Lesson 13: Health Psychology

Attention


Do you sometimes feel like this too?

“I’M SOO S-T-R-E-S-S-E-D OUT”  We’ve all said it or heard it a million times, but what does it mean physiologically to be “stressed?”  How does the connection between mind and body determine our behavior?

In Module 21, we will take a closer look at “Health Psychology” and explore the physiological reasons for anxiety,  panic attacks, phobias and how illness impacts mental well being. 

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:

  • Apply the theory of Cognitive Behavior Therapy to an anxiety or health issue
  • Explain "good stress"

Teaching

Then and Now

In the past, the leading causes of death were related to disease associated with infections and viruses. Modern medicine has largely put this to rest. So what is killing us now?

If you compare the leading causes of death in 1900 vs 2000 you will see that we are now meeting our ends through our BEHAVIOR rather than by CATCHING something (like a disease). Psychology is becoming more central to the notion of health than ever before.

Healthy Behaviors

According to the Center for Disease Control the following are the recommendations for a longer life:

  • Avoid excessive alcohol use
  • Avoid tobacco
  • Improve nutrition
  • Engage in physical activity

Stress and Health

We hear a lot about the relationship between stress and health. According to the American Psychological Association, the following are the factors associated with stress and health:

  • Stress is a natural reaction to threat. Threats invoke the "flight or fight" response and elevate heart rate, blood pressure, and chemicals in our blood.
  • Chronic stress can place the flight or fight response to "on" all the time.
  • Chronic stress makes stress management difficult through irrational thinking:
    • Awfulizing
    • Catastrophic
    • Always/Never
  • What you can do about it:
    • Identify what is causing you stress.
    • Build strong relationships.
    • Walk away when you are angry.
    • Rest your mind.
    • Get help.

Time Management

We are all given 24 hours each day to get what we need to get done completed. Everyone from a small child in Kindergarten to a corporate executive. There are "busy" people and there are not-so-busy people...but I'm referring here more to the PERCEPTION of how busy someone is rather than simply how active someone is. If someone FEELS that they are busy, then for them, they are.

So if we have a LOT to accomplish and a LOT we want to get done over time we need to develop skills on how to manage our time so that we can get it all done.

One of the MYTHS associated with coming to college is that people can add "taking classes" to their life and simply "fit it in" with all the other things going on.

For some this may be true...if they are particularly intelligent or simply "good" at school, then it doesn't take them much effort to add school to their lives simply because they don't have to study a lot...sadly this is NOT true for the majority of students.

As you add things to your life you need to become more and more skilled at balancing your time, committing time in your day to get specific tasks completed, and further committed to taking steps to keep yourself happy and relatively stress free...to take care of yourself.

Take a look at this document on Effective Time Management

This small article asks you to look at how you ACTUALLY use your time...you will need to do a time log to get a real sense of this. How can you use the time you have more effectively? How can you "create" or free-up more time? What are your distractions?

Time Analysis Sheet (Use this sheet to see how you are using your time...you might be surprised!)

Styles of Dealing with Conflict

  • Avoidance
    • Ignore it and it will go away
  • Accommodation
    • Tendency to please people and worry about approval
  • Domination
    • Going to any lengths to "win"
  • Compromise
    • Meeting "half way", agreeing to disagree, however, it is prone to manipulation
  • Integration
    • Finding solutions to please both partners

Stress Management

The first thing that you have to understand about Stress is that it is not a BAD thing! Stress is a major motivator and if you didn't HAVE to get some things done you would never get to them.

The issue with stress is the same with time..."management". You are going to be under pressure to perform for most of your life, events will happen that are out of your control, you will be faced with making difficult decisions...all of these are facts of life...how we DEAL with them is a major component of our success in life.

The field of Psychology deals deeply with issues around Stress and Stress Management. I've outlined below some basic concepts and thoughts about Stress Management

Stress Management Program

Uses a variety of strategies to reduce anxiety, fear and stressful experiences.

  • Changing Thoughts
    • Negative self-statements vs. Positive self-statements
      • The thoughts and expectations that you have are self-fullfilling....if you think you are unskilled at something or you are going to fail, then you are probably right
      • If you change the way you THINK about something you will likely change the way you ACT
    • Rational Emotional Behavior Therapy
      • REBT was developed by Albert Ellis and remains a powerful model for understanding the irrational ways that we think and get ourselves in stressful trouble.
      • Click HERE to visit a great site that describes Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy very well
  • Changing Behaviors
    • Emotion Focused Coping
      • Emotions are a form of behavior...although they sometimes feel like they are automatic we do have some degree of control over them.
      • We can make cognitive effort to change the quality of the emotions that we feel under certain circumstances.
    • Behavior Focused Coping
      • This is where behavior planning comes in.
      • Behaviorism was developed to provide people with the tools to change their overt behaviors by rewarding the behaviors they want to have and punishing (or at least not rewarding) the behaviors that they do not want to have
      • Developing concrete personal behavior plans is a skill well worth developing.
  • Changing Physiological Responses
    • Biofeedback
    • Progressive Relaxation
      • Progressive relaxation is a process of slowly entering a relaxed state of mind...simply, a vacation of sorts from the stressors of the day.
      • This takes practice so it is important that you be patient with yourself.
      • Some people experience relaxation through listening to music, engaging in hobbies, etc.
    • Meditation
      • Meditation is a deeper form of relaxation that often requires that you modify the environment that you are doing it in
      • It is not good to meditate in a chaotic environment
      • Yoga and Prayer are examples of meditation from vastly different cultural contexts, but both can have the same far-reaching beneficial effects.

Factors Associated with Anxiety

  • Hardiness
  • A combination of three personality traits, control, commitment and challenge, that buffer us form harmful effects of stress
  • Locus of Control
  • Optimism vs. Pessimism
  • Social Support

Assessment

Potential Class Discussion - Otherwise ignore this material

Discuss how you might do a better job in managing your own stress. Be specific about what you do now and offer each other ideas as to how might improve your stress management. Remember to relate this to the information above!

Potential Class Discussion - Otherwise ignore this material

What is “good stress?”  How can stress motivate us to succeed? Provide personal examples of how stress has positively impacted your life.