You are encouraged to set yourself to be without distraction from your learning for the period of each lecture. For a self-paced lesson, a minimum of 15 minutes is recommended for each period. This is to enable you to adequately digest the instructions and content, to avoid misunderstanding and miscommunication, and to achieve meaningful learning.
As you learned in the previous section, stress—especially if it is chronic—takes a toll on our bodies and can have enormously negative health implications. When we experience events in our lives that we appraise as stressful, it is essential that we use effective coping strategies to manage our stress.
Coping refers to mental and behavioral efforts that we use to deal with problems relating to stress, including its presumed cause and the unpleasant feelings and emotions it produces.
"Perhaps the most dramatic of stress coping interventions studies was conducted by Fawzy and his colleagues (Fawzy, Cousins, Fawzy, Kemeny, & Morton, 1990; Fawzy, Kemeny, et al., 1990; Fawzy, et al., 1993; Fawzy & Fawzy, 1994), who did specific coping skills interventions with melanoma patients.
During a six-week structured program, participants experienced multiple program components including health education, psychological support, problem-solving, and stress management training. In the short term, the experimental subjects were more likely to use active behaviour coping than the controls, and also had more positive affect.
Differences in immune functioning were evident between the two groups at the six-month assessment. Specifically, experimental subjects had a greater percentage of large granular lymphocytes, more natural killer (NK) cells, and better NK cytotoxicity. While coping strategies were not directly associated with immune cell changes, they were correlated with affect, which in turn was associated with immune functioning.
The studies supported the hypothesis that effects of coping on biomedical outcomes may be mediated through affect. At a five-year follow-up, a third of the control group had died, compared with less than 10% of the experimental group.
Longer survival was associated with more active coping at baseline."
Lazarus and Folkman (1984) distinguished two fundamental kinds of coping: problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. In problem-focused coping, one attempts to manage or alter the problem that is causing one to experience stress (i.e., the stressor).
Problem-focused coping is helpful when you need to change your situation, perhaps by removing a stressful thing from your life. For example, if you’re in an unhealthy relationship, your anxiety and sadness might be best resolved by ending the relationship (as opposed to soothing your emotions).
Emotion-focused coping is helpful when you need to take care of your feelings when you either don’t want to change your situation or when circumstances are out of your control.
For example, if you are grieving the loss of a loved one, it’d be important to take care of your feelings in a healthy way (since you can’t change the circumstance).
There isn’t always one best way to proceed. Instead, it’s up to the individual to decide which type of coping skill is likely to work best for oneself in that particular circumstance.
4.3 Psychology 101 The Two Types of Coping.mp4Video can be found originally in Youtube within Lisa Fossbender's channel via this link: https://youtu.be/XyYOHJ6NLo0
Q1: You open your email to find your annual performance review. The review states that you are below average in several areas and you’re surprised by this because you thought you were performing well. You feel anxious and frustrated.
Problem-focused coping: You go to the boss and talk about what you can do to improve your performance. You develop a clear plan that will help you do better and you start to feel more confident about your ability to succeed.
Emotion-focused coping: You spend your lunch break reading a book to distract yourself from catastrophic predictions that you’re going to be fired and become homeless. After work, you exercise and clean the house as a way to help you feel better so you can think about the situation more clearly.
Q2: You’ve been invited to give a presentation in front of a large group. You were so flattered and surprised by the invitation that you agreed to do it. But as the event approaches, your anxiety skyrockets because you hate public speaking.
Problem-focused coping: You decide to hire a public speaking coach to help you learn how to write a good speech and how to deliver it confidently. You practice giving your speech in front of a few friends and family members so you will feel better prepared to step on stage.
Emotion-focused coping: You tell yourself that you can do this. You practice relaxation exercises whenever you start to panic. And you remind yourself that even if you’re nervous, no one else is even likely to notice.
Building strong interpersonal relationships with others helps us establish a network of close, caring individuals who can provide social support in times of distress, sorrow, and fear. Social support can be thought of as the soothing impact of friends, family, and acquaintances.
