Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman's and Stress and Coping Paradigm

There are unfortunate events that may take place in someone’s life, which can lead to stress. Sometimes a crisis or a traumatic event can come without any warnings. A crisis can be a problem that is too great for someone to handle, but it is not always bad (Wright, 2011). Trauma is the response to any event that shatters a person’s safe world, so that it is no longer a place they can feel safe

Society defines stress as anything which forces us to change. Through technical terms stress is defined as “a negative emotional state occurring in response to events that are perceived as taking or exceeding a person’s resources or ability to cope.” To explaining stress researchers came up with the “Cognitive appraisal model”, this system works to tell us whether we believe we have enough resources to deal with the situation without becoming stressed. For instance as a now college student those who have had previous experience taking finales in high school can have less stress than those who have not taken it. This is because they have previous experience with taking the tests and learning how to study while those who have never taken one can become extremely stressed over the unknown of the test. Stress is one of the sub branches that is attached to the world of health psychology. Health psychology is a quickly growing branch that deals with the way the mind and body work together. Psychologists that work in the health field came up with the biopsychosocial model. This model explains the complex interaction with biological, psychological, and social factors.

The events or situations that can produce stress are called stressors. To measure the amount of stress a single event can cause two men named Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe came up wit this idea of the Social Readjustment Rating Scale. This scale “includes 43 life events” each event comes with a point value for the amount of stress that each event should given. However more than “150 life change units within a year had an increased rate of physical or psychological illness”. Over time this scale has been modified to accommodated for gender, age, martial status, and individual characteristics. Even with the modifications made, the way each person copes with stress is quite different therefore this scale does not apply to the majority of people. Likewise this scale did help research to find that “negative life events have a more adverse effect on health than a positive event.”. Therefore traumatic events “ are events or situations that are negative; serve, and far beyond our normal expectation for everyday life or life events.” These negative events can cause extreme stress on a person which can lead to health issues. For instance PTSD or post traumatic stress disorder can cause anxiety, nervousness, sleep disturbances, and irritability. To help to resolve the health issues that come with stress many try to develop resilience. Though contrary to popular belief the

Kelly McGonigal discusses the importance of viewing stress as positive, as opposed to negative, by detailing three specific studies and findings about stress. In the first study, it was discovered that people with a significant amount of stress had a higher mortality rate; however, this was only statistically significant if the subject viewed stress as harmful. If the overly-stressed subject didn’t view stress as harmful, they were actually at the lowest risk of dying, even compared to those with a minimal amount. Therefore, it is important to change a person’s perspective of stress. In particular, McGonigal emphasizes that stress is important for a person’s body: it energizes and prepares them to meet whatever challenge they are facing. Furthermore, it helps the blood vessels remain relaxed, thereby allowing the heart to remain healthy.

Stress can do incredible things to the human body, including helping us be more productive, work harder, or think faster. However, when a person experienced extreme stress in response to uncontrollable circumstances such as fighting in a war, a physical attack, an accident, or a natural disaster, it can be detrimental. A person who will live through a major traumatic event often could not cope with

This scholarly paper is about stress, one of the social determinants of health, and how stress occurs and how it influences the health and wellbeing of an individual. Stress affects the mental and psychological health of a person, which reflects in their thoughts and emotions, ultimately, making them think or act in a different way than normal. This abnormal behaviour could potentially lead to further severe mental damage. Stress also affects a person’s family and people near them, resulting in separation or loss of friendship, marriage and other social bonds with communities. The paper also endeavours to look into some of the strategies to overcome stress and the ways to fit into a healthy and happy life

In everyday life, it is inevitable that an individual will experience some form of stress. This stress may come in the form of daily hassles, inconveniences and major life events such as divorce or the loss of a loved one. When stress becomes traumatic, the individual is at a great risk of developing a stress disorder. According to the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000), traumatic stress occurs when the individual is presented with a traumatic situation in which the person experiences or witnesses an event that incorporated threats of death or significant harm and the person’s reaction to the event consisted of profound terror, helplessness or revulsion. A traumatic event can be a large-scale event with multiple victims such as natural/human caused disasters, war, mass violence or explicit experience in the death of others. Examples of these large-scale events include 9/11, the Holocaust, Hurricane Katrina etc. Other classification of traumatic events involve unintended acts involving fewer people such as motor vehicle collisions or life threatening illnesses and acts of intended personal violence such as sexual/physical assault, torture or child abuse. These traumatic stressors cause a significant more amount of distress than the everyday stressors mentioned earlier as they cause the individual to challenge

