Personal Development 11 Finals - Coping with Stress PDF

 PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT 11 FINALS  “GIVE YOUR STRESS WINGS AND LET IT FLY AWAY.” TERRI GUILLEMETS  LESSON 1: COPING WITH STRESS IN MIDDLE AND LATE ADOLESCENSE Topics in this lesson Stress and stressors Stress factors Managing stress  HEL...

 PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT 11 FINALS  “GIVE YOUR STRESS WINGS AND LET IT FLY AWAY.” TERRI GUILLEMETS  LESSON 1: COPING WITH STRESS IN MIDDLE AND LATE ADOLESCENSE Topics in this lesson Stress and stressors Stress factors Managing stress  HELLO! LEARNING COMPETENCIES: 1. Discuss that understanding stress and its sources during adolescence may help in identifying ways to cope and have a healthful life 2. Identify sources of one’s stress and illustrate the effect of stress on one’s system 3. Demonstrate personal ways of coping with stress for healthful living  FOCUS QUESTION WHAT CAUSES A PERSON TO EXPERIENCE STRESS AND HOW COULD ONE HANDLE IT EFFECTIVELY? Ana met her friend, Liza at the mall. “Hi, Liza, how are you?” greeted Ana. “Oh, I’m good, thanks” answers Liza forcing a smile on her face. Liza is a college freshman and works at a fast food chain in the evening. Her father has a disability and had to stay home, her mother earns a living through a small business. To compensate for their tight finances, she decides to get a part-time job. She takes a night shift to work and attends her classes in the morning. When they parted ways, Ana felt worried and thought that Liza might be undergoing some problems. She looks tired, haggard, sad, and lacks the bubbly spirit that she used to have. Could she be going through stressful times these days?  PROCESSING QUESTIONS: 1. What do you think happened to Liza? 2. How did Liza’s problem affect her? 3. What were the signs that Liza is going through hard times? 4. If you were Liza’s friend, how are you going to asked her? Every one experiences stress every single day. The picture below shows a student who appears stressed in taking difficult exam. Adolescents face many challenges and difficulties ranging from physical, to social and emotional problems. Sometimes, stress becomes too heavy to bear that it gradually takes a toll on one’s mental and emotional health. This lesson will help you understand the nature of stress, the factors that contribute to your experience of stress, and how to manage your stressful experiences more effectively. We cannot escape stress. We will often encounter it at home, in school, and in other places we go to. How can our experience become stressful to us? What are the things we can do to cope with stress? Let us find out in this lesson.  STRESS AND STRESSORS A stressful experience is caused by something that occurs either within the individual or from the environment. A past painful experience can linger in our memory and make us feel depressed. Conflicts with other people cause us difficulty ending up in stress. Common stressors among students may come in form of academic demands. We say that stress is the effect while stressor is the cause.  WHAT IS STRESS? Exams, deadlines, research paper, school projects demand time and attention. Family expectations, conflicts, frustration and disappointments sometimes lead to an overload of emotional tension and stress. When we are under stress, we feel tense, nervous, and sometimes jittery. We could not even concentrate in our work. Whether we are aware of it or not, so many things around us can create stress. We may have gotten used to noise everyday and we are not even aware that it is causing us stress. A stressful condition can also happen suddenly like a calamity or an accident. Stress is part of life and affects both young and old. Stress is a natural response to the demands of our environment. To put it more succinctly, stress is a physiological response to a physical or psychological threat. It is a normal reaction to anything that can disturb our balance, commonly termed as homeostatic state or equilibrium. Hans Selye, an Austrian-Canadian endocrinologist, associates stress with mental, emotional, and physical states produced within the organism in response to stimulus (either internal or external) that is perceived as threat (Selye, 1976). Walter Cannon, an American physiologist, calls it the “fight or flight” syndrome (Canon, 1939). It is physiologic reaction accompanied by faster heart rate, muscle tension, or dilation of pupil when a person perceives threat in order to survive danger. The “fight or flight” syndrome is our initial reaction to stress and will be better explained in our discussion of the different stages of adaptation. Stress can be considered either positive or negative depending on one’s capacity to handle stressors. A little amount of stress enables us to adapt and function normally. For instance, when we are about to meet a deadline for project, we need a little amount of stress to motivate us in completing the task. In a sense, a manageable amount of stress may not actually be that bad because it has a survival value. The term “stress” is actually borrowed from the field of physics. It means strain, pressure or force on a system. In the context of human beings, the strain or stress makes our mind and body react. This is our way to cope in order to alleviate ourselves from the effects of stress. This is why some people sleep off their problems, spend time at the mall to relax, or hang out with their friends. And still others try to combat stress by eating and drinking. How does an event, place, or even people cause us stress? There are factors to consider such as frequency, intensity, and duration of stress. Does the source of stress happen very often? When it happens, how serious is it? How is it affecting you? How long has it been going on? Chronic and severe stress is a threat to health. Prolonged stress dampens our immune system. Chronic and severe stress is a threat to health. It can dull our system because we get used to it. Prolonged stress causes fatigue, dampens our immune system, and eventually disease set in. Researches has shown that stress can lead to medical disorders like gastric ulcers, heart disease, asthma, and even skin disorders (cited Miller & Blackwell, 2006; Wargo, 2007). Thus, it is important that we identify the sources of stress before they build up and cause us strains and serious illness.  