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SPRINGDALES SCHOOL/DHAULA KUAN

Chapter – 3
Meeting Life Challenges

1. What is Eustress? Distinguish it from stress.

1) ‘Eustress’ is the term used to describe the level of stress that is good for you and
is one of a person’s best assets for achieving peak performance and managing
minor crisis.
2) Eustress, however, has the potential of turning into ‘distress’.
3) Stress can be described as the pattern of responses an organism makes to
stimulus event that disturbs the equilibrium and exceeds a person’s ability to
cope.

2. Discuss the nature of stress.

1) The word stress has its origin in the Latin words ‘strictus’, meaning tight or
narrow internal feelings of tightness and constriction of the muscles and
breathing reported by many people under stress.
2) Stress is often explained in terms of characteristics of the environment that are
disruptive to the individual.
3) Stressors are events that cause our body to give the stress response. Such events
include noise, crowding, a bad relationship, or the daily commuting to school or
office.
4) The reaction to external stressors is called ‘strain’
5) Hans Selye, the father of modern stress research, defined stress as “the
nonspecific response of the body to any demand” that is, regardless of the cause
of the threat, the individual will respond with the same physiological pattern of
reactions.
6) Stress is a dynamic mental/cognitive state.
7) It is a disruption in homeostasis or an imbalance that gives rise to a requirement
for resolution of that imbalance or restoration of homeostasis.

8) Lazarus has distinguished between two types of appraisal, i.e. primary and
secondary.

Primary appraisal Secondary appraisal

Primary appraisal refers to the When we perceive an event as stressful,
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perception of a new or changing we are likely to make a secondary

environment as positive, neutral or appraisal, which is the assessment of
negative in its consequences. one’s coping abilities and resources and
- Negative events are appraised for whether they will be sufficient to meet the
their possible harm, threat or harm, threat or challenge of the event
challenge.
- Harm is the assessment of the
damage that has already been done
by an event. - Threat is the
assessment of possible future
damage that may be brought about
by the event.
- Challenge appraisals are
associated with more confident
expectations of the ability to cope
with the stressful event, the
potential to overcome and even
profit from the event.

• These appraisals are very subjective and will depend on many factors.

• One factor is the past experience of dealing with such a stressful condition. If
one has handled similar situations very successfully in the past, they would be
less threatening for her/him.

• Another factor is whether the stressful event is perceived as controllable, i.e.

whether one has mastery or control over a situation. A person who believes that
s/he can control the onset of a negative situation, or its adverse consequences,
will experience less amount of stress than those who have no such sense of
personal control.

9) Very often, these stressors result in a variety of stress reactions, which may be:
Physiological-
behavioural,
emotional, and
cognitive (see Fig.3.2).
a. At the physiological level, arousal plays a key role instress-related
behaviours. This leads to physiological changes seen in fight-or-flight
response.
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b. The emotional reactions to experience of stress include negative emotions

such as fear, anxiety, embarrassment, anger, depression or even denial.

c. The behavioural responses are virtually limitless, depending on the nature

of the stressful event.Confrontative action against the stressor (fight) or
withdrawal from the threatening event (flight) are two general categories of
behavioural responses.

d. Cognitive responses include beliefs about the harm or threat an event poses
and beliefs about its causes or controllability. These include responses such
as inability to concentrate, and intrusive, repetitive or morbid thoughts.

10) The stresses which people experience also vary in terms of

• intensity (low intensity vs. high intensity),
• duration (short-term vs. long-term),
• complexity ( less complex vs. more complex) and
• predictability (unexpected vs. predictable).
• Usually more intense, prolonged or chronic, complex and unanticipated stresses
have more negative consequences than have less intense, short-term,

3. What are some signs and symptoms of stress?

• Lack of concentration,
• Memory loss,
• Poor decision-making,
• Inconsistency,
• Irregular attendance and timekeeping,
• Low self-esteem,
• Poor long-term planning,
• Frantic bursts of energy,
• Extreme mood swings,
• Emotional outbursts,
• Worry,
• Anxiety,
• Fear,
• Depression,
• Difficulties with sleep,
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• Difficulties with eating,

4. What are various types of stress?

1. Physical and environmental

2. Psychological
3. Social.

Physical and Environmental Stress

➢ Physical stresses are demands that change the state of our body.
➢ We feel strained when we overexert ourselves physically, lack a nutritious diet,
suffer an injury, or fail to get enough sleep.
➢ are often unavoidable such as air pollution, crowding, noise, heat of the summer,
winter cold, etc.
➢ Another group of environmental stresses are catastrophic events or disasters
such as fire, earthquake, floods, etc.