Lazarus's cognitive–mediational theory of emotions, agrees with my opinion on stress. Lazarus's theory states that "the way people think about and appraise a stressor is a major factor in how stressful that particular stressor becomes". (Ciccarelli & White, 2015, p. 420)

Throughout life stress is a common problem whether it’s at work, school or home. The many negative effects of stress in fact affect individuals differently varying from health issues to work performance. Therefore, all individuals have different views of stress and various ways of handling it or otherwise managing their stress. Stress is when any living thing feels endangered and its homeostasis is at risk (Varvogli & Darviri, 2011, p. 74). Ways of dealing with stress are efforts of cognitive, behavioral, and psychological nature that allows a person to manage stress. Although there are different causes of stress, there are also many techniques for relieving it. The following articles are intended for the reader to

Final Summary: Today, we discussed the three forms of stress; acute stress, episodic acute stress, and chronic stress.

Psychological stress is a result of many factors and should be dealt with very carefully. Stress can be defined as “An excess of demand made upon the adaptive capabilities of the mind and body”.(Joseph 1). Another way of putting it, is that there are some things that put certain demands on us. The effects of stress should not be limited to unpleasant emotional states. Many studies have concluded that the effects on our physical health from stress can be extremely detrimental. These adverse physical effects include heart disease and formations of cancer. There are also some societal issues that psychological stress can hamper.

The external component of the Biopsychosocial Model of stress involves environmental events that precede the recognition of stress and can elicit a stress response. A previously mentioned, the stress reaction is elicited by a wide variety of psychosocial stimuli that are either physiologically or emotionally threatening and disrupt the body's homeostasis (Cannon, 1932). We are usually aware of stressors when we feel conflicted, frustrated, or pressured. Most of the common stressors fall within four broad categories: personal, social/familial, work, and the environment. These stressful events have been linked to a variety of psychological physical complaints. For example bereavement

Stress is part of our lives. We live with it, deal with it, and above all worry about it. Our way of life, the area in which we live, the economy, and our jobs can cause a great deal of stress. Not everyone deals with the same level of stress and there are several factors that can impact our lives and cause us to have higher or lower stress levels. We can have stress caused by Cataclysmic events which according to Feldman (2009) are events that can affect many people at the same time and are “disasters such as tornado and plane crashes, as well as terrorist attacks”. (p418). Other factors are personal stressors and can be caused by events such as a divorce, death or a loved one or the loss of a job. (Feldman, 2009). The

Everybody has at least one thing in common. Can you guess what it is? If you guessed, heartbreak, you’re right, but that’s not the answer I’m looking for. The correct answer is stress. Everyone has stress in his or her life at one point or another. It’s one of many inevitable parts of life. Whether it’s busting out a research paper for Psychology at the last minute, expecting your first child to be born, to making sure you’re up in time to catch the Saturday morning cartoons, it’s clearly evident that everyone goes through stress. The real question is, how is stress handled in our society? A person is defined by how they handle the stressors in their lives and how they overcome stressful moments. This paper will explore the aspects of

Stress is also linked low fertility in one’s reproductive organs, and can cause problems during pregnancy or one’s menstrual cycle (www.everydayhealth.com). This happens when one is overwhelmed with the stress he or she is going through in their lives. No one person is the same, meaning stressors as well as stress levels differ for each individual. This is why it is hard for scientists to reach the core because it is a subjective sensation related with a variety of symptoms that differ for each of us. Because of this, stress is not always a synonym for distress. Situations like a steep roller coaster ride that cause fear and anxiety for some can prove highly pleasurable for others (www.stress.org). Each person also responds to stress differently. There are numerous physical as well as emotional responses to stress. Stress can cause an ocean of different emotions that are often times unpredictable. It can have wide ranging effects on people’s emotions, mood and behavior (www.stress.org). Stress has said to have been America’s number one leading health problem. It has been shown that stress levels have escalated in children, teenagers, college students and the elderly for reasons that of which have lead to: increased crime, violence, and other threats to personal safety; pernicious peer pressures that lead to substance abuse and other unhealthy life style habits; social isolation and loneliness; the erosion of family and religious