SOURCES OF STRESS A stressor is but anything that induces a stress response. It may be physical, mental, emotional, social, psychological, economic, or even spiritual in nature. Physical stressors may come in the form of pollution, a congested place or a high level of noise. It may also include fatigue, pain, shock, trauma, and other physiological conditions in our body. Mental stressors include academic overload, reviewing for exams, running after deadlines or situations that call for sustained mental effort. Social, emotional, and psychological stressors are somehow interrelated because they involve relating with other people. As we interact with others, we encounter conflicts and disappointments leading to feelings of frustration, tension, anxiety, and even anger or depression. Economic stressor may involve one’s socio-economic condition such as limited financial resources to meet our essential needs in life. Lastly, stressor affecting our spirituality involves loss of joy and peace or disturbance of tranquility.  EFFECTS OF STRESS The effect of stress cannot be easily felt except in cases of trauma where the incident happens quickly and intensely such as a car accident or parental separation. Stressors that happen almost everyday take time before they finally take a toll on our health. Sometimes we get to used to it that we simply ignore the signs of stress. Think of a ticking bomb or a whistling kettle. Before the bomb exploded and before the kettle starts “whistling” takes some time. The same happens in prolonged stress. Our body and our mind can no longer take the pressure, thus, causing fatigue that eventually lowers the immune system. You often get colds and cough when your body is under stress –a physiological process that our body undergoes when under prolonged stress.  ACTIVITY: AWARENESS OF STRESSORS Try to recall the time that you were stressed out. Identify your stressors and list each one on the lines provided below. STRESSOR TYPE OF STRESSOR 1.____________________________________________ 2.____________________________________________ 3.____________________________________________ 4.____________________________________________ 5.____________________________________________ STRESS FACTORS You will be able to understand more about stress by taking a look at the physiological and psychological factors involved in a stress response –the processes and structures in our body system responsible for these reactions.  PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTOR Think for a while how you felt when you were stressed out. Did your heart beat fast, your muscle got tense, your hands and feet felt cold? Hans Selye, proposed the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) to explain our body’s response to stress. It consists of three stages: (a) alarm stage; (b) resistance stage, and (c) exhaustion stage. You probably remember that there was a burst of energy at the onset of a stressor, followed by a resistance or attempt to adapt to the stressor, and finally a feeling of tiredness or fatigue when the energy is already depleted. To illustrate the General Adaptation Syndrome, suppose your parents often quarrel, but before the actual fight, you sense that the atmosphere gets tense and you become upset. This is the alarm stage, signaling that there is a problem starting to brew in your family environment. Yet, you try to ignore it and pretend that it does not affect you –the resistance stage. However, your parents’ conflict continued on with their fighting day after day until you are fed up listening to their squabbles. You know enter the exhaustion stage where you feel that you have become tired and stressed out. Now you react to the stressful situation by going out with your friends. The body’s resistance to stress differ depending on the individual’s capacity to contain its effects on their flexibility to adapt to their situations. The ill effects of stress occur only when the individual fails to adapt and gets exhausted by chronic or prolonged stress in his life. When stress becomes a threat or perceived as dangerous, the stressor signals our body by alerting it and increasing our energy level. For instance, when there is fire in the neighborhood, we can easily carry heavy objects that we normally could not even lift without such impending danger. We try to resist or fight back stress until our energy is finally depleted. But what happens to our body? Why do we feel this exhaustion? The hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal or HPA axis explains the bodily changes and the source of disease that may eventually happen when one undergoes prolonged stress. The HPA axis is hormonal response system to stress. It involves the release of stress hormones such as glucocorticoids and primarily cortisol which are regulated to ensure that the body can react quickly to stress and return to its normal state. However, prolonged or extreme stress increase the cortisol level in the blood and affects our health substantially. Whenever one encounters a physical or psychological stressor, the HPA axis is activated. The HPA response starts when the hypothalamus, a part in the limbic system, secrets corticotropin – secretes releasing hormones (CRH) that stimulates the pituitary glans to release the hormone ACTH or adrenocorticotropic hormone. ACTH then directs the adrenal glands to secrete more hormones, including epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol which releases sugars into the blood, helping in preparing the body to respond to threat. Thus, when a person is under stress, the hormonal level in the blood increases and may cause high blood pressure and other diseases.  STRESS AND THE IMMUNE SYSTEM The immune system is the body’s natural defense against any disease. It helps the body fight infection that can lead to more serious health problems. Handling chronic stress causes fatigue and consequently weakens our immune system or our body’s defense. Researchers recognized that thoughts, emotions, attitudes and beliefs relate to our health. Nurturing anger and bitterness, for instance, can result in the lowering of our immune system. There are interrelated mechanisms that link the nervous, immune, and endocrine systems through the neurotransmitters, chemicals that are responsible for transmitting messages in our nervous system. Chronic stress can affect insulin secretion, the sex hormones and even the thyroid hormones. If stress is prolonged, any or all of the bodily chemicals, hormones, organs and systems involved will be affected until fatigue occurs. We need to strengthen our immune system so as to resist infection to enter the body. