Psychology of Health

            Stress

Stress is an unavoidable consequence of life stree produces demands on people to adjust their behavior.Stress often has negative consequences such as 

Definition

1. Stress is a psychology tension produced by physical,social and psychology forces and pressures.

2.Some researchers define stress as a stimulus ( stressor ) that threatens us.

3.Sometime stress and anxiety is equated as psychology reactions to stressor.

The nature of stress

Stress involve circumstances and experience that are perceived as threatening.Stress is a common every day event and even seemingly minor stressor or hassles can be problematic.Major types of stress include frustration,conflict,change and pressure There are three stages in physiology reaction to stress.

Alarm

Resistance

Exhaustion

Causes of stress 

Stress is unavoidable at sometime in most of our life.There are two main causes of stress,

1.Life changes and daily Hassles

2.Major psychology causes of stress.

a.life change and daily Hassles

Our daily routine generates many sources of stress but we also experience stress when we make more major changes in our lives. Here we compare two other types of stress

Life change

For example getting married,receiving a big pay raise , going on vacation,gradution from college. A number of studies suggest that a large increase in life change units may indicate stress severe enough to endanger health.A number of research studies have reported that negative life changes are much more likely to be associated with stress and illness than are positive life changes. Holahan and Moos(1985)suggested that variable such as personality prior experience and social support determine whether life change event will contribute to illness.

Daily Hassles

Hassles as petty routine annoyances,aggravation or frustration such as driving in a traffic, preparing meals the pressure of the time . Richard Lazarus and his colleagues (1985)argued that rather than major life changes events such stress is produced from the daily hassles that routine annoy us.