Stress Reactions

There are two features of the reaction to stress:
We react to stress as a whole- That is, stress usually produces both psychological and physiological reactions- not one or the other, but both. Several key aspects of the nervous system- the hypothalamus and the autonomic nervous system- control key aspects of both psychological functioning (emotions and motives) and body functioning, including the endocrine glands. It is through these joint systems that stress affects both our physical and psychological selves.

Our psychological and bodily reactions to stress are highly similar, whether the stress is physical or psychological. Although each source of stress evokes coping reactions that are specific to it ,a general reaction to all types of stress also occurs, based largely on the interlinked responses of the thalamus, the sympathetic nervous system, and the adrenal glands.

The General Adaptation Syndrome – GAS -:
According to the Canadian medical researcher Hans Selye, the body reacts in much the same general way to any threat, whether the threat is in the form of an infection, an injury, or a psychological stress  Regardless of the source of the stress, the body mobilizes its defenses to ward off the threat in a pattern referred to by Selye as the general adaptation syndrome. Three stages can be distinguished in this syndrome:

1-	Alarm reaction stage: The body's initial response to threat or other stress is to mobilize its stored resources. The sympathetic nervous system increases heart rate and blood pressure, diverts blood away from digestion and into the skeletal muscles, increases perspiration, and in other ways prepares the body for a physical struggle. The endocrine glands pump epinephrine and other hormones into the bloodstream that aid the actions of the autonomic nervous system and increases levels of blob sugar. This is sometimes referred to as the flight-or-flight reaction, as it prepares the body to either fight with the source of stress or run away from it. When the stress is intense or prolonged, these body changes give rise to conscious feelings of general muscle tens ion, stomachaches, headaches, and other feelings of ''sickness''. In the early stages of the GAS, it is often difficult to distinguish between the feelings associated with catching a cold, being under psychological stress, or even falling in love, because anything that causes an alarm reaction produces essentially the same response from the body. During the alarm reaction stage, the rapid mobilization of resources leaves the individual temporarily less resistant to the stress than originally. This state of affairs is quickly changed as the next stage is entered.

2-	Resistance stage: During this stage, the body resources have been fully mobilized, and resistance to the stress is high. This resistance is costly in terms of resources, however. If new stress (psychological or physical) is encountered, the body is less able to deal with it. In this way, psychological stress can leave the person more vulnerable to physical stress(disease), and vice versa. Moreover, if the stress continue, the individual's resources will eventually become depleted, leading to the third stage of the GAS.

3-	Exhaustion stage: If the stress continues, the individual's resources may become exhausted, and resistance to stress is lowered. In case of prolonged exposure to sever physical stress(such as intense cold), death can occur during the exhaustion stage. Psychological stress is rarely able to participate death, but it can severely disrupt body functioning. If a second stressor is encountered when the individual has already entered the GAS, the progress toward exhaustion is much more rapid. Keep in mind that, not all stressors overwhelm and exhaust the body; obviously we cope effectively with most stress, and that, emotional and other psychological reactions to stress follow roughly the same GAS pattern, sometimes resulting in ''emotional exhaustion'' when coping fail.

Positive and Negative Aspects of GAS;
-	GAS is the body's protective response to dangers, and without it, humans would be very frail creatures. GAS does its best work during emergencies.

-	The negative aspects of GAS result when there is prolonged, or sever stress, these negative complications may be physical or psychological, including atherosclerosis due to elevated levels of blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood-clotting factors and resulting eventually in cardiac disease, including heart attacks.

-	Prolonged stress and GAS reduces the effectiveness of the immune system resulting In increased susceptibility to physical illness including infections and even cancer. Stress and defected immune system results in psychological disorders such as depression.

Psychological reactions to stress:
-	The physiological reactions to stress are usually accompanied by psychological reactions. These changes primarily involves emotions, motivations, and cognitions. Under stress, we feel anxious, depressed, and irritable. In addition to change in appetite, body weight and decreased sexual interest. Cognitive changes occur as well, as difficulty in concentration ,and in thinking clearly.