Psychological Stress

➢ These are stresses that we generate ourselves in our minds.

➢ These are personal and unique to the person experiencing them and are internal
sources of stress.
➢ We worry about problems, feel anxiety, or become depressed.
➢ Some of the important sources of psychological stress are frustration, conflicts,
internal and social pressures, etc.

Frustration results from the blocking of needs and motives by something or someone
that hinders us from achieving a desired goal.
There could be a number of causes of frustration such as social discrimination,
interpersonal hurt, low grades in school, etc.
Conflicts may occur between two or more incompatible needs or motives, e.g. whether
to study dance or study psychology.

Social Stress

➢ These are induced externally and result from our interaction with other people.
➢ Social events like death or illness in the family, strained relationships, trouble
with neighbours are some examples of social stresses.
➢ These social stresses vary widely from person to person.
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➢ Attending parties may be stressful for a person who likes to spend quiet
evenings at home while an outgoing person may find staying at home in the
evenings stressful.

5. What are the sources of stress?

1. Life Events,
2. Hassles Of Everyday Life
3. Traumatic Events

1. Life Events

➢ major life events can be stressful, because they disturb our routine and cause
upheaval.
➢ If several of these life events that are planned (e.g. moving into a new house) or
unpredicted (e.g. break-up of a long-term relationship) occur within a short
period of time, we find it difficult to cope with them and will be more prone to
the symptoms of stress.

2. Hassles

➢ These are the personal stresses we endure as individuals, due to the happenings
in our daily life, such as noisy surroundings, commuting, quarrelsome
neighbours, electricity and water shortage, traffic snarls, and so on.
➢ Attending to various emergencies are daily hassles experienced by a housewife.

3. Traumatic Events

➢ These include being involved in a variety of extreme events such as a fire, train
or road accident, robbery, earthquake, tsunami, etc.
➢ The effects of these events may occur after some lapse of time and sometimes
persist as symptoms of anxiety, flashbacks, dreams and intrusive thoughts, etc.
➢ Severe trauma can also strain relationships
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6. What are the effects of stress on psychological functioning and health on

individual?

1. Emotional
2. Physiological
3. Cognitive
4. Behavioural.

1. Emotional Effects :
• Those who suffer from stress are far more likely to experience mood
swings, and show erratic behaviour that may alienate them from family
and friends.
• In some cases this can start a vicious circle of decreasing confidence,
leading to more serious emotional problems.
• Some examples are feelings of anxiety and depression, increased physical
tension, increased psychological tension and mood swings
.

2. Physiological Effects :
• Examples of physiological effects are release of epinephrine and nor
epinephrine,
• slowing down of the digestive system,
• expansion of air passages in the lungs,
• increased heart rate, and
• constriction of blood vessels.

3. Cognitive Effects :
• This suffering from high level of stress can rapidly cause individuals to
lose their ability to make sound decisions.
• Cognitive effects of stress are poor concentration, and reduced short-term
memory capacity.

4. Behavioural Effects :
• Stress affects our behaviour in the form of eating less nutritional food,
increasing intake of stimulants such as caffeine, excessive consumption of
cigarettes, alcohol and other drugs such as tranquillisers etc.
• Some of the typical behavioural effects of stress seen are disrupted sleep
patterns, increased absenteeism, and reduced work performance.
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7. Discuss the relation between stress and health.

1. Burnout
2. General Adaptation Syndrome
3. Stress and Immune System
4. Lifestyle

1. Burnout
• The physical exhaustion is seen in the signs of chronic fatigue, weakness and
low energy.
• The mental exhaustion appears in the form of irritability, anxiety, feelings of
helplessness and hopelessness.
• This state of physical, emotional and psychological exhaustion is known as
burnout.

2. General Adaptation Syndrome

What happens to the body when stress is prolonged

According to him, GAS involves three stages: alarm reaction, resistance, and
exhaustion (see Fig.3.3……….from book….very important).

1. Alarm reaction stage :

➢ The presence of a noxious stimulus or stressor leads to activation of the adrenal-
pituitary-cortex system. T
➢ This triggers the release of hormones producing the stress response.
➢ Now the individual is ready for fight or flight.
2. Resistance stage :
➢ If stress is prolonged, the resistance stage begins.
➢ The parasympathetic nervous system calls for more cautious use of the body’s
resources.
➢ The organism makes efforts to cope with the threat, as through confrontation.
3. Exhaustion stage :
➢ Continued exposure to the same stressor or additional stressors drains the body
of its resources and leads to the third stage of exhaustion.
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➢ The physiological systems involved in alarm reaction and resistance become

ineffective and susceptibility to stress-related diseases such as high blood
pressure becomes more likely.

