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EMOTION & HEALTH
Presented By Siti Nur Rifhan Kamaruddin
What is Emotion?
• Definition: A mind and body’s integrated
response to a stimulus of some kind.
• Emotions involve Physiological arousal, Expressive
behaviours and Conscious experience
i.e Walking alone at night and you hear footsteps
Physio. Arousal : Heart beating fast
Expressive Behaviour: Walk faster or move towards
street lights
Conscious Experience: Feeling Fear, panic
Theories of Emotion
Does physiological activity precede or follow
emotional experience?
Does your heart pound because you are afraid….
Or are you afraid because you feel your heart
pounding?
Does cognition (thinking) precede emotion
(feeling)?
Commonsense View
When you become happy, your heart
starts beating faster. First comes
conscious awareness, then comes
physiological activity
James-Lange Theory
• Opposed to the
common sense
view
• This theory
proposes that
physiologic activity
precedes the
emotional
experience
Cannon-Bard Theory
• They questioned the
James-Lange theory
• States that emotion-
triggering stimulus
and body’s arousal
take place
simultaneously
• They don’t cause one
another.
Two-factor Theory
The Basic Emotions (Ekman & Keltner, 1997)
• Emotions that have been scientifically proven to
have a certain facial expression associated with
it.
• i.e “Anger” can be recognized by this picture all
around the world
• Based on a research done to study an isolated
culture of people from Fori tribe in Papua New
Guinea in 1972.
• The tribe members were able to identify these six
emotions on the photos.
Relation of Emotion to Health
• Emotion plays a big role in how we think and
how we behave. It affect our psychological
states and therefore, our bodies.
• Because , what is psychological is ultimately
biological
• For instance, chronic anger and depression
makes us vulnerable to all kinds of health
problems (Hypertension, Cardiovascular
disease and infection)
• Poor emotional health can weaken body’s
immune systems – vulnerable to infection
during emotionally difficult times.
• Also, when you don’t feel good, you may not
take care of your health as well as you should.
• May not feel like eating, exercising, taking
medicine
• Abuse of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs –
sign of poor emotional health
Introduction to Stress
• DEFINITION: The process by which we perceive
and response to certain events or stressors,
that we view as challeging or threatening.
• Stress isnt technically an emotion – more to a
reaction to a disturbing or distruptive stimulus.
• Reaction depends of own’s appraisal of the
stimulus.
Stress and Stressors
• Catastrophes
- Earthquakes, floods
• Significant life changes
- Moving, death of loved ones, changing
job
• Everyday Inconveniences
- Road traffics, fight with roommate
Body Response to Stress
Impact of Stress to Health
• Susceptibility to chronic diseases
• Susceptibility to infections
• Increased risk of Cardiovascular
Disease
• Stress and Cancer
• Stress and PTSD
Stress and Health : Introduction
• Psychological states cause physical illness.
• Stress can be adaptive. In a fearful or stress-
causing situation – we can run away and save
our lives
• Stress can be maladaptive. If it is prolonged
(chronic stress), it increases risk of illness and
health problems.
Stress and Susceptibility to Disease
• B Lymphocytes fight bacterial infections,
T lymphocytes attack cancer cells and
viruses and microphages ingest foreign
substances.
• During stress, energy is mobilized away
from the immune system making it
vulnerable.
Stress and Colds
People with the highest life stress scores were
also the most vulnerable when exposed to an
experimental cold virus
Stress and Heart Disease
• Stress that leads to increase blood pressure
may result in Coronary Heart Disease, a
clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart
muscle.
• Supported by Personality Type
- Type A (competitive, hard driving, anger
prone people) are more likely to develop
CHD than Type B( Easygoing,
relaxed)
Pessimism and Heart Disease
• Pessimistic adult men are twice as likely
to develop heart disease over 10-year
period (Kubzansky et al. 2001)
Stress and Cancer
Stress does not create cancer cells.
Researchers disagree on whether the
stress influences the progression of
cancer.
However, they do agree that avoiding
stress and having hopeful attitude
help in coping with the disease.
Stress and PTSD
• When an individual is exposed to a severely stressful
experience (death, violence) it may result in PTSD.
• The trauma experienced is severe enough to causes stress
responses for months or even years after the event.
• The trauma overwhelms the victim’s ability to cope and
memories of the event trigger anxiety and physical stress
responses.
• CBT seeks to change the way a trauma victim feels and acts
by changing the patterns of thinking/behaviour.
Thank you! 
References
• Chapter 3 Basic Emotions, Paul Ekman. Handbook of Cognition and
Emotion. 1999 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
• Emotion and Health: An Overview. P.Pandey and A.K Choubey. SIS J.Proj.
Psy. & Mental Health (2010) 17: 135-152
• Boundless. “Introduction to Stress.” Psychology (11th Edition). Boundless,
26 May. 2016.
• Boundless. “Biology of Emotion.” Psychology (11th Edition). Boundless, 08
Aug. 2016