Factors That Influence Reactions to Stress:
These factors affects individual differences in reaction to stress and include;
A-	Prior Experience With Stress:
Stress reactions are generally less sever when the individual has had    some prior experience with stress event, e.g. a soldier who is going into combat for the fourth time will usually be less stressed by it than a  soldier facing combat for the first time.
B-	Developmental Factors:
People are often quite different psychologically at different ages and levels of development. Understandably, then, the impact of stress is frequently rather different at different ages as well, e.g. depression was found more in younger widows and widowers than older, also the effect of sexual abuse is more on younger children than older.
C-	Predictability and Control:
In general, stress events are less stressful when they are predictable than when they are not, and they are less stressful when the individual perceives that he or she can exert some degree of control over stress.

D-	Social Support:
The magnitude of reactions to stress is considerably less for individuals with good social support from close friends and family members than for individuals with inadequate social support. It is not yet completely clear how social support functions to buffer us against stress, but having someone to talk to, receive advice from, and be cheered and reassured by, is an important factor determining our reactions to stress. Individuals with good social support are less likely to react to negative life events with depression, anxiety, and health problems, e.g. persons who learn that they are infected with AIDS virus, react with less anxiety, despair, and depression if they have good social support. The same is true in case of children who have been sexually abused.

One aspect of social support that has been studied experimentally is the opportunity to ''get it off your chest.'' The common belief that simple act of telling someone else about your troubles is good for, probably is correct.
Under some circumstances, the best'' social support'' comes from a trained psychotherapist.
Social support can also help us make stressful decisions and successfully follow through on those decisions, e.g. in the decision to stop smoking.

E-	Person Variables:
These are all characteristics of an individual that are relatively enduring, such as ways of thinking, beliefs, or physiological reactivity to stress. These personal characteristics or variables are also important in determining our responses to stress. Many personality theorists believe that the best way to understand behavior is to acknowledge that we are influenced by both the situations in which we find ourselves and some key characteristics we have as individuals.This view, referred to as person x situation interactionism.

In stress, it means that our reactions are partly determined by situation(the stressor, our social support, etc.) and partly determined by some of our personal characteristics(how we think about the stressor, how ''reactive'' our bodies are to stress, etc.).

Cognitive Factors in stress Reactions:
1-	 An important reason that different people react differently to the same stressor is that people think about these events differently. Some individuals appear more likely than others to interpret events in stress-provoking ways.
2-	Another cognitive characteristic that helps explain differences in reactions to stress is the different ways people have of dealing with information about the stressful event. 
Several researchers have found evidence of two different styles of processing information about stressors:- 
a-	 Sensitizers- actively seek out information and think about stressful events, whereas 
b-	Repressors- avoid information about their stressors and do not think about them, patients who try to find out everything about his physical symptoms ,seeking investigations and follow-up i.e. sensitizers while repressors avoid any reference to his illness, avoid investigations or re-consultations. In essence, repressors try to deny, even to themselves, that the problem exists. It is often harmful to repress stressful information.

The tendency to Procrastinate is closely linked to repressive cognitive style, e.g. college students who procrastinate a great deal report lower levels of stress and physical illness early in the college term but report much more stress and illness late in the term. Overall, procrastinators experience more illness and receive lower college grades, suggesting that it is a maladaptive methods of dealing with stress.

Emotional and personality characteristics in stress reactions:
In addition to cognitive factors, differences among individuals in their characteristic emotions and personalities prior to stress influence their reactions to stress. For example, children and teenagers who tend to be more anxious prior to earthquakes, hurricanes, and other stressful events are more likely to react to the stressor with increased fears and worries.

A personality characteristic that appears to be important in influencing the health consequences of stress has been termed the Type A personality. The classic work on Type A personality was done by Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman(1974). Two physicians who specialize in heart disease. They found that many of their heart disease patients, particularly young men aged 30 to 60, were often of the same type behaviorally. They were, serious, hard-driving, impatient, hostile individuals. This pattern of behavior they identified as type A personality. 