• Selye’s model has been criticised for assigning a very limited role to
psychological factors in stress.
• Researchers have reported that the psychological appraisal of events is important
for the determination of stress.
• How people respond to stress is substantially influenced by their perceptions,
personalities and biological constitutions.

3. Stress and the Immune System

➢ Stress can cause illness by impairing the workings of the immune system.
➢ Psychoneuroimmunology focuses on the links between the mind, the brain and
the immune system.
➢ It studies the effects of stress on the immune system.
➢ Stress can affect natural killer cell cytotoxicity, which is of major importance in
the defence against various infections and cancer.

4. Lifestyle
➢ Stress can lead to unhealthy lifestyle or health damaging behaviour. Lifestyle is
the overall pattern of decisions and behaviours that determine a person’s health
and quality of life.
➢ The modern lifestyle of excesses in eating, drinking and the so called fast-paced
good life has led to violation of basic principles of health in some of us, as to
what we eat, think or do with our lives.

8. Explain the strategies to cope with stress.

• Coping is a dynamic situation-specific reaction to stress.

• It is a set of concrete responses to stressful situations or events that are
intended to resolve the problem and reduce stress.

• The three coping strategies given by Endler and Parker are:

1. Task-oriented Strategy
2. Emotion-oriented Strategy
3. Avoidance-oriented Strategy
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1. Task-oriented Strategy :
➢ This involves obtaining information about the stressful situation and about
alternative courses of action and their probable outcome; it also involves
deciding priorities and acting so as to deal directly with the stressful
situation.
➢ For example, schedule my time better, or think about how I have solved
similar problems.

2. Emotion-oriented Strategy :
➢ This can involve efforts to maintain hope and to control one’s emotions; it
can also involve venting feelings of anger and frustration, or deciding that
nothing can be done to change things.
➢ For example, tell myself that it is not really happening to me, or worry
about what I am going to do.

3. Avoidance-oriented Strategy :
➢ This involves denying or minimising the seriousness of the situation; it
also involves conscious suppression of stressful thoughts and their
replacement by self-protective thoughts.
➢ Examples of this are watching TV, phone up a friend, or try to be with
other people.

According to them……….L&F…. coping responses can be divided into two

types of responses, problem-focused and emotion-focused.

1. Problem Focused strategies

2. Emotion-focused stratgies

1. Problem-focused strategies
➢ attack the problem itself, with behaviours designed to gain information, to
alter the event, and to alter belief and commitments. They increase the
person’s awareness, level of knowledge, and range of behavioural and
cognitive coping options.
➢ They can act to reduce the threat value of the event.
➢ For example “I made a plan of action and followed it”.

2. Emotion-focused strategies
➢ call for psychological changes designed primarily to limit the degree of
emotional disruption caused by an event, with minimal effort to alter the
event itself.
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➢ For example “I did some things to let it out of my system”.

research suggests that people generally tend to use the former more often than
the latter

9. Discuss the 6 stress management techniques.

1. Relaxation Techniques :
2. Meditation Procedures :
3. Biofeedback :
4. Creative Visualisation :
5. Cognitive Behavioural Techniques :
6. Exercise :

1. Relaxation Techniques :
➢ It is an active skill that reduces symptoms of stress and decreases the incidence
of illnesses such as high blood pressure and heart disease.
➢ Usually relaxation starts from the lower part of the body and progresses up to the
facial muscles in such a way that the whole body is relaxed.
➢ Deep breathing is used along with muscle relaxation to calm the mind and relax
the body.

2. Meditation Procedures :
➢ The yogic method of meditation consists of a sequence of learned techniques for
refocusing of attention that brings about an altered state of consciousness.

3. Biofeedback :
➢ It is a procedure to monitor and reduce the physiological aspects of stress by
providing feedback about current physiological activity and is often
accompanied by relaxation training.

➢ Biofeedback training involves three stages :

1.developing an awareness of the particular physiological response, e.g. heart

rate,
2.learning ways of controlling that physiological response in quiet conditions;
and
3.transferring that control into the conditions of everyday life.
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4. Creative Visualisation :
➢ It is an effective technique for dealing with stress.
➢ Creative visualisation is a subjective experience that uses imagery and
imagination..

