +x6 subtypes

Back 15

program of behavioral or cognitive strategies designed to reduce psych or phys reactions to stress

- Medication

- Behavioural and Cognitive Methods
Sub-types:
Relaxation

Systematic Desensitization

Biofeedback

ModellingApproaches Focusing on Cognitive Processes

Multidimensional Approaches

- Massage

- Meditation

- Hypnosis

Front 16

Medication x4

Back 16

Generally pharmacological treatment requires a diagnosis - Peoplehaving problems coping with high levels of stress likely diagnosed anxious

1. SSRI - selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors-depression

2. Benzodiazepines-anxiety

3. Other antidepressants - Tricyclics or MAOI’s

4. Beta - blockers-anxiety

Front 17

Behavioural and Cognitive Methods: Relaxation

how

Back 17

Progressive Muscle Relaxation:-muscle tension is reduced if people focus on sensations asthey tense and relax individual groups of muscles

Muscle groups are done in sequence- For each muscle group - tense (10 sec) then relax (15 sec)- While paying attention to how the muscles feel- Repeat 2-3 times

Front 18

Behavioural and Cognitive Methods:

Systematic Desensitization

useful for what?
important feature?

Back 18

fear and anxiety

Based on assumption that fears are learned through classicalconditioning Fears can be “unlearned” by counterconditioning

-Pair feared situation with a pleasant or neutral event to elicit a calm response

Start with a stimulus hierarchy - the fear eliciting stimulus from lowest to highest

Can be imagined or symbolic (actual photos, videos, etc) Engage in relaxation techniques while presented with stimuli from the stimulus hierarchy starting at the bottom

Once person can handle that level of exposure calmly - move up to the next step in the hierarchy

Front 19

Behavioural and Cognitive Methods: Biofeedback

Back 19

Using monitoring equipment (heart rate or muscle tension) to report immediately back to the patient their physiological state

Using Operant conditioning gain voluntary control ofphysiological state.

-if blood pressure feedback from device shows reduction from a behavior, it reinforces the operation to the person to pattern it.

Front 20

Children may be better suited to biofeedback than adultsa cquire biofeedback control faster than adults x3

Back 20

1. More enthusiastic than adults

2. less skeptical in their ability to succeed

3. more likely to practice from being instructed vs. adult comply

Front 21

Behavioural and Cognitive Methods: Modelling

Back 21

People and especially children learn by observing

Modelling or observational learning can be used to teach a calm response to a feared situation

Front 22

Behavioural and Cognitive Methods: Cognitive Processes

Approaches? x3

Back 22

Cognitive Restructuring can be used to replace stress eliciting thoughts with constructive ones that reduce feelings of stress

Aim of cognitive therapy replace maladaptive anxiety elicitingthoughts and replace them with adaptive ones

Some approaches for this:

1. Hypothesis testing-challenge belief as a hypothesis .i.e. i'm ugly, think about times when people have said otherwise.

2. Problem solving training-teach someone how to identify, discover or event effective ways to solve a problem. Logic.

3. Stress Inoculation Training

Front 23

Common erroneous thought patterns that elicit stress x2ppl x2concepts

Back 23

Albert Ellis Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

1. can't stand itis

2. musterbating-people must like me

Aaron Beck Cognitive Therapy

1. Arbitrary inference-directing someone's negative attitude attributing it to yourself. Are you mad at me?

2. Magnification-exaggeration. i.e. split ends on hair.

Front 24

3. Stress Inoculation Training x3
**********study

Back 24

- Learn about the nature of stress and how people react to it

Acquire behavioural and cognitive skills to cope (social support, relaxation techniques)

Practice coping skills with actual or imagined stressors

Front 25

Behavioural and Cognitive Methods: MultidimensionalApproaches

expected pregnant mother example

Back 25

Most effective stress interventions usually employ multiple techniques They should also be tailored to the individual

stress management + group based social support + problem solving + education reduce risk of premature birth.

Front 26

Massage

may reduce:x5

Back 26

Not a lot of empirical study

anxiety

depression

hypertension

pain

asthma

Front 27

Meditation x2

Back 27

TM- focus
Increase the ability in the presence of a stressor to engage in a relaxation response

A means of improving physical and mental health and reducing stress

Promotes mindfulness: insight regarding ones experience unaltered by ones cognitive or emotional distortions

People who score high on measures of mindfulnessexperience less stress and better emotional adjustment