The following characteristics more specifically described Type A personality:
1-	Highly competitive, hard-driving, and ambitious in work, sports, and games.
2-	Works hurriedly, always rushing, has a sense of ''time urgency,'' and often does two things at once.
3-	Workaholic, takes little time off relaxation or vacation.
4-	Speaks loudly or ''explosively''
5-	Perfectionistic and demanding.
6-	Hostile, aggressive, and frequently angry with others.

Friedman and Rosenman found a high association between this personality type and coronary heart disease – more than twice compared with normal. This high risk of coronary heart disease could be explained by the fact of the reaction to continuous stress in such personality type leading to increase blood flow to skeletal muscles and increased secretion of adrenaline and noradrenalin lead to atherosclerosis as in GAS.
Coping With Stress:
People are not equally effective at coping with stress. Coping is either;
1)	Effective Coping:
Effective methods of coping include;
1-	Removing the Source of Stress:-
One effective way of dealing with stress is to remove the source of stress in our lives, in school, in work, or in marriage if this is feasible.
2-	Cognitive Coping:-
Our cognitions are intimately linked to our reactions to stressful events. One effective method of coping, then, might be to change how we think about—or interpret—the events that push and shove our lives. Finding an interpretation that is realistic and minimizes the stress of the events of our lives is a key part of coping with stress. This method has been found helpful in traumatic illness such as in women undergoing surgery for breast cancer.
Two cognitive strategies for coping as a self-help approach, that is –imagining a positive outcome compared with – imagining the steps involved in successful coping. The last method was found more effective as when experienced with college students.
3-	Managing Stress Reactions:-
When the source of stress cannot be realistically be removed or changed, another effective option is to manage our psychological and physiological reactions to the stress, e.g. in using relaxing activities, as aerobic exercises, hobbies or time with friends. Another strategy would be to seek special training from a psychologist in controlling the body reactions to stress by learning to deeply relax the large body muscles.
 Psychological counseling that encourages all three methods of effective coping has even been successful in changing Type A behavior    pattern.

2)	Ineffective Coping:
Unfortunately, many of our efforts to cope with stress are ineffective. They may provide temporary relief from the discomfort produced by stress but do little to provide a long- term solution and may even make matters worse. Three common, but ineffective, coping strategies are as follows:

1-	Withdrawal:-
Sometimes we deal with stress by withdrawing from it. As in college students who withdraw from facing difficult courses by engaging in game play, using telephone, partying and so on.
2-	Aggression:-
A common reaction to frustration and other stressful situations is aggression.
3-	 Defense mechanisms:-
           According to Freud, one of the key functions of the ego is to ''defend''        the person from a buildup of uncomfortable tension. When something stressful occurs (such as frustration or embarrassment) or when conflict arises because the superego blocks an id desire, tension is created that must be discharged somehow. Freud believed that the ego possesses a small arsenal of defense mechanisms that are consciously used to discharge tension. When they are not overused, defense mechanisms can be a relatively harmless crutch to a healthy personality—all of us used them to some extent. Unfortunately, many individuals rely too heavily on defense mechanisms. The major defense mechanisms include: Displacement, Sublimation, Projection, Reaction formation, Regression, Rationalization, Repression, Denial, Intellectualization.
Defense mechanisms can be effective in the short run in helping us feel better, but they inhibit long-term solutions to stress if they distort reality to a great extent.

Changing Health –Related Behavior Patterns: 			
A major goal of health psychology is to prevent health problems by helping individuals modify behaviors that create health risks through strategies such as learning to relax, not smoking or abusing other substances, and exercising and eating properly.
1-	Learning to Relax:
    Progressive relaxation training- it is a method of learning to deeply relax        the large muscles of the body.
2-	Eating right, Exercising and Follow Medical Instruction: 
Including;
a.	Improved Eating Habits;
b.	Regular Aerobic Exercise;
c.	Medical Compliance;