Managing stress

1. Stress, Coping, and Health

2. The Relationship
Between Stress and Disease
• Contagious diseases
vs. chronic diseases
– Biopsychosocial model
– Health psychology
• Health promotion and
maintenance
– Discovery of
causation, prevention,
and treatment

3. Stress: An Everyday Event
• Major stressors vs. routine hassles
– Cumulative nature of stress
– Cognitive appraisals

4. Major Types of Stress
• Frustration: blocked goal
• Conflict: incompatible
motivations
– Approach-approach
– Approach-avoidance
– Avoidance-avoidance
• Change: having to adapt
– Social Readjustment
Rating Scale
– Life Change Units
• Pressure
– Perform/conform

5. Overview of the Stress Process

6. Responding to Stress Emotionally
• Emotional
Responses
– Annoyance, anger,
rage
– Apprehension, anxiety,
fear
– Dejection, sadness,
grief
– Positive emotions
• Emotional response
and performance
– The inverted-U-

7. Responding to Stress
Physiologically
• Physiological Responses
– Fight-or-flight response
– Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome
• Alarm
• Resistance
• Exhaustion

8. Responding to Stress Behaviorally
• Behavioral Responses
– Frustration-aggression
hypothesis
– catharsis
– defense mechanisms
• Coping
– Reappraisal
– Confronting problems
– Using humor
– Expressing emotions
– Managing hostility

9. Effects of Stress:
Behavioral and Psychological
• Impaired task
performance
• Burnout
• Psychological
problems and
disorders
• Positive effects

10. Effects of Stress: Physical
• Psychosomatic diseases
• Heart disease
– Type A behavior - 3
elements
• strong competitiveness
• impatience and time
urgency
• anger and hostility
– Emotional reactions and
depression
• Stress and immune
functioning
– Reduced immune activity

11. Factors Moderating the Impact of
Stress
• Social support
– Increased immune functioning
• Optimism
– More adaptive coping
– Pessimistic explanatory style
• Conscientiousness
– Fostering better health habits
• Autonomic reactivity
– Cardiovascular reactivity to stress

12. Firefighter Specific Stressors
• Reliance on teamwork
• Low job control
• Sleep disturbances/Shift work
• Boredom
• Coworker conflict
• Management-Labor conflict
• Second jobs
• Marital/Family spillover

13. Firefighter Stress Reactions
• Apprehension/Dread
• Intrusive thoughts
• No hope
• Sleep difficulties
• Gastrointestinal symptoms
• Throat and mouth symptoms

14. At-Risk Firefighters
• Research reveals 2 distinct profiles for at-risk
firefighters
– Profile 1 (somaticizers) Reported greater frequency
and intensity of physical symptoms
• Head/neck/facial tension
• Gastrointestinal distress
• Cardiopulmonary complaints
– Profile 2 (psychological stress) Reported higher levels
of
• Apprehension/dread
• Anger
• Generalized anxiety
• Agitated depression

15. Implications for treatment
• Identify high-risk firefighters
– No penalty or stigmatization
• Potential interventions
– Psychoeducation
• Work redesign
• Coping skills training
• Relaxation training
• Conflict-resolution training
• Leadership training
• Sleep hygiene education

16. Coping Skills
• Problem-focused coping
– Taking direct action
– Planning
– Suppression of competing
activities
– Restraint coping
– Seeking social support
• Emotion-focused coping
– Focusing on and venting
emotions
– Behavioral disengagement
– Mental disengagement
– Positive reappraisal
– Denial
– Acceptance
– Turning to religion