Chapter 3: Meeting Life Challenges

 INTRODUCTION
 Life challenges are faced by everyone, regardless of age or gender.
 These life challenges are of varied nature and degree, depending upon the situation and threshold of the individual.
 MEANING OF STRESS
 The word stress is originated from the Latin word ‘strictus’, meaning tight or narrow. These words basically talk about tightness of
muscle.
 Stress is a physical mental or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension. It is, typically, a response to a situation or event or
person.
 Stress disturbs the psychological stability of the person and reduces their functioning ability.
 Stress is a dynamic mental/cognitive state.
 There are two forms of stress:
 Eustress: the level of stress that serves as a motivation to achieve high success.
 Distress: the level of stress that is harmful and threatens the well-being of a person.
 Stressors: These are events or stimuli that cause our body stress. These may include, noise, crowing, conflict, frustration, etc.
 Strain: The reaction to external stressors, the effect of stressor on our body.
 NATURE, TYPES AND SOURCES OF STRESS
 Nature of Stress:
 Hans Selye defined stress as a non-specific response to an event or stimuli. He said that, despite the intensity or cause of
threat, the individual will respond in a specific pattern.
 However, many researchers challenged Selye and disregarded his definition. They stated that different stressors may
produce different stress reaction patterns.
 Every individual has their own perspectives and unique response style which is based often on their past experiences. They
perceive a situation and may react in a certain way that is different from any other individual.
 Cognitive Theory of Stress
 This theory was proposed by Lazarus and his colleagues. According to Lazarus, stress involves the production of stressors
by the environment and also response of the individual to these stressors.
 Cognitive appraisal is defined as the way in which an individual responds to an interprets stressors in life. There are two
types of appraisals:
 Primary Appraisal involves evaluating stress quality and identifying its harm and/or benefits. That is determining
if the stress is positive, negative or neutral.
 Secondary appraisal involves identification of strategies and resources available to an individual to cope with
stress. It includes assessment of one’s abilities and resources to cope or meet with stress.
 This appraisal determines our cognitive, behavioural, emotional and physiological responses.
 The appraisal are very subjective and depends on factors like:
 Past Experiences
 Controllable
 Reactions to Stress
 Physiological Reactions: Arousal plays a key role in stress related behaviours. This is the responsibility of the
hypothalamus, which initiates two reactions:
 Fight and Flight: This involves release of catecholamine into the blood by the adrenal gland. This initiates a
‘confront’ or ‘leave’ response in order to insure survival during the stress.
 Release of cortisol from the pituitary gland which provides energy.
 Emotional Reactions: Reactions include negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, embarrassment, anger, depression or
denial.
 Behavioural Reactions: They depend upon the nature of the stressful event and the individual’s perception of it. There can
be two behavioural occurrences:
 Fight : Confrontative action against the stressor.
 Flight: Withdrawal from the threatening event.
 Cognitive Reactions: This includes the beliefs about the harm the stressor may cause and the cause. The responses may
include, inability to concentrate, intrusive thoughts etc.
 Changes in Stress
 The stresses vary in the following four ways:
 Intensity (low vs. high)
 Duration (short-term vs. long-term)
 Complexity (less complex vs. more complex)
 Predictability (unexpected vs. predictable)
 The response to the stress depends upon these dimensions, it varies along these dimensions.
 Poor physical health may cause increased vulnerability.
 A person’s self-esteem, past experiences, temperament, coping mechanisms, resources available or social skills are relevant
to experience of stress.
 Signs and Symptoms of stress
 Everyone has their own experience of stress. Response depends upon one’s personality, past experiences and upbringing.
 The symptoms of stress can be physical, emotional and behavioural. Some of the few symptoms are:
 Exhaustion
 Trouble sleeping
 Racing heart
  Headaches or dizziness
 High blood pressure
 Muscle tension
 Types of stress
 There are three main types of stresses:
 Physical and Environmental stress:
 Physical stressors change the state of our body.
 It causes strain, when we overuse our physical body, lack nutrition or suffer an injury.
 Environmental stresses included the unavoidable aspects of our surroundings that cause stress. For
example: air pollution, crowding, noise, traffic, etc.
 Psychological Stress:
 These are internal sources of stress that are personal and unique. Some of the important sources are:
 Frustration – Blocking of needs and motives by someone or something. Some causes of
frustration such as social discrimination, hurt in a relationship, work demotion, etc.
 Conflict – It occurs between two or more incompatible needs or motives. Stress may occur
due to the conflict of values.
 Internal Pressure - This is caused by an high expectations from ourselves, i.e., unrealistically
high standards in achieving our goals.
 Social Pressure – This is caused by people who have put excessive demands and work
pressure.
 Social Stress:
 This is caused as a result of our interaction with other people externally.
 Examples of social stress – death in family, strained relationships, neighbourhood clashes, etc.
 Sources of Stress
 Stress is caused by events and conditions, such as; personal injury, death of a loved one, etc.
 Life Events –
 Life events are stressful since they disturbed the daily routine in a person’s life.
 If these events occur simultaneously within a short period of time, it caused stress.
 Hassles –
 These are individual stresses we experience in our daily life. Example – traffic, noise, neighbourhood
disturbances, electricity outage, etc.
 These hassles cause daily stress, more stress people face, poorer is their psychological well-being.
 Traumatic events –
 These are extreme events that cause huge damages (property, time, life, etc.).
 Events like, fire, accidents, earthquakes, cyclones, etc. are considered as traumatic life events.
 These events cause long terms effects that causes persist as anxiety, flashbacks, dreams, etc.
 EFFECTS OF STRESS ON PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONING AND HEALTH
 Effects of stress are physiological in nature. Four major effects are –
 Emotional Effects –
 Mood swings and erratic behaviour
 Decreasing confidence leading to emotional problems like anxiety, depression, physical tension, etc.
 Physiological effects –
 Stress increases the production of certain hormones, causing imbalance.
 Changes in heart rate, metabolism, etc.
 Cognitive effects –
 Mental overload.
 Loss of decision making abilities.
 Behavioural effects -
 Access caffeine intake, smoking, alcohol, etc.
 Eating less nutritious food, binge eating, etc.
 Disturbed sleep, reduced work performance, increased absenteeism.
 Stress and health
 Stress effects physical and psychological functioning.
 People experience, exhaustion, chronic fatigue, low energy and weakness.
 Mental exhaustion - irritability, anxiety, feeling of helplessness and hopelessness.
 Burnout – Over exertion, over use. Psychological, physical and emotional state of exhaustion.
 Stress is related to illness like, high blood pressure, ulcers, asthma or headaches.
 GENERAL ADAPTATION SYNDROME: Involves three stages –
 Alarm – Activation of adrenal-pituitary-cortex system due to stress stimulus. Ready for fight.
 Resistance – if stress continues, the parasympathetic nervous system uses the resources available more cautiously
and body makes efforts to cope with the threat.
 Exhaustion – draining of body, physically, emotionally and resources.
 Stress and the Immune system
 Immune system guards the body against illness.
 Psychoneuroimmunology focuses on link between mind, the brain and the immune system.
 White blood cells identify and destroy foreign bodies, leads to production of following:
 T cells
 B cells
 Natural Kills cells
  Reduced level of cytotoxicity cell is found in people with high stress.
 People under prolonged stress are more prone to irrational fear, mood swings, phobias, anger, etc.
 Life style
 Life style is a pattern of behaviours and decisions that determine a person’s health and quality of life.
 Stress individuals have a high risk for exposure to pathogens.