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS Psychological stress stems from one’s own mental and emotional reactivity patterns to environmental factors such as persons, places, or events. In other words, there are individual differences in the way we appraise or interpret a situation. Our appraisal may or may not elicit a stress response. When we are overwhelmed with stress, it is not only the body that suffers but our mind and behavior as well. We feel lonely and depressed. Others become forgetful, irritable, and anxious. Some tend to isolate themselves from others. Below is list of common signs and symptoms of stress that we may have experienced. Cognitive symptoms Emotional symptoms Memory problems Moodiness Inability to concentrate Irritability or short temper Poor judgment Agitation, inability to relax Seeing only the negative Feeling overwhelmed Anxious or racing thoughts Sense of loneliness and isolation Constant worrying Depression or general unhappiness Below is list of common signs and symptoms of stress that we may have experienced. Physical Symptoms Behavioral Symptoms Headaches Eating more or less Back pains Sleeping too much or too little Diarrhea or constipation Isolating oneself Frequent colds Procrastinating Rapid heartbeat Forgetting or neglecting Dizziness obligations These signs and symptoms are often shown by people undergoing stress but they may also be manifestation of a deeper psychological problem. The student is advised to take precaution in making his or her own diagnosis. It is safe to consult a professional when difficulties hamper your psychological functioning.  REFLECTION What physical and behavioral symptoms have you personally experienced when you are under stress? Write them down on a piece of paper. Compare notes with a classmate.  Let us check What happens to your Can you identify any What are the bodily thinking and memory deeper psychological signs that indicate when you go through reason underlying your you are undergoing prolonged stressful experience of stress. stress. situation. Managing stress After knowing the harmful effects of stress, how do you think can we manage them? Now try to check your lifestyle, particularly habits and attitudes that have become automatic responses to your daily life. Are your coping strategies effective? Do you think there is a need for you to change certain coping patterns?  COPING STRATEGIES How we handle stress depends on several factors such as the person’s characteristics, the situation, and the type of stressor that he or she faces. People differ in their coping styles. One may evaluate a situation as threatening but another person may not see it that way. There are people who are easily discouraged and fearful but there are also people who are confident and sees problems as challenges. Richard Lazarus, an American psychologist and professor, defines coping as a cognitive or behavior response to stress aimed at managing or reducing stress. A situation is stressful depending on how one perceives it. In his Appraisal theory, Lazarus talks about two components of cognitive appraisal, the primary appraisal and secondary appraisal. When one does primary appraisal, he evaluates the meaning of the situation and checks if it will affect him. The secondary appraisal involves how one feels about the situation. For instance, when a person recognizes that there is a threat, he or she may confront such a situation an say, “Tell yourself the difficulties are not important” or “For everything bad, there is also something good.” A change in thinking is one way to cope with psychosocial stressors. Physical stress may be relatively easier to handle but requires self- discipline in order to apply changes such as having a balanced and nutritious meal, a regular sleep pattern and regular exercise. Sleep provides the best form of rest while exercise prevents the accumulation of toxins and improves blood circulation. Eating vegetables and fruits and taking Vitamin C can also largely help enhance the immune system. Social and emotional stress arising from strained relationships may be a little bit difficult to handle yet they can be managed. As social beings, we seek other people to fulfill our emotional needs. Complying with demands of strict and overbearing parents or dealing with break-ups may not be easy. Accepting change or changing the way we think about a situation can help. Have supportive friends around you or communicate your difficulties with a counselor or psychologist if you could not find a trusted and mature person to talk to. EMOTION-FOCUSED AND PROBLEM-FOCUSED COPING There are two types of coping responses: emotion-focused coping response and problem-focused coping response (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). Emotion-focused coping response involves shame and embarrassment, fear and anxiety, excitement and depression. It is necessary to learn how to control our impulses to be able to take the appropriate action. However, there are people who have weak control over their impulses or they have no control over the situation. For instance, binge eating and drug use focus on emotional reaction to stress. Emotion-focused coping is used when a person has no capacity to deal with the source of the problem. Thus, he or she uses different strategies to deal with the problem such as avoiding, distancing, accepting the situation, or turning to alcohol or asking for professional help. Problem-focused coping deal with the stressors directly in practical ways. People with problem-focused coping take control of their situation by removing the source of stress or reducing effect of stressors. They may also get enough information or research on the nature of their problem so that they can better understand the cause of their stress. For instance, a woman who undergoes battering may read books, articles or search the internet to better understand the nature of battering. Problem-focused coping is the alternative we use when we think we can solve the problem after assessing it. Several steps can be used in problem-focused coping such as defining the problem, looking for alternative solutions, learning new skills to deal with stressors, and reappraising to find new standards of behavior. Emotion-focused coping behavior Problem-focused coping behavior Eating more or eating less Talking with the person concerned Sleeping more or sleeping less Researching about the topic Excessive playing of computer Talking with friends about their games opinion Crying, shouting Strategizing THANK YOU!