The Nature of Stress – Stress (PSY)

00:01 Okay, so let's move on and in this module we are going to take a look at stress.

00:05 More specifically we are going to look at the nature of stress.

00:08 So right now, you are sitting at your desk, and I'm pretty sure you are little bit stressed out.

00:14 You are preparing for the MCAT exam.

00:16 You are thinking about, where am I going to apply.

00:18 Am I going to pass? This is fairly stressful.

00:21 So let's walk through what that looks like.

00:23 Now stress is made up of a couple of things.

00:27 Psychological and physiological components at the same time.

00:31 That's pretty straight forward.

00:33 I think that makes logical sense.

00:34 When you're stressed out it has an impact on your mind.

00:36 And it has an impact on your body.

00:38 So that's grouped as physiological body and psychological mind.

00:43 Now I think you've heard this before as well, people say well little bit of stress is actually good for sure.

00:49 And that's true to some extent.

00:52 So acute stress which means short periods of stress can be actually positive and they've been shown to actually increase your performance out of specific tasks.

01:01 So say for example, you're going into write your MCAT exam.

01:05 You have prepared.

01:07 You have read all the books.

01:08 You've watched this lecture.

01:10 And you are uberly ready to write this exam.

01:13 So you really should not be that stressed out.

01:16 But when you go to the testing facility and you're sitting at your desk, and you have your type 2 pencil in your hand and you're looking down, you know, you are going to be a little bit stressed.

01:25 It might come off as excitement, arousal, whatever, it is a form of stress.

01:30 It's short lived.

01:32 Usually for the period of the exam or at least the first part of the exam.

01:35 And then you start getting into this zone.

01:36 Now, when you are stressed out, that moment that's actually increasing, increasing your performance.

01:43 Because it's helping with memory recall, it's helping with your focus.

01:46 It's helping with a lot of things.

01:48 What I want you to get out of that, it's short period that stress is actually a good thing.

01:52 The flip side, let's take a look at somebody's whose perhaps, who you want to be, a doctor.

01:58 And you are in the ER.

02:00 And you are one of the best in the country.

02:02 So you're in high demand.

02:03 You're working all the time and you are saving lives.

02:05 You're a rockstar.

02:06 That's great.

02:08 That was your dream.

02:09 In reality doing that full time, all the time, can be quiet stressful.

02:14 No sleep, lot of pressure.

02:15 Life and death in your hands that is called chronic stress.

02:19 Meaning a longer period of time.

02:20 Now chronic stress can actually be a negative thing.

02:25 Because we know that over a long period of time that can actually do things like suppress your immune system.

02:31 Immunosuppression.

02:32 It can cause hypertension.

02:34 And it can actually make you more prone to illness.

02:36 So we're going to walk through that in a little bit more detail.

02:40 Now the first thing you got to do, is figure out, is this thing actually is stressful.

02:46 So we go through a process of appraisal.

02:48 Like anything we do in life, we need to assess the situation.

02:52 So the response evoked by a stressor is individual based on appraisal.

02:55 So what we're saying here, is me, you, the girl sitting next to you, all assess stress individually.

03:04 So if I were to say to you, I'm going to need you to write this MCAT exam right now, even though you are not done studying, that might be stressful.

03:12 Now you might ask the girl besides you, who has been studying for months, and for her, she's like, "Sure, bring it on." And if you would ask me, I would start crying because I would probably fail.

03:23 Okay, so each of us assessed it differently.

03:25 Based on our individual appraisal of our resources, our ability to handle that stress, okay.

03:32 So we say appraisal is how individual interprets an event and as stressful/threatening or not, okay.

03:38 Now if appraise is a challenge than this can actually be a motivator.

03:43 So like I said the girl sitting next to you who has studied, she might say,"Right on, I'm so ready for this." "This is going to be a fun challenge for me because I'm prepared." "Because I'm smart, I'm going to kill this exam." As opposed to if I asked you, and you have not being studying, you might be threatened and afraid that this is a difficult thing for you to do.

04:06 So another type of threat might be if there is something that's causing potential harm to your safety.

04:13 So for example, a stressor might be a burning house.

04:17 As you can see here.

04:18 This poor girl seems a little bit stressed out because she is in front of her house which is not on fire.

04:23 So is that a threat to you, yes.

04:26 Is that appraised as a stress, for sure, okay.

04:29 So the more uncontrollable event is, the greater the stress response.

04:33 So you can imagine a sliding scale.

04:34 So you know, if you are in your house and if there is smoke at the stove, that's stressful.

04:40 If you walk in and your kitchen is on fire, that's even more stressful.

04:44 If you walk up to your house and your house is on fire, and your 14 kittens are in the house, that's extremely stressful.

04:51 So each of those you can see can evoke more increasing amount of stress and the appraisal of each is different.