Stress can be defined as any type of change that causes physical, emotional or psychological strain. Stress is your body's response to anything that requires attention or action. Everyone experiences stress to some degree. The way you respond to stress, however, make a big difference to your overall well-being.

1. STRESS
Presented by - Group 1

3. Today's Discussion -
● Definition
● Four variations - time, anticipatory, situational, encounter
● Stressors - What is stressors?, Environmental and Psychological stressors
● Physiological factors - General adaptation syndrome, immune system and
stress.
● Issues in psychology - health psychology and stress, influence of cognition
and personality in stress, personality factors in stress and social factors in
stress

4. DEFINITION

5. What do we understand by the term stress?
- It is a state of mind that's caused due to tension from difficult
circumstances.
- It is a feeling of emotional or physical tension.
- It is a reaction to a challenge or a demand.
- When we experience changes or challenges, our body produces physical
and mental responses. That is called stress.

6. Stress is the body's way of response to anything that requires attention or action.
Stress can be positive. Any event or any circumstances that requires our
energy/action/attention , Stress can help us to complete our work by arousing.
Stress can be short term or long term. But chronic stress can take a toll on our
over all well being.

7. Some signs of stress
- mood change, sweaty palms, dizziness, trembling,
muscle tension.
How can we identify stress?
- Stress is not always easy to recognize.
- Physiological sign - anxiety, difficulty in
concentrating
- Emotional sign - angry, frustrated
- High blood pressure, poor self care, changes in
weight.

9. FOUR VARIATIONS

10. Stress factors broadly fall into four types or categories: physical
stress, psychological stress, psychosocial stress, and psychospiritual
stress.
Four types of stress
• Physical stress
• Psychological stress
• Psychosocial stress
• Psycho – spritual stress

11. Physical stress
ON YOUR BODY ON YOUR MOOD ON YOUR BEHAVIOUR
Headache Anxiety Over eating or under eating
Muscle tension or pain Restlessness Angry outbursts
Chest pain Lack of motivation or focus Drug or alcohol misuse
Fatigue Feeling overwhelmed Tobacco use

12. Psychological stress
● Heaviness in your chest, increased heart rate or chest pain
● Shoulder, neck or back pain; general body aches and pains
● Headaches
● Grinding your teeth or clenching your jaw
● Shortness of breath
● Dizziness
● Feeling tired, anxious or depressed

13. Psychosocial stress
● Depression or anxiety
● Anger, irritability or
restlessness
● Feeling overwhelmed,
unmotivated or unfocused
● Trouble in sleeping or
sleeping too much
● Racing thoughts or
constant worry
● Problems with your
memory or concentration
● Making bad decisions

14. Psycho – spritual stress
A crisis of values, meaning, and
purpose; joyless striving (instead
of productive, satisfying,
meaningful
and fulfilling work; and a
misalignment withn one’s core
spiritual beliefs.
Overall, improperly or ineffectively
managed stress usually takes a
toll on the body.

15. STRESSORS
~S.Yogini

18. Stressors can range from the deadly serious (hurricanes, fires, crashes, )
to the merely irritating and annoying (delays, rude people, ect).
There are two kinds of stressors: those that cause distress,
which occurs when people experience unpleasant stressors.
~DISTRESS~
Negative impact.
Long Term.

19. ~EUSTRESS~
Which results from positive events that still make demands on a person to adapt or
change.
A great deal of change in people’s habits, duties, and often lifestyle, thereby
creating stress.
Hans Selye (1936) originally coined the term eustress to describe the stress
experienced when positive events require the body to adapt.

20. The arousal theory, is based on the idea that a certain level of stress, or
arousal, is actually necessary for people to feel content and function well.

21. ~ENVIRONMENTAL STRESSORS: LIFE’S UPS AND DOWNS~
CATASTROPHES
Losing one’s home in a tornado is an example of a stressor called a
catastrophe,
An unpredictable event that happens on a large scale and creates
tremendous amounts of stress and feelings of threat.
But stress is present even in relatively ordinary life experiences and does not have to come from only
negative events, such as job loss. Sometimes there are big events, such as marriage or going to
college, that also require a person to make adjustments and changes—and adjustments and changes
are really the core of stress, according to early researchers in the field

22. The Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)
They formed a scale to measure the amount of stress in a person’s life by having that
person add up the total “life change units” associated with each major event in their Social
Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)
Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe (1967) believed that any life event that required people to change,
adapt, or adjust their lifestyles would result in stress
The researchers sampled 394 people, giving them a list of events, such as divorce, pregnancy, or taking
a vacation. The people in the sample were told that, on a scale of 0 to 100 ( marriage represented 50
“life change units.”) This gave those being sampled a “yardstick” of sorts, by which they could assign a
number to each event, and these numbers became the life change units associated with each event on
the SRRS
Scores of 150 or below - any significant problems
scores between 150 and 199 - mild life crisis
Scores between 200 and 299 indicated a “moderate life crisis
scores over 300 indicated a “major life crisis” and represented an 80 percent increase in risk
score is 300 or above, that person has a very high chance of becoming ill or having an accident in the near
future.

