Health Psychology

Health Psychology
• Health psychology: how psychosocial factors relate to
• Promotion and maintenance of health
• Causation, prevention, and treatment of illness
• Psychological factors influence physical health
• Direct effects of stress
• Health-impairing habits
• Reactions to illness
• Use of recreational drugs
Habits, lifestyles, and health
• Health harming habits (such as smoking, excessive drinking,
overeating)
• Health-impairing habits creep up on people slowly
• Habits may involve activities that are pleasant
• Risks tend to lie in distant future
• Underestimate risks associated with own health-impairing habits
Behavioral Medicine
• Much focus on stress
• Stressor: A physical or psychological demand that induces
physiological adjustment
• Chief stressors include life changes and daily hassles
Life Events
• Stress can be defined as number of “life events”
• Life Change Units (LCUs)
• Trouble with boss= 23
• Pregnancy = 40
• Christmas = 12
Stress and illness
• More LCUs =
• More likely to develop illnesses including:
• Heart attack
• Common cold
• Fractures
DAILY hassles
• Described as “Broken shoestrings of life”
• Indirect effects:
• Trigger unhealthy behaviors
• Direct effects:
• Lower immune response
General Adaptation Syndrome
• Historic study of stress and health
• Hans Selye – three stages
Alarm
Autonomic nervous system activation (fight or flight)
Resistance
Systems do not return to normal, body tries to cope
Usually adapts and returns to normal
Exhaustion
Persistent stress
Vulnerable to illness
General Adaptation Syndrome
Stress and the immune system
Psychneuroimmunology
• Studies the relationship between psychological factors and physical
illness
• Stress can impair the immune system.
Conditioning the Immune Response
• Classical conditioning to enhance positive immune responses and to
suppress undesirable immune responses
Personality and Health
• Type A personality:
• High achievement
• Time urgency
• Hostility
• Type B personality:
• Calmer
• Less intense
• High in hostility = worse health
• Modest correlation: Type A behavior and increased coronary risk
• Stronger correlation: anger and hostility component of Type A and increased
coronary risk
Personality and Health
• Hostility and stress
• Anger-prone individuals – greater physiological reactivity
• Hostile people create additional stress for themselves
• Hostile individuals have less social support
• People high in anger and hostility have higher prevalence of poor health
habits
Personality and Health
• Relationship between the tendency to suppress emotions and the
development of cancer
• Emotion suppression associated with suppression of the immune
response
• Stress can impair immune system’s ability to destroy cancerous cells.
• Little evidence that stress can directly cause normal cells to become
cancerous
Moderating Stress
Psychological Hardiness
• Commitment: Involvement in activities and relationships
• Challenge: Stressors opportunities for personal growth
• Acceptance of change
• Control: Have resources to cope with stressors
• Self-perceived
• We can influence how events affect us
Moderating Stress
Control
• Perceived control over stressors reduces stress.
• Learned helplessness: No control over events
• Burnout: Physical and psychological exhaustion associated with
chronic exposure to stress
Moderating Stress
Social Support
• Availability of support from others
• Reduces effects of stressful life events
• Promotes recovery from illness
• Increases adherence to medical regimens
• May directly strengthen the immune response
Moderating Stress
Exercise and Stress Management
• Exercise may enhance functioning of immune system
• Regular exercise associated with greater longevity
• Improvements in mood, self-esteem, work efficiency, lowered tension and
anxiety
Stress and Coping Strategies
• Coping Methods
• Cognitive: problem-solving, etc.
• Behavioral: take steps--doing something
• Avoidance: ignore problem or try to distract self
• Coping Focus
• Problem Focused- seek info, generate options
• Emotion Focused- alter reaction; relax, distract, seek comfort
Coping Strategies
• Different strategies best for different stressors
• Avoidance strategies
• better adaptation in acute pain
• Cognitive strategies
• better in chronic pain
Coping with illness
• Patients differ in their ability to cope with illness or stressful medical
procedures
• Coping mechanisms
• High level of self-efficacy
• Psychological techniques for coping with pain
• Modeling
• Distraction
• Quality of relationship with medical practitioner
Relaxation to reduce stress effects
• Effective relaxation techniques:
• Massage
• Hypnosis
• Meditation
• Biofeedback
• Deep, rhythmic breathing
• Most basic technique: Progressive relaxation
• Reduces high blood pressure
• Slows breathing rate
• Can enhance immunological response