Community Mental Health; UCSC; Tonay

STRESS & COPING

Lazarus' Two Types of Coping:

Problem-Focused Coping (PF): coping strategies which help us solve a problem

Emotion-Focused Coping (EF): coping strategies which help us feel better

Lazarus Eight Coping Class/Categories (from Lazarus & Folkman, Ways of Coping Manual, 1988)

Confrontative Coping (PF): Describes aggressive efforts to alter the situation and suggests some degree of hostility and risk-taking

Distancing (EF): Describes cognitive efforts to detach oneself and to minimize the significance of the situation.

Escape-Avoidance (EF): Describes wishful thinking and behavioral efforts to escape or avoid the problem.

Planful Problem-Solving (PF): Describes deliberate, problem-focused efforts to alter the situation, coupled with an analytic approach to solving the problem.

Self--Controlling (EF): Describes efforts to regulate one's feelings and actions.

Seeking Social Support (EF): Describes efforts to seek informational support, tangible support, and emotional support.

Accepting Responsibility (EF): Acknowledges one's own role in the problem with a concomitant theme of trying to put things right.

Positive Reappraisal (EF): Describes efforts to create positive meaning by focusing on personal growth.

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What is stress?
Stress is the physiological response to demands that tax or exceed one's mental, emotional, and/or physical resources. Most of us think of stress as being negative, but it can also be positive--happy events tax or exceed our resources, too! Also, recalling past stress or anticipating a stressor can create stress. The body does not distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' stress. It views all stressors as demands-- usually only temporary-- for more energy output. The body's long-term response to chronic stress is severe.

Diet and stress
Here's what happens within a split second when your body responds to a stressor (be it a sharp word or a life-threatening emergency): blood pressure rises and pulse rate increases in order to speed nutrients where they are needed; blood sugar increases to provide instant energy; vitamin C is mobilized to fight infection; B vitamins, calcium, and other minerals are drawn from the bones to stimulate muscles; irrelevant body functions slow down (i.e., digestion); sodium content (and water retention) increase to prevent dehydration. Afterwards, protein which was broken down to form blood sugar in the crisis cannot be reused as protein. Vitamin C and B vitamins are excreted and no longer available. Minerals cannot be reinstated into the bones. This is why it is so important to attend to your diet when under, or following, prolonged periods of stress--and to ensure you are eating in a calm, relaxed environment, since if you are under stress when you eat, you will not completely digest your food.

When under stress, it's wise to avoid caffeine (a stimulant which taxes several systems of the body, including the central nervous system), tobacco (a toxin and stimulant), alcohol (a toxin and depressant) and other drugs, sugar and foods with a high gylcemic index (destabilizes blood sugar and promotes a high-then-crash-then-crave cycle).

When the body is forced to draw on reserves of protein for blood sugar for instant energy, protein is taken first from the adrenal glands, then from the thymus and lymph glands, and then from the muscles. People under chronic stress who are not eating enough protein are actually digesting their own glands and muscles in order to physically cope with the stress! Because of the demands stress makes on the body, repeated or prolonged stress can cause a host of physical difficulties, including adrenal exhaustion, heart problems, central nervous system difficulties, and digestive problems. It is also a leading cause of depression.

It's also very important to get lots of sleep (most Americans are chronically sleep deprived), because it's during stage 4 sleep that cellular repair occurs (stage 4 is disrupted when one is using alcohol and many other drugs). When under stress, you may need 9 or even 10 hours of sleep per night! Try to unplug from technology in the evenings for two hours before bed; your brain is stimulated by technology differently than by "real" life, and that stimulation can cause insomnia.

Coping with stress
'Reframing' the stressor really does work! Research shows that finding something positive in the stress you are experiencing ("I am learning to cope with difficulties in a new way," "I am testing myself to break this negative pattern of behavior," and so on) actually reduces the physical response to stress and the length of time it takes to heal from its effects. Research also shows that seeking social support (for women) and making a plan to solve the problem (for men) decreases stress. Because there are so many physical effects, it is crucial to do some type of exercise when under stress. Exercise which also teaches you to calm the mind and control the breath, such as a martial art or yoga, can be particularly helpful. Meditation training and spiritual or religious study have also been shown by research to reduce the duration, severity, and negative physical effects of stress in adults.

* ©2009 V.eronica Tonay, PhD