23. Miller and Rahe found that overall stress associated with many of the items on the original list had
increased by about 45 percent from the original 1967 ratings, citing changes in such issues as gender
roles, economics, and social norms as possible reasons.
Many studies conducted on the relationship between stress and accidents in the workplace
have shown that people under a lot of stress tend to be more distracted and less cautious
and, therefore, place themselves at a greater risk for having an accident
How can stress cause a person to have an accident?
There are versions of the SRRS that use as life events some of those things more likely to be
experienced by college students. One of these more recent versions is the College Undergraduate
Stress Scale (CUSS)
The death of a spouse, for example, rates 100 life change units because it requires the
greatest amount of adjustment in a person’s life

24. What are some psychological factors in stress?
PRESSURE When there are urgent demands or expectations for a person’s behavior coming from
an outside source, that person is experiencing pressure.
Pressure occurs when people feel that they must work harder, faster, or do more, as when meeting a
deadline or studying for final exams.
Time pressure is one of the most common forms of pressure (creative, innovative
ideas, creativity levels decrease dramatically—even thou they did good task.
UNCONTROLLABILITY Another factor that increases a person’s experience of stress is the
degree of control that the person has over a particular event or situation.
PRESSURE~
UNCONTROLLABILITY~
The less control a person has, the greater the degree of stress.
The stress-increasing effects of lack of control explain the relationship between unpredictability and
stress as well. When potentially stressful situations are unpredictable, as in police work, the degree
of stress experienced is increased

25. Frustration occurs when people are blocked or prevented from achieving a desired goal or fulfilling a
perceived need.
As a stressor, frustration can be external, such as when a car breaks down ect.
Losses, rejections, failures, and delays are all sources of external frustration.
Obviously, some frustrations are minor and others are more serious. The seriousness of a frustration is
affected by how important the goal or need actually is
Internal frustrations, also known as personal frustrations, occur when the goal or need cannot be
attained because of internal or personal characteristics.
FRUSTRATION
Aggression, or actions meant to harm or destroy, is unfortunately another typical reaction to
frustration.
Trying to “get around” the problem is another way in which people can deal with frustration. Another
possibility is to take out one’s frustrations on less threatening, more available targets, in a process
called displaced aggression.
Anyone who has ever been frustrated by things that occurred at work or school and then later yelled at
another person (such as a spouse, parent, child, etc.) has experienced displaced aggression.
Aggression

26. Another possible reaction to frustration is escape or withdrawal. Escape or withdrawal can take the
form of leaving, dropping out of school, quitting a job, or ending a relationship

27. PHYSIOLOGICAL
FACTORS

28. Physiological Factors
● Autonomic nervous system is a responsible for all automatic, involuntary and life-
sustaining activities. The ANS consists of 2 divisions : Parasympathetic and
Sympathetic
● SNS reacts when a human body is subjected to stress like heart rate increases,
digestion slows or shutdown, etc.
● The PNS returns the body to normal functioning after the stress is ended.
● If the stress is great enough and last long enough, the PNS might shut the body
down and cause collapse what people “Nervous Exhaustion”

30. General Adaptation Syndrome
● Physiological reactions that the body goes through when adapting to a
stressor. This sequence is called as General adaptation syndrome.
● There are 3 stages.
● ALARM - When body reacts to a stressor SNS is activated. The adrenal
gland releases hormones that increases heart rate, blood pressure ans
supply of blood sugar resulting in a bust of energy.
● RESISTANCE- As the stress continues, the body settles into sympathetic
division activity, continuing to release the stress hormone that helps the
body fight off or resist the stressors. This stage will continue until the
stressor end or the organism has used up all of its resources.
● EXHAUSTION - When body resources are gone, Exhaustion occurs. When
the stressor ends, the parasympathetic division activates and body attempts
to replenish its resources.