5. Cognitive Behavioural Techniques :

➢ These techniques aim to inoculate people against stress.
➢ Stress inoculation training is one effective method developed by
Meichenbaum.
➢ The essence of this approach is to replace negative and irrational thoughts with
positive and rational ones.
➢ There are three main phases in this : assessment, stress reduction techniques, and
application and follow-through.

6. Exercise :
➢ Exercise can provide an active outlet for the physiological arousal experienced
in response to stress.
➢ Regular exercise improves the efficiency of the heart, enhances the function of
the lungs, maintains good circulation, lowers blood pressure, reduces fat in the
blood and improves the body’s immune system.
➢ Swimming, walking, running, cycling, skipping, etc. help to reduce stress.

10.Explain the 13 features that lead to promoting positive health and well
being.

1. Stress Resistant Personality

2. Life Skill
3. Assertiveness
4. Time Management
5. Rational Thinking .
6. Improving Relationships :
7. Self-care
8. Overcoming Unhelpful Habits
9. Diet
10. Exercise
11. Positive Attitude
12. Positive Thinking
13. Social Support
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1. Stress Resistant Personality :

➢ Recent studies by Kobasa have shown that people with high levels of stress but
low levels of illness share three characteristics, which are referred to as the
personality traits of hardiness. It consists of ‘the three Cs’, i.e. commitment,
control, and challenge.
➢ Hardiness is a set of beliefs about oneself, the world, and how they interact. It
takes shape as a sense of personal commitment to what you are doing, a sense of
control over your life, and a feeling of challenge.
➢ Stress resistant personalities have control which is a sense of purpose and
direction in life; commitment to work, family, hobbies and social life; and
challenge, that is, they see changes in life as normal and positive rather than as a
threat.

2. Life Skills
➢ Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable
individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life.
➢ Our ability to cope depends on how well we are prepared to deal with and
counterbalance everyday demands, and keep equilibrium in our lives.
➢ These life skills can be learned and even improved upon. Assertiveness, time
management, rational thinking, improving relationships, self-care, and
overcoming unhelpful habits such as perfectionism, procrastination, etc. are
some life skills that will help to meet the challenges of life.

3. Assertiveness :
➢ It is the ability to say no to a request, to state an opinion without being self-
conscious, or to express emotions such as love, anger, etc. openly.
4. Time Management :
➢ Learning how to plan time and delegate can help to relieve the pressure. The
major way to reduce time stress is to change one’s perception of time.
5. Rational Thinking :
➢ Some of the principles of rational thinking are: challenging your distorted
thinking and irrational beliefs, driving out potentially intrusive negative anxiety-
provoking thoughts, and making positive statements.
6. Improving Relationships :
➢ The key to a sound lasting relationship is communication. This consists of three
essential skills: listening to what the other person is saying, expressing how you
feel and what you think, and accepting the other person’s opinions and feelings,
even if they are different from your own.
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7. Self-care :
➢ If we keep ourselves healthy, fit and relaxed, we are better prepared physically
and emotionally to tackle the stresses of everyday life
8. Overcoming Unhelpful Habits :
➢ Unhelpful habits such as perfectionism, avoidance, procrastination, etc. are
strategies that help to cope in the short-term but which make one more
vulnerable to stress

Various factors have been identified which facilitate the development of positive
health.
Health is a state of complete physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being, and not
merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

9. Diet :
➢ A balanced diet can lift one’s mood, give more energy, feed muscles, improve
circulation, prevent illness, strengthen the immune system and make one feel
better to cope with stresses of life. When we are stressed, we seek ‘comfort
foods’ which are high in fats, salt and sugar.
10. Exercise :
➢ A large number of studies confirm a consistently positive relationship between
physical fitness and health. Physical exercises that are essential for good health
are stretching exercises such as yogic asanas and aerobic exercises such as
jogging, swimming, cycling, etc.
11. Positive Attitude :
➢ Positive health and well-being can be realised by having a positive attitude.
➢ Some of the factors leading to a positive attitude are: having a fairly accurate
perception of reality; a sense of purpose in life and responsibility; acceptance
and tolerance for different viewpoints of others; and taking credit for success
and accepting blame for failure.
12. Positive Thinking :
➢ The power of positive thinking has been increasingly recognised in reducing and
coping with stress. Optimism, which is the inclination to expect favourable life
outcomes, has been linked to psychological and physical wellbeing.
13. Social Support :
➢ Social support is defined as the existence and availability of people on whom we
can rely upon, people who let us know that they care about, value, and love us.