MEETING LIFE

CHALLENGES
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Contents -

- Introductions
- Nature, Types and Sources of Stress
- Effects of stress on psychological functioning and health
- Coping with stress
a.) Stress and health
b.) General Adaptative Syndrome
c.) Stress and Immune system
d.) Lifestyle
- Promoting positive health and well- being
a.) Life Skills

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Basic features of stress ;-
• Stress is a part of life. Stress is neither a stimulus nor a response but an ongoing
transactional process between the individual and the environment.
• Life is full of challenges. Such as challenges posed by examination to students,
challenges about a carrier, think of a child who loses his/her parents, a young
women who loses her husband in an accident or children who are physically or
mentally challenged and so on.
• Life challenges are not necessarily stressful. Much depends how a challenges is
viewed.
• Stress is like electricity which provides energy but too high or too little
energy, becomes hazardous. Similarly too much stress have adverse effect
for our well being optimum stress is healthy.

Stress have two levels;-

➢ Eustress – that is good, healthy, positive inspiring and motivating.

➢ Distress – it is negative, unhealthy demotivating and causes our
body’s wear and tear.

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Nature of stress ;-
• The word stress has its origin in the latin word “strictus”, meaning tight or narrow and
stringer, the verb meaning to tighten
• These root words reflect the internal feelings of tightness and constriction of muscles and
breathing; a common sign of stress.
• The reaction of external stressor is called strain.
• Stress functions as a causes as well as effects.

Signs and Symptoms of stress :-

• There are individuals differences in coping pattern of stress response and therefore the
warning signals also vary in its intensity.
• The signs of stress are very much dependent on how individual views them or its
dimension i.e. intensity duration , predictability or complexity.
• The warning signs and its manifestation as symptoms of stress can be physical, emotional,
cognitive and behavioural.

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 Life challenges and adjustments :-
• life is a continuous chain of struggle for existence and survival.
• Resorting to means of compromise one protects one’s self from possible injury to ones ego, failure or
frustration. It is sort of shifting to more defensive position in order to face the challenge of
circumstances after getting failure in earlier attempt or attempts.
• This special virtue and strength of the living organism is termed as “adjustment”.
• “adjustment is a process by which living organism maintains a balance between its need ad
circumstances that influence the satisfaction of these needs.

❖ Different stressors may produce different patterns of stress reaction.

❖ Stress is embedded in the ongoing process that involved individuals interacting with their social and
cultural environment. Stress is a dynamic mental/ cognitive state. Its disruption in homeostasis /
imbalance that gives rise to resolution of the imbalance/ restoration of homeostasis.
❖ Perception of stress is dependent on an individual’ s cognitive appraisal of event and the resources
available to deal with them.
Primary appraisal- primary appraisal refers to the perception of a new or changing
environment as positive, neutral or negative in its consequneces.
Negative events are appraised for their possible harm,threat or challenge
(i) Harm appraisals is the assessment of the damage that has been already
done by an event.

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(ii) Threat appraisals is the assessment of possible future damage that may be brought about by the
event.
(iii) Challenge appraisals are associated with more confident expectations of the ability to cope with
the stressful event, the potential to overcome and even profit from the event.

Secondary appraisals:- secondary appraisal refers to that assessment of one’s coping abilities
resources and whether they will be sufficient to meet the harm, threat or challenge of the event. These
resources may be mental, physical, personal or social. If he/she thinks one has a positive attitude ,
health , skills and social support to deal with the crisis, he/she wil fell less stressed.

Reactions Of Stress :-
1.) Physiological: arousal plays a key role in stress related behaviours.
the hypothalamus initiates action along two pathways;
(i) The first pathway involves the autonomic nervous systems. The adrenal gland
releases large amount of catecholamines (epinephrine and norepinephrine)
into the blood stream. This leads to physiological changes seen in
flight- or- fight responses
(i) The second pathway involves pituitary gland which secrets the corticosteroid
(cortisol) which provides energy.

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2. Emotional reaction to stress: negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, embarrassment, anger,
depression or even denial.

