Understanding Stress: Psychological and Biological Responses

• Stress is a psychological and biological response to significant demands requiring attention or coping.
• It involves subjective psychological assessments and biological responses common to most people.

Stressors

• Stressors prompt the stress response.
• Internal stressors originate within a person, like rumination or low self-esteem, headache, illness, or nervous system dysfunction
• External stressors originate outside a person, such as meeting someone new, or working in an uncomfortable environment.

Psychological Stress Response

• Psychological stress response is subjective, involving feelings and thoughts about a stressor.
• Eustress is a positive psychological state when a positive outcome is expected.
• Distress is a negative psychological state when an undesirable outcome is threatened.
• The same stressor can cause distress or eustress based on individual perception.

Physiological Stress Response

• Physiological stress response is the body's reactions to a stressor.
• The fight-flight-freeze response is a common physiological reaction, including sweaty palms, increased breathing, accelerated heartbeat, and increased energy.

Types of Stress

• Acute stress is short-term and intense, usually requiring an immediate response.
• Chronic stress lasts for weeks or months.
• Cortisol, a stress hormone, is constantly released during chronic stress and is made by the adrenal glands.
• During the fight-flight-freeze response, glucose is released for energy, increasing blood sugar and metabolism while reducing inflammation.
• Prolonged cortisol presence depletes energy, weakening the body and suppressing the immune system.

Hans Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

• Selye's GAS model is a biological model describing the stress response in three stages: alarm reaction, resistance, and exhaustion.
• It explains physiological reactions to stressors from a biological perspective.

SCARE Acronym

• SCARE (Shock, Counter-shock, Alarm Reaction, Resistance, Exhaustion) helps memorise the GAS model stages.
• Alarm reaction involves decreased and then increased resistance to stress after perceiving a stressor.
• Shock is the first sub-stage with decreased temperature, blood pressure, and muscle tone, the body acts as if injured.
• Counter-shock is the second phase where the sympathetic nervous system activates, mobilising bodily resources and releasing adrenaline and cortisol, leading to increased stress resistance.

Resistance Stage

• Resistance is the second stage, involving constant cortisol production to combat stress effects.
• The body adjusts through increased hormone levels and arousal, attempting to stabilise while using energy to confront the stressor, weakening the body and decreasing resistance to other diseases.

Exhaustion Stage

• Exhaustion is the final stage when energy and resources are depleted, resulting in vulnerability to chronic diseases, decreased ability to fight other stressors, emotional instability, depression, and extreme fatigue.

Strengths of GAS

• The model is predictable, aiding in identifying an individual's current stage.
• It recognises the relationship between chronic stress and illness.
• It is based on objective empirical evidence explaining physiological stress responses.

Weaknesses of GAS

• Low generalizability due to research on rats.
• It does not consider subjective, psychological aspects of stress.

Lazarus and Folkman's Transactional Model of Stress and Coping

• The transactional model tracks and interprets subjective psychological stress responses, viewing stress as a transaction between stressor input and response output.
• It consists of primary and secondary appraisals.

Primary Appraisal

• Primary appraisal evaluates the nature of the stressor in two sub-stages:
  • Initial assessment categorises stimuli as benign-positive, irrelevant, or stressful.
  • Benign-positive stimuli are either beneficial or neutral.
  • Irrelevant stimuli do not affect the individual.
  • Stressful stimuli cause worry/emotional significance.
  • If stressful, the stressor is categorised as harm/loss, threat, or challenge.
  • Harm/loss: Stressor has caused damage.
  • Threat: Stressor may cause damage.
  • Challenge: Stressor is a positive opportunity for growth.

Secondary Appraisal

• Secondary appraisal evaluates available resources for coping:
  • The first outcome is when an individual believes that coping resources are inadequate, increasing stress.
  • The second outcome is when an individual believes that coping resources are adequate, decreasing stress.

Coping Strategies

• Emotion-focused coping targets emotional components indirectly, involving wishful thinking, denial and may include distraction.
• Problem-focused coping is practical, directly dealing with the stressor through action or planning which can include seeking help.
• Both strategies are necessary and effective.

Strengths of Transactional Model

• Tracks subjective stress in an individual.
• Considers cognitive/emotional processes influencing stress perception.
• Constructed using human subjects, not rats.
• Explains stress subjectivity.

Weaknesses of Transactional Model

• Assumes simultaneous primary and secondary appraisals, which may be inaccurate.
• Implies individuals know their type of stress, which is often untrue.
• Does not consider biological processes of stress.

The Gut-Brain Axis

• The gut contains microorganisms (gut microbiota) that maintain health, including bacteria, viruses, and fungi.
• The gut microbiome includes all the genes of the microbiota and its environment.
• Balancing "good" and "bad" bacteria is essential for symbiosis.
• Gut microbiota dysbiosis occurs when there is an imbalance between "good" and "bad" bacteria.
• The gut-brain axis is a bidirectional relationship between the gut and brain via enteric and central nervous systems and the vagus nerve.
• The vagus nerve, the longest cranial nerve, connects the brain to the gut; 80-90% of messages travel from gut to brain, and 10-20% from brain to gut.
• Mental or gut conditions can affect neural messages and lead to gastrointestinal/mental health issues.
• Diverse microbiota promotes general health and positively influences psychological processes and behaviour.

Research Findings

• Germ-free mice showed anxiety, poor memory, and high stress hormones.
• They also interacted less socially.
• Mice implanted with microbiota from humans with MDD showed depressive behaviour.
• Differences in gut microbiota impact ASD, mental disorders, and cognitive decline.

Coping With Stress

• Coping is the process of dealing with stress, using strategies to reduce its effects.
• Wellbeing is an individual's state of mind, including thinking, processing, and emotional regulation.
• Context specific effectiveness is when a coping mechanism is suitable for an individual's environment, needs, and personality.
• Coping flexibility is adapting coping strategies based on stressor demands or if a coping strategy no longer works.
• High coping flexibility makes it easier to continually achieve context-specific effectiveness and improve wellbeing.

Coping Mechanisms

• Approach strategies directly confront the stress source.
• Avoidance strategies evade the stressor, generally dealing with emotional aspects.
• Avoidance strategies can be useful, like students awaiting ATAR results avoiding thinking about it, if the results cannot be changed, it can improve wellbeing.