Week 18 Reading 2

The Healthy Life

Key terms:
 Chronic disease: A health condition that persists over time, typically for periods longer than
three months (e.g., HIV, asthma, diabetes).
 Biopsychosocial model of health: An approach to studying health and human function that
posits the importance of biological, psychological, and social (or environmental) processes.
 Health: According to the World Health Organization, it is a complete state of physical,
mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
 Biomedical model of health: A reductionist model that posits that ill health is a result of a
deviation from normal function, which is explained by the presence of pathogens, injury, or
genetic abnormality.
 Mind-body connection: The idea that our emotions and thoughts can affect how our body
functions.
 Psychosomatic medicine: An interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on how biological,
psychological, and social processes contribute to physiological changes in the body and
health over time.
 Psychoneuroimmunology: A field of study examining the relationship among psychology,
brain function, and immune function.
 Stressors: An event or stimulus that induces feelings of stress.
 Daily hassles: Irritations in daily life that are not necessarily traumatic, but that cause
difficulties and repeated stress.
 Stress: A pattern of physical and psychological responses in an organism after it perceives a
threatening event that disturbs its homeostasis and taxes its abilities to cope with the event.
 General Adaptation Syndrome: A three-phase model of stress, which includes a
mobilization of physiological resources phase, a coping phase, and an exhaustion phase (i.e.,
when an organism fails to cope with the stress adequately and depletes its resources).
 Resilience: The ability to “bounce back” from negative situations (e.g., illness, stress) to
normal functioning or to simply not show poor outcomes in the face of adversity. In some
cases, resilience may lead to better functioning following the negative experience (e.g., post-
traumatic growth).
 Problem-focused coping: A set of coping strategies aimed at improving or changing stressful
situations.
 Emotion-focused coping: Coping strategy aimed at reducing the negative emotions
associated with a stressful event.
 Control: Feeling like you have the power to change your environment or behavior if you
need or want to.
 Self-efficiency: The belief that one can perform adequately in a specific situation.
 Health behaviors: Any behavior that is related to health—either good or bad.
 Social Integration: The size of your social network, or number of social roles (e.g., son,
sister, student, employee, team member).
 Social support: The perception or actuality that we have a social network that can help us in
times of need and provide us with a variety of useful resources (e.g., advice, love, money).
 Type A behavior: Type A behavior is characterized by impatience, competitiveness,
neuroticism, hostility, and anger.
 Type B behavior: Type B behavior reflects the absence of Type A characteristics and is
represented by less competitive, aggressive, and hostile behavior patterns.
 Hostility: An experience or trait with cognitive, behavioral, and emotional components. It
often includes cynical thoughts, feelings of emotion, and aggressive behavior.
 Biofeedback: The process by which physiological signals, not normally available to human
perception, are transformed into easy-to-understand graphs or numbers. Individuals can
then use this information to try to change bodily functioning (e.g., lower blood pressure,
reduce muscle tension).
 Adherence: In health, it is the ability of a patient to maintain a health behavior prescribed
by a physician. This might include taking medication as prescribed, exercising more, or
eating less high-fat food.
 Behavioral Medicine: A field similar to health psychology that integrates psychological
factors (e.g., emotion, behavior, cognition, and social factors) in the treatment of disease.
This applied field includes clinical areas of study, such as occupational therapy, hypnosis,
rehabilitation or medicine, and preventative medicine.

What Is Health Psychology?

 Today, we face more chronic disease than ever before because we are living longer lives
while also frequently behaving in unhealthy ways.
 Many of the leading causes of illness in developed countries are often attributed to
psychological and behavioral factors.
 Health psychology is a relatively new, interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on these
very issues, or more specifically, the role of psychology in maintaining health, as well as
preventing and treating illness.
 For example: Coronary Heart Disease (CHD):
o Psychosocial factors, such as excessive stress, smoking, unhealthy eating habits, and
some personality traits can lead to increased risk of disease and worse health
outcomes.
o Many of these factors can be adjusted using psychological techniques.
o For example, clinical health psychologists:
 can improve health practices like poor dietary choices and smoking
 can teach important stress reduction techniques
 can help treat psychological disorders tied to poor health
 Health psychology considers how the choices we make, the behaviors we engage in, and
even the emotions that we feel, can play an important role in our overall health
 Health psychology relies on the Biopsychosocial Model of Health. This model posits that
biology, psychology, and social factors are just as important in the development of disease
as biological causes (e.g., germs, viruses), which is consistent with the World Health
Organization (1946) definition of health.
 This model replaces the older Biomedical Model of Health, which primarily considers the
physical, or pathogenic, factors contributing to illness.
 Thanks to advances in medical technology, there is a growing understanding of the
physiology underlying the mind–body connection, and in particular, the role that different
feelings can have on our body’s function.
 Health psychology researchers working in the fields of psychosomatic medicine and
psychoneuroimmunology, for example, are interested in understanding how psychological
factors can “get under the skin” and influence our physiology in order to better understand
how factors like stress can make us sick.

