Impact of Stress on our Bodies Stress can effect our relationships and our bodies. We cannot eliminate stress so we need to find ways to cope with it.

1. Impact of Stress on our
Bodies
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2. Key components
 A key component to people's reactions to stress is how they
appraise or think about a potentially stressful
 Among the factors related to the development of illness are stress,
coping style, and social support. Among the factors related to the
development of illness are stress, coping style, and social support.
 The more important the goal is, the more stress a person will feel
when that goal is threatened
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3. How People Cope with Stress
 Other people have a pessimistic coping style, they view
the world as an uncontrollable, unpredictable place in
which they will never be able to gain control over things
that bother them
 If the stress continues and the body is unable to cope,
there is likely to be breakdown of bodily resources
 When an individual is faced with stress, his body
mobilizes for action in what is called a fight or flight
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4. Prolonged Stress
 They are less likely to report chronic stress
and inadequacy of family and social support
than those who do not have a repressive
coping style
 If stress persists after the initial fight or flight
reaction, the body's reaction enters a
second stage
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5. Prolonged Stress
 Research found that failures that were attributed to
internal, unstable, and controllable factors lead to
active efforts to resolve the problem or rally social
support, responses that proved adaptive in
lowering subjective distress and stress related
pathology.
 Stress can be defined as a process in which
environmental demands strain an organisms
adaptive capacity, resulting in both psychological
as well as biological changes that could place a
person at risk for illness (Cohen et. (167)
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6. Avoidant coping
 These people are said to have an optimistic
coping style (Rubin, Paplau, & Salovey, 1993).
(156)
 Avoidant coping means that the person neither
focuses on the source of the stress nor does the
he focus on his reactions to stress (Chang &
Strunk, 1999). (156)
 Approach coping is when the person focuses on
both the sources of the stress as well as the
reactions to it (Chang & Strunk, 1999). (152)
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7. coping style
 Both animals as well as people cope
better with a painful or threatening
situation when they can exercise some
sort of control over the situation (Rubin,
Paplau, & Salovey, 1993). (146)
 Those with a repressive coping style
consistently report good psychological
reactivity to stress and greater health
problems in some studies. (146)
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8. Summary
 Things that cause us stress are called
stressors
 Coping Style In addition to stress, coping
style is also related to the development of
illness.
 It is possible that having social ties reduces
the amount of stress a person experiences
and therefore, reduces his risk of infectious
illness.
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