Chapter 9

Activities

Over the course of a month, track how much exercise or physical activity you engage in (frequency, intensity, duration, mode). (You may wish to use the Perceived Stress Scale for this task.) Also track the kinds of stressors you encounter, in terms of how much stress they cause for you, whether you can do anything about the stressor, and how long the stressor lasts. Finally, assess how much stress you perceive for yourself. This can be done on a daily basis or at the end of the month-long observation period. Is there any relationship between your level of activity and your perceived stress?

Vocabulary

Absolute reactivity - The absolute value of heart rate during stress.

Allostasis - The process of an organism’s adaptation to a stressor promoted by the autonomic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis.

Allostatic load - The cost of an organism’s coping/adaptation to a stressor promoted by the autonomic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis.

Cross-stressor adaptation hypothesis - The hypothesis that a stressor of sufficient intensity and/or duration will induce adaptation of the body’s stress response systems.

Distress - A stressor that is negative.

Eustress - A stressor that is positive.

Habituation - The process whereby the response to a challenge decreases in magnitude as the challenge becomes familiar.

Homeostasis - The ability of an organism to change and stabilize its internal environment in spite of constant changes in the external environment.

Primary appraisal - An initial assessment of a situation’s importance and its potential challenges, threats, and possibilities of harm.

Psychophysiology - A scientific discipline that examines cognitive, emotional, and behavioral events through their manifestation as physiological processes and events.

Relative reactivity - The value of heart rate during stress relative to a baseline value.

Secondary appraisal - A follow-up assessment of a situation’s importance and its potential; the assessment might modify a primary appraisal and might involve considering the availability and viability of options.

Sensitization - Refers to the fact that a novel stressor results in an augmented response.

Stress - The physical and emotional tension felt when a person faces a challenge.

Stress response - The body’s immediate physiological adaptations to an encounter with an acute stressor (e.g., “fight or flight” response).

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