Understanding Stress

Psychologists have many ways in which stress can be measured; by deciding what it is that is causing the stress psychologists can then begin to reduce it significantly. I am going to describe the cognitive, behavioural and physiological approaches used by psychologists to understand stress. (Banyard, Hayes 1994).

The physiological approach relies on scientific measurements of hormones, chemicals, heart rate and blood pressure, which brings the issue of validity, as how can you be certain you are measuring a person's stress levels, caffeine can affect the results, by increasing heart rate, as can merely being in the situation of measuring stress levels. Physiological approaches to stress management use techniques designed to change the activity of the body's stress response system. Two physiological methods for stress management include drugs and biofeedback. There are two types of drugs that can be used in stress management; benzodiazepines (BZs) and Beta-blockers. BZs are a group of drugs that are commonly used to treat anxiety. BZs slow down the activity of the central nervous system. Beta-blockers act on the sympathetic nervous system rather than the brain. Stress leads to the arousal of the sympathetic nervous system and this creates increased blood pressure, heart rate, elevated levels of cortical etc. Biofeedback like drugs also deals with the physiological symptoms of stress such as raised blood pressure etc. Biofeedback is a method by which an individual learns to exert voluntary control over involuntary (automatic) behaviours by being made aware of what is happening in the automatic nervous system. Biofeedback involves four processes. Feedback is where the patient is attached to several machines which provide information about various ANS activities. Then relaxation where the patient is taught techniques on how to become more relaxed. These have an effect of reducing activity of the sympathetic nervous system and activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Operant conditioning then take place as relaxation leads to a target behaviour. This is rewarding which increases the likelihood of the behaviour being repeated. Such conditioning takes place without conscious thoughts. The patient then needs to transfer the skills learnt to the real world. (Bainbridge, Collier, Latham, Middleton, Saunders 2008)

Cognitive psychologists see our mind as consisting of five main information processes which are perception, attention, language, memory and thinking, which we individually and collectively use to operate in, upon and through our environment. For humans the two most important senses are probably sight and sound. Cognitive psychology explores the ways in which individuals see things e.g. colour, distances and how we understand the things we hear. We use these processes in order to build up our knowledge of the world. The cognitive approach asks questions such as how do we remember things, how do we recognise them and how do we interpret them. The cognitive approach is about how we actively process information; this approach argues that we are not passive receptors of stimuli. The cognitive approach was introduced by behaviourist Edward Tolman. Tolman found that in his experiment of rats in the maze, the rats were using cognitive mapping to trace the location of the food. It was therefore apparent that the stimulus response explanation of learning was inadequate in terms of understanding human and animal behaviour. Tolman concluded that once the rats had explored the maze they had become familiar with it (cognitive mapping). The rats used this to their advantage. They began to make their way to the food box quicker with fewer errors after the experiment had been repeated a few times. Cognitive psychology interprets human behaviour by looking at our mental processes. The cognitive approach does have certain limitations such as it assumes that behaviour can be explained in terms of how the mind processes information. This approach also views psychology as a scientific study, of which most of the research is done under a controlled environment and carried out in a laboratory setting which can be seen as being artificial this may cause experiments to be inadequate. (Kemeny, 2003)

Behaviourism believes that when we are born we are born we are born with a blank slate (tabula rasa) everything we know in our mind is from learning in our environment. Behaviourists like Watson and Skinner explained all human behaviour in terms of stimulus response connection. Behaviourism focuses on the emphasis of learning. It was Pavlov who first described learning by association. When studying the digestive system of dogs, Pavlov noticed that the dogs salivated readily even when no food was actually present. Careful observation by Pavlov revealed that certain important cues, such as the sight or smell of food, made the dogs behave as if food were present i.e. they produced saliva in their mouths. The advantages to the behaviourist approach are that it uses the experimental method rigorously in order to support its valuable conclusion. However, the behaviourist approach is unable to explain all human or animal behaviour, not every behaviour is conditioned behaviour. Behaviourism can also be seen as being false; this is due to the fact that experiments carried out are in controlled settings. (Banyard, Hayes 1994).

Stress can cause problems within this system; Hypertension (high blood pressure), Coronary heart disease which is causes by atherosclerosis, & Stroke. Supporting a link between stress & illness, Kiecolt-Glaser, studied the slowing of wound healing in relation to psychological stress (especially how stress damages the immune system). He took 26 participants in a field experiment, all were given a small cut into their arms, & participants were given a 10-item perceived stress scale & asked to state how stressed they felt. Levels of cytokines were also taken from all participants. The participants in the experimental group, consisted of 13 women aged between 47 & 81 years old looking after a relative with Alzheimer's disease. The control groups were matched with the carers on age & income. The tests indicated that the experimental group showed higher levels of stress than the control groups. Healing wound time was assessed by photographing the wound regularly & by observing the response to hydrogen peroxide. The time take for the wound to heal was significantly longer for carers (48.7 days) compared to the control group (39.3 days) & also were significantly a larger average size. Another researcher who found a supportive link between stress & illness was Russek, who aimed to find a link between work-related stress & heart disease. He tested Medical professionals & labelled them as high-stress or low-stress according to their role. GPs (high-stress) had the greatest rate of heart disease (11.9%)