31. Immune system and stress
● Immune system - the system of cells, organs, chemicals in the body that
responds to attack on the body from disease and injuries is affected by stress.
● The field of pychoneuroimmunology concerns the study of effects of
physiological factors such as stress, emotion, thinking, learning, and behavior on
the immune system.
● Hormones play a part in helping the immune system fight the effect of stress. A
hormone called ‘dehydroepiandrosteone (DHEA)’ known to provide anti stress
benefits in animals, also aids human in stress.
● As stress continues, the body’s resources begin to fall in the Exhaustion phase
of General adaptation to stress.
● Humans experience these stress reactions over prolonged period of times and in
situations that are not necessarily life-threatening, leading to breakdown in the
immune system.

32. ● HEART DISEASES - Stress has shown to put people at a
higher risk for heart attack and strokes. Stress can lead to
drinking alcohol, smoking, eating high calorie food etc.
● DIABETES - One chronic illness associated with excessive
weight gain in diabetes. Diabetes leads to stress and vice
versa.
● CANCER - A collection of diseases that can affect any part
of the body is cancer. Stress has been shown to depress
the release of natural killers cells, making it more difficult
for the body's system to fight cancerous growth.
● OTHER HEALTH ISSUES - Stress to be contributing factor in
a variety of human diseases and disorders, including heart
diseases, depression, HIV or AIDS

34. ISSUES IN
PSYCHOLOGY

36. Health psychology and stress
Health psychology area of psychology focusing on how physical
activities, psychological traits, and social relationships affect overall
health and rate of illnesses.
Stress has the ability to negatively impact our lives. It can cause
physical conditions, such as headaches, digestive issues, and sleep
disturbances. It can also cause psychological and emotional strains,
including confusion, anxiety, and depression.

38. Influence of cognition and personality in stress
Lazarus’s cognitive–mediational
theory of emotions
suggests an individual’s appraisal
of a stressor is a major factor
in determining how stressful
that stressor becomes.

40. PRIMARY APPRAISAL
•The first step in appraising a stressor is called primary appraisal, which
involves estimating the severity of the stressor and classifying it as a threat
(something that could be harmful in the future), a challenge (something to
be met and defeated), or a harm or loss that has already occurred.
•If the stressor is appraised as a threat, negative emotions may arise that
inhibit the person’s ability to cope with the threat.

41. Classification
● When you see the stressor as a threat, you view it as something that will cause future harm.
Eg. A student who has not read the text or taken good notes will certainly appraise an upcoming
exam as threatening.
● When you look at it as a challenge, you develop a positive stress response because you expect
the stressor to lead you to a better position.
Eg. The student who has studied, read, and feels prepared is much more likely to appraise the
upcoming exam as an opportunity to do well.
● On the other hand, seeing the stressor as a “harm-loss” means that the damage has already
been experiences.
Eg. When a person underwent a recent leg amputation, or encountered a car accident.

42. SECONDARY APPRAISAL
•In secondary appraisal, people who have identified a threat or harmful effect must
estimate the resources that they have available for coping with the stressor.
•Resources might include social support, money, time, energy, ability, or any number
of potential resources, depending on the threat.
•If resources are perceived as or abundant, the degree of stress will be considerably
less than if resources are missing or lacking.
•Eg. , a student who feels that she has the time to study and the ability to understand
the material in that time will feel much less distress than the student who has little
time to study and doesn’t feel that she understood all the content of the lectures
covered on the exam.

43. •Although primary and secondary appraisals are often a
result of an encounter with a stressor, stress doesn’t
always happen with cognitive appraisal.
•One example is when a person gets involved in a sudden
disaster, such as an earthquake, and he doesn’t have
more time to think about it, yet he still feels stressful about
the situation.

44. Personality factors in
stress

45. Personality factors in stress
Personality differences affect how one assesses
a stressor, the coping strategies used, and
possible health outcomes.
TYPES OF PERSONALITIES:
ØType A
ØType B
ØType C
ØType H

46. •Type A: Personality person who is ambitious, time conscious,
extremely hardworking, and tends to have high levels of hostility and
anger as well as being easily annoyed. They experience increased
risk of heart disease.
•Type B personality person who is relaxed and laid-back, less driven
and competitive than Type A, and slow to anger.
•Type C personality pleasant but repressed person, who tends to
internalize his or her anger and anxiety and who finds expressing
emotions difficult.
•hardy personality a person who seems to thrive on stress but lacks
the anger and hostility of the Type A personality.