Health and Stress:

 Cohen, S., Tyrrell, D. A., & Smith, A. P. (1991). Psychological stress and susceptibility to the
common cold. New England Journal of Medicine, 325, 606–612.
 Research subjects entered a hotel room, the researchers asked them to report their general
levels of stress. They then receive droplets of cold virus into their noses.
 Studies like this one find that people who are less stressed and those who are more positive
at the beginning of the study are at a decreased risk of developing a cold
 It is not just major life stressors (e.g., a family death, a natural disaster) that increase the
likelihood of getting sick. Even small daily hassles like getting stuck in traffic or fighting with
your girlfriend can raise your blood pressure, alter your stress hormones, and even suppress
your immune system function.
 The word stress was first used in a psychological manner by researcher Hans Selye. He was
examining the effect of an ovarian hormone that he thought caused sickness in a sample of
rats. Surprisingly, he noticed that almost any injected hormone produced this same sickness.
He smartly realized that it was not the hormone under investigation that was causing these
problems, but instead, the aversive experience of being handled and injected by researchers
that led to high physiological arousal and, eventually, to health problems like ulcers.
 Selye (1946) used the term stressor to label a stimulus that had this effect on the body and
developed a model of the stress response called the General Adaptation Syndrome: A
three-phase model of stress, which includes a mobilization of physiological resources phase,
a coping phase, and an exhaustion phase (i.e., when an organism fails to cope with the
stress adequately and depletes its resources).
 Since then, psychologists have studied stress in a myriad of ways, including:
o stress as negative events (e.g., natural disasters or major life changes like dropping
out of school)
o as chronically difficult situations (e.g., taking care of a loved one with Alzheimer’s)
o as short-term hassles
o even as clinical illness like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Protecting Our Health:

Five factors are often studied in terms of their ability to protect (or sometimes harm) health:
 Coping
 Control and Self-Efficacy
 Social Relationships
 Dispositions and Emotions
 Stress Management

1. Coping Strategies:
 Problem-focused coping:
o Is actively addressing the event that is causing stress in an effort to solve the issue at
hand.
o For example, say you have an important exam coming up next week. A problem-
focused strategy might be to spend additional time over the weekend studying to
make sure you understand all of the material.
 Emotion-focused coping:
o Regulates the emotions that come with stress.
o In the above examination example, this might mean watching a funny movie to take
your mind off the anxiety you are feeling.
 In the short term, emotion-focused coping might reduce feelings of stress, but problem-
focused coping seems to have the greatest impact on mental wellness
 When events are uncontrollable (e.g., the death of a loved one), emotion-focused coping
directed at managing your feelings, at first, might be the better strategy.
 Therefore, it is always important to consider the match of the stressor to the coping
strategy when evaluating its plausible benefits.

2. Control and Self-Efficacy:

 Control:
o Feeling like you have the power to change your environment or behavior if you
need or want to.
o Another factor tied to better health outcomes and an improved ability to cope with
stress is having the belief that you have control over a situation.
o Studies have shown that older residents in assisted living facilities lived longer and
showed better health outcomes when given control over something as simple as
watering a plant or choosing when student volunteers came to visit
o Feeling in control of a threatening situation can actually change stress hormone
levels
o Believing that you have control over your own behaviors can also have a positive
influence on important outcomes like smoking cessation and weight management
 Self-efficiency:
o The belief that one can perform adequately in a specific situation
o Just as feeling in control can reduce stress and improve health, higher self-efficacy
can reduce stress and negative health behaviors, and is associated with better health
3. Social Relationships:
 Research has shown that the impact of social isolation on our risk for disease and death is
similar in magnitude to the risk associated with smoking regularly
 Social integration:
o is the concept used to describe the number of social roles that you have, as well as
the lack of isolation.
o For example, you might be a daughter, a basketball team member, a Humane Society
volunteer, a coworker, and a student.
o Maintaining these different roles can improve your health via encouragement from
those around you to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
 Those in your social network might also provide you with social support: This support might
include:
o emotional help (e.g., a hug when you need it)
o tangible help (e.g., lending you money)
o advice
 Social relationships can have a powerful, protective impact on health, and in some cases,
might even help people with serious illnesses stay alive longer