 COPING WITH STRESS

 Coping refers to adapting or changing behaviour patterns to reduce or tolerate internal or external stress.
 Our coping depends on our past experiences and belief systems.
 Three coping strategies given by Endler and Parker:
 Task Oriented Strategy
 Emotion Oriented strategy
 Avoidance Oriented strategy
 Coping strategies given by Lazarus and Folkman:
 Problem focused strategy
 Emotion Focused strategy
 Stress Management Techniques:
 Relaxation Technique
 Meditation Procedures
 Biofeedback
 Creative Visualisation
 Cognitive Behaviour technique: Aims to treat people against stress. Stress inoculation was developed by Melchenbaum. There are
three phases in this technique:
 Assessment
 Stress Reduction
 Exercise
 PROMOTING POSITIVE HEALTH AND WELLBEING:
 Life Skills:
 Assertiveness – Communicate our feelings, needs, wants and thoughts clearly and confidently.
 Time Management
 Rational Thinking:
 Challenging distorted thinking
 Driving out intrusive and negative thought.
 Making positive statements
 Improving Relationships:
 Listening
 Expressing
 Accepting
 Self Care
 Overcoming unhelpful habits:
 Perfectionism
 Avoidance
 Procrastination
 Development of Positive Health:
 Positive health comprises of:
 Healthy body
 High quality personal relationships
 Sense of life purpose
 Self – regard
 Mastery of life’s stress
 Resilience
 Factors that facilitate positive health:
 Diet
 Exercise
 Positive Attitude:
 Fairly accurate perception of reality
 Sense of purpose and responsibility in life
 Acceptance and tolerance of difference in viewpoints
 Taking credit for success and responsibility for failure
 Open to new ideas
 Humour
 Positive thinking
 Social Support

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