47. What makes type H personality different
from other types?
• Hardy people have a deep sense of commitment to their values,
beliefs, sense of identity, work, and family life.
• Hardy people also feel that they are in control of their lives and what
happens to them.
• Hardy people tend to interpret events in primary appraisal differently
than people who are not hardy. When things go wrong, they do not
see a frightening problem to be avoided but instead a challenge to be
met and answered

48. EXAMPLE:
• Type A people get enraged and throw the lemons back, having a
minor heart attack while doing so.
• Type B people gather all the lemons and make lemonade.
• Type C people don’t say anything but fume inside where no one
can see.
• Type H people gather the lemons, make lemonade, sell it, turn it
into a franchise business, and make millions. (Remember, laughing is
good for you!)

49. Explanatory style: Optimists &
Pessimists
•Optimists are people who expect positive outcomes & pessimists are
people who expect negative outcomes.
•Seligman (originally studied concept of learned helplessness) began the
positive psychology movement; has suggested that optimism leads to longer
life and greater success in life endeavors.
•Optimism is associated with controlling mood or emotional reactions; can
be a learned skill through alternative thinking, downward social comparison,
relaxation, and correcting faulty thinking
•

50. Seligman (2002) has outlined four ways
in which optimism may affect how long a
person lives:
1.Optimists are less likely to develop learned helplessness, the tendency to stop
trying to achieve a goal that has been blocked in the past.
2. Optimists are more likely than pessimists to take care of their health by preventive
measures (such as going to the doctor regularly, eating right, and exercising)
because they believe that their actions make a difference in what happens to them.
(Remember, this is a characteristic of hardy people as well.)
3. Optimists are far less likely than pessimists to become depressed, and depression
is associated with mortality because of the effect of depression on the immune
system.
4. Optimists have more effectively functioning immune systems than pessimists do,
perhaps because they experience less psychological stress.

51. Psychiatrist Susan Vaughan (2000) has some
good advice for optimistic people who want to
keep a positive outlook:
• Alternative thinking: Optimists tend to take bad things that happen less personally,
coming up with alternative explanations for why the bad thing happened. For example,
optimists tend to attribute poor exam grades to the difficulty of that particular material or to
not having enough time to study . They appraise it as a challenge and assume that they
will perform more successfully in the future.
• Downward social comparison: Many people make themselves feel better by comparing
their performance to that of less competent others, making them feel better and protecting
self-esteem. Optimists use downward social comparison frequently.
• Relaxation: Optimists use relaxation as a way to improve mood, such as exercising,
meditating, or reading a good book

52. Psychiatrist Susan Vaughan (2000) has some
good advice for optimistic people who want to
keep a positive outlook:
• Alternative thinking: Optimists tend to take bad things that happen less personally,
coming up with alternative explanations for why the bad thing happened. For example,
optimists tend to attribute poor exam grades to the difficulty of that particular material or to
not having enough time to study . They appraise it as a challenge and assume that they
will perform more successfully in the future.
• Downward social comparison: Many people make themselves feel better by comparing
their performance to that of less competent others, making them feel better and protecting
self-esteem. Optimists use downward social comparison frequently.
• Relaxation: Optimists use relaxation as a way to improve mood, such as exercising,
meditating, or reading a good book

53. HOW TO BECOME AN OPTIMISTIC
THINKER?
1. When a bad mood strikes, stop and think about what just went
through your head.
2. When you’ve recognized the negative statements, treat them as if
they came from someone else—someone who is trying to make your
life miserable. Think about the damage the statement is doing to you.
3. Argue with those thoughts. Challenge each negative statement
and replace it with a more positive statement.

54. Example:
1.“I’ll never get this term paper finished, it’s too hard and there’s so much going on that it’s
impossible!” What words in this statement makes it pessimistic? “Never” is a long time. Why is it
too hard? Is it really impossible, or just difficult? Is it just one part of the paper that seems so
hard, or is it the whole thing?
2.That statement isn’t going to help me at all, it just makes me feel worse and that makes me
unmotivated to work on the paper.
3.I can finish the term paper. I’m just going to have to devote more time to working on it. I can
make a timetable for finishing the different parts of the paper and stop spending so much time
watching television and escaping into other activities that can wait until the paper is finished. I’ve
been in situations like this before and managed, so I can manage now, too.

55. To sum up on whole:

56. BIBLIOGRAPHY
•Psychology 3rd Edition by Saundra
Ciccarelli ; Ciccarelli, Saundra K.; White, J.
Noland.
•https://explorable.com/stress-and-cognitive-
appraisal

58. Social factors in stress
Environment or social factors may put individuals under great stress, leading to
poor health and family issues too.
Stress can be caused due to
● Lack of education
● Low standard of housing
● Economic hardship
● Domestic violence
● Homelessness
● Lack of social support

59. ~Thank you ~