4. Dispositions and Emotions: What’s Risky and What’s Protective?

 Negative dispositions (a person's inherent qualities of mind and character) and personality
traits have been strongly tied to an array of health risks.
 One of the earliest negative trait-to-health connections was discovered in the 1950s by two
cardiologists:
o They made the interesting discovery that there were common behavioral and
psychological patterns among their heart patients that were not present in other
patient samples.
o This pattern included being competitive, ambitious, impatient, controlling, hostile,
and time urgent (like a highly competitive business person)
o They labeled it Type A Behavior.
o It was found to be associated with double the risk of heart disease as compared
with Type B Behavior
o researchers have discovered that it is the hostility and competitiveness components
of Type A that are especially harmful to heart health
o Hostile individuals:
 are quick to get upset, and this angry arousal can damage the arteries of the
heart.
 given their negative personality style, often lack a heath-protective
supportive social network.
 Positive traits and states, on the other hand, are often health protective:
o characteristics like positive emotions (e.g., feeling happy or excited) have been tied
to a wide range of benefits such as
 increased longevity
 a reduced likelihood of developing some illnesses
  better outcomes once you are diagnosed with certain diseases
o Positive emotions can also serve as the “antidote” to stress, protecting us against
some of its damaging effects
o Similarly, looking on the bright side can also improve health. Optimism has been
shown to improve coping, reduce stress, and predict better disease outcomes like
recovering from a heart attack more rapidly

Figure 2. This figure illustrates one possible way that positive affect protects individuals

5. Stress Management:
 Given that the sources of our stress are often difficult to change (e.g., personal finances,
current job), a number of interventions have been designed to help reduce the aversive
responses to duress.
 For example, relaxation activities and forms of meditation are techniques that allow
individuals to reduce their stress via breathing exercises, muscle relaxation, and mental
imagery.
 Biofeedback:
o a technique where the individual is shown bodily information that is not normally
available to them (e.g., heart rate), and then taught strategies to alter this signal.
o This type of intervention has even shown promise in reducing heart and
hypertension risk, as well as other serious conditions
 Exercise is a great stress reduction activity that has a myriad of health benefits.

The Importance Of Good Health Practices:

 Psychologists study both health behaviors and health habits.

 Health behaviors:
o Are behaviors that can improve or harm your health.
o Some examples include regular exercise, flossing, and wearing sunscreen, versus
negative behaviors like drunk driving, pulling all-nighters, or smoking.
 Health habits:
o These behaviors become habits when they are firmly established and performed
automatically.
 Studies have shown that those who engaged in more of these protective habits (e.g., getting
7–8 hours of sleep regularly, not smoking or drinking excessively, exercising) had fewer
illnesses, felt better, and were less likely to die over a 9–12-year follow-up period
 For college students, health behaviors can even influence academic performance. For
example, poor sleep quality and quantity are related to weaker learning capacity and
academic performance
 Much effort is put forward by psychologists to understand how to change unhealthy
behaviors, and to understand why individuals fail to act in healthy ways
 Health promotion involves:
o enabling individuals to improve health by focusing on behaviors that pose a risk for
future illness
o spreading knowledge on existing risk factors

Psychology and Medicine:

 There are many psychological factors that influence medical treatment outcomes:
o For example, older individuals, women, and those from higher socioeconomic
backgrounds are all more likely to seek medical care.
o On the other hand, some individuals who need care might avoid it due to financial
obstacles or preconceived notions about medical practitioners or the illness.
 Many people now use the Internet for health information. Unfortunately, this is not always a
good thing because individuals tend to do a poor job assessing the credibility of health
information.
 After individuals decide to seek care, there is also variability in the information they give
their medical provider. Poor communication (e.g., due to embarrassment or feeling rushed)
can influence the accuracy of the diagnosis and the effectiveness of the prescribed
treatment.
 Adherence:
o In health, it is the ability of a patient to maintain a health behavior prescribed by a
physician.
o This might include taking medication as prescribed, exercising more, or eating less
high-fat food.
o Unfortunately, getting patients to follow medical orders is not as easy as one would
think.
o As mobile technology improves, physicians now have the ability to monitor
adherence and work to improve it (e.g., with pill bottles that monitor if they are
opened at the right time).

Being A Health Psychologist:

 Clinical health psychologists:

o will evaluate physical, personal, and environmental factors contributing to illness and
preventing improved health
 o will then help create a treatment strategy that takes into account all dimensions of a
person’s life and health, which maximizes its potential for success.
o can also conduct research to discover new health predictors and risk factors, or
develop interventions to prevent and treat illness.
 In the related field of behavioral medicine, careers focus on the application of this type of
research. Occupations in this area might include jobs in occupational therapy, rehabilitation,
or preventative medicine.

The Future Of Health Psychology:

 With this focus on prevention, it is important that health psychologists move beyond
studying risk in isolation, and move toward studying factors that confer resilience and
protection from disease.
 With recent advances in technology, we are starting to see great strides made to improve
health with the aid of computational tools. For example, mobile apps that allow us to
monitor our exercise levels and food intake
 Also exciting are devices that allow us to monitor physiology in real time; for example, to
better understand the stressful situations that raise blood pressure or heart rate.