Social support can take many forms, including advice, guidance, encouragement, acceptance, emotional comfort, and tangible assistance (such as financial help).
Thus, other people can be very comforting to us when we are faced with a wide range of life stressors, and they can be extremely helpful in our efforts to manage these challenges.
Demographic factors
Demographic factors including age, gender, education and socio-economic status, affect the type and availability of coping resources. Those who lack knowledge, skills, support networks or money are clearly disadvantaged when appraising and coping with many of life’s demands.
Age: As people grow older, they have a wider range of cognitive strategies they can draw on to compensate for declining physical strength.
Gender: Men and women are often exposed to different types of challenge or danger during their lifetimes, acquire different skills, and demonstrate different ways of coping, and may therefore respond differently. For example, it appears that women are more likely than men to seek and provide social support.
Education: People of different levels of educational attainment and job experience are likely to vary in the knowledge and skills they bring to different types of situation.
Socio-economic status (SES): People with very limited resources and those who experience social exclusion are among those least likely to be able to cope successfully with all the demands and challenges of life. Those who can afford to pay for good sand services when they need them are clearly advantaged those who cannot.
Hardiness (Kobasa 1979): consists of three dimensions of resilience: Commitment (active involvement in life activities), Control (belief in autonomy and the ability to influence life events) and Challenge (belief that change is normal and growth-enhancing). This concept continues to attract positive results, for example, Garossa et al. (2010) reported that it was one of a number of factors associated with a lower risk of burnout in nurses.
Optimism and pessimism: A number of studies have indicated that optimists have better psychological adjustment and immune responses, possibly because they have more effective coping strategies and more supportive social networks (Brisette et al. 2002).
Hostility and anger: General cynicism and interpersonal mistrust is robustly associated with depression (Nabi et al. 2010). Chida and Steptoe (2009) reviewed evidence that anger and hostility exert harmful effects on coronary heart disease (CHD) outcomes in healthy populations and those with CHD, particularly men.
Optimism was significantly and directly correlated with improved health outcomes, including lower levels of saturated fat, body fat, and global coronary risk, and positively associated with success in increasing aerobic capacity. Billings and colleagues (2000) showed that coping affected positive and negative affect among men who were caregiving for AIDS patients.
Social support coping predicted increases in positive affect, which in turn were related to fewer physical symptoms. Avoidant coping, however, was related to increases in negative affect, which were related to more physical symptoms.
Taking care of patients or loved ones who has dementia, physical disabilities or other age-related conditions make demands on our time, energy and emotions — demands that can easily seem overwhelming. Caregiving can tax our patience and foster fatigue, frustration and guilt, becoming a grueling grind that takes a heavy toll on the caregiver's body and mind. The physical effects are well documented.
Researchers have found that among people ages 55 to 75, those who are caregivers experience a 23 percent higher level of stress hormones, according to the American Psychological Association. That can lead to high blood pressure and elevated glucose levels, contributing factors to hypertension and diabetes. Caregivers also show a 15 percent lower level of immune response than non-caregivers, making them more vulnerable to the flu and other infections.
The effects on mental health can be damaging, too. In a 2015 survey from the AARP Public Policy Institute and the National Alliance for Caregiving, nearly 4 in 10 caregivers reported that they suffered from a high level of stress. A 2018 study found that 41 percent of caregivers experienced depression, mood swings and resentment as a result of their labours.
Over time, that physical and psychological wear and tear can lead to caregiver burnout — a condition of feeling exhausted, listless and unable to cope. It can cause caregivers to make mistakes that could endanger a loved one, such as mismanaging medication, or lead to unhealthy behaviours like smoking or alcohol abuse. There needs to be an awareness of the signs of caregiver burnout and taking proactive steps to deal with it before it spirals out of control is important.
In what way is stress different for people across different age groups? Who are most vulnerable?
How does stress in our lives influence our perception of health and illness?
What can we do to help our patients and family members manage stress?
If you happen to be interested to find out more about stress and coping, click on the link below to access a recommended reading for this section.