3. Behavioural reaction of stress : depending on the nature of the stressful event ; confrontative
action against the stressor (fight) or withdrawal from the threatening event (flight).

❑ Natural killer cells: involve in fight against both viruses and tumors. Stress affects natural
killer cells cytotoxicity.

Stress and lifestyle - researches are indicating that the current leading causes of premature
deaths are attributable to a significant degree to characteristics that makeup each persons life
style.

Coping is a dynamic situation-specific reaction to stress. It is a set of concrete responses to

stressful situations or events that are intended to resolve the problem and reduce stress.

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 Endler and Parker-
1. task- oriented strategy; obtaining informative about the stressful situation and about alternative courses of
action and their probable outcome; deciding priorities and acting so as to deal directly with the stressful
situation.
2. Emotion – oriented strategy ;efforts to maintain hope and to control one’s emotion; venting feelings of
anger and frustration, or deciding that nothing can be done to change things.
3. Avoidance- oriented strategy- denying or minimizing the seriousness of the situation ; conscious
suppression of stressful thoughts and their replacement by self protective thoughts.

Lazarus and Folkman-

1.Problem – focused strategies attack the problem itself, with behaviours designed to gain information, to
alter the event and to alterbeliege ad commitments. They increase the person’s awareness level of knowledge
and range of behavioural and cognitive coping options. They can act to reduce the threat value of the event.
2. Emotion- focused strategies call for psychological changes designed primarily to limit the degree of
emotional disruption caused by an event, with minimal effort to alter the event itself.

Stress Management Techniques-

1. Relaxation techniques; reduced symptoms of stress and decreases the incidence of illness such as high
blood- pressure and heart diseases. Starts from the lower part of the body and progresses up to the facial
muscles in such a way that the whole body is relaxed. Deep breathing is used along with muscle relaxation to
calm the mind and relax the body.
2. Meditation procedures; a sequence of learned techniques for re focusing of attention that
brings about an altered state of consciousness . Such a thorough concentration that the mediator
becomes unaware of any outside stimulation and reaches a different state of consciousness.

3. bio- feedback; monitors and reduces the physiological aspects by providing feedback about
current physiological activity and is often accompanied by relaxation training.
(i) developing an awareness of the particular physiological response
(ii) Learning ways of controlling that physiological response in quiet conditions.
(iii) Tranferring that control into the conditions of everyday life.

4. Creative visualization; creative visualization is a subjective experience that uses imagery and
imagination. Before visualizing one must set oneself a realistic goal , as it helps build confidence. It
is easier to visualize if one’s mind is quiet, body relaxed and eyes are closed.

5. Cognitive behavioural techniques: these techniques aim to inoculate people against stress.
Stress inoculation techniques involve assessment and stress reduction (CBT).

6. Exercise; can provide an active outlet for the physiological arousal experiences in response to
stress. Improves he efiiciency of the heart enhances the function of the lungs, maintains good
circulation , lower blood pressure, reduced fat in the blood , imrpves immunity as well.

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 ❑ Being assertive

❑ Time management

❑ Rational thinking

❑ Improving relationships (communication instilling trust and faith) ruling out red flags

❑ Self- care

❑ Overcoming unhelpful habits

❑ Diet

❑ Positive attitude towards life

❑ Positive thinking (pessimism and optimism)

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 Resilience and health;
- Resilience refers to dynamic developmental process referring to the maintenance of positive
adjustment under challenging life conditions.
- Its odten described as the capacity to ‘ bounce back’ in the face of stress and adversity
- I HAVE AND I CAN!
- Examination anxiety

Adjustment and adaptation –

• “adjustment is a continuous process by which a person varies his behaviour to produce a

more hazardous relationship between himself and his environment”

• Adjustment helps us keeping balance between our need and the capacity to meet these
needs.

• Adjustment is a subjective process. It is always related to some object and it varies from
culture to culture.

• Adjustment is the end product of coping.

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 MEETING LIFE
CHALLENGES
Links - Blade Learner K12 Join Telegram Group Download Notes & PDFs Visit Website

Contact us - 7319697299 Contactbladelearner.com@gmail.com Click Here – Watch One-Shot Video

Blade Learner K12