382: Stress Management: Introduction

1. Keys to Successful Aging
1. Chronic effects of stress and cortisol over time...
1. Increase cardiovascular disease
2. Immune suppression
1. The idea here is that long term functions are turned off but over time this can become very harmful
3. Brain damage
1. Excess amounts of glucocorticoids can kill cells in the hippocampus.  
2. The hippocampus is essential to memory so your learning and memory will get worse with excess cortisol(dementia)
4. MacArthur studies of successful aging
2. Importance of Early Childhood Environment
1. Warm, loving parents 
2. Stable, predictable, etc. environment
3. Resilience
1. How do you overcome a bad childhood? 
3. Marriage
1. Married long term
2. stable
3. Warm relationship
4. Mood & Personality
1. No major depression
2. Low on neuroticism 
1. Neuroticism is anxiety.  So you need to not overreact to situations
3. Resilient personality
4. Extroverted personality
1. This is more just being sociable.  Doesn't mean you have to "stand out" or have a ton of friends.  If you have only a few friends but they are great social support then you will be doing well
5. Respect and Control
1. This can be very affected by SES but if you can increase these and increase your finances then you will have a bump in longevity
2. Healthy Lifestyle
1. Four focuses over the next few weeks
1. Time Management
2. Exercise 
3. Diet
4. Sleep
3. Psychosocial Well Being
1. Three Things
1. Control
2. Cognitive Flexibility
1. Each time you deal with a problem it doesn't have to be the same approach every time.
2. Being flexible with how you approach problems can be very helpful
3. Social Support
2. Control
1. Increase sense of control...
1. Feeling in control can be important to well being however, believing you have more control can be harmful if things go wrong and you end up blaming yourself
2. Yerkes-Dodson Law (inverted U)
1. Too little control is harmful and too much control can be harmful so you need to have a sense of balance in the middle
3. Cognitive Flexibility
1. Recognize when your stress response strategy isn't working.  Are you trying to do too much?  Too little?
4. Social Support
1. Marriage (must be good & voluntary)
2. Quality relationships with others
3. Marital therapy study
1. Current study with Dr. Steffen and Holt-Lundstad
1. Find that people that are more spiritual have better health
2. They are testing to see if marital therapy can also help physiology
4. Group therapy/interpersonal relationships
1. Being in group therapy is related to better health
4. Stress Management Methods
1. Techniques
2. Self-Talk
3. Meditation/Religion
1. has to be voluntary
4. What would you be willing to do to guarantee lifelong health?
5. Coherance
1. Balance between parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems
5. Breathing
1. Our stress response is like a gas pedal and our relaxation response is like putting on the brakes
2. Activating our Relaxation Response
1. Stress management involves learning to put on the brake as needed
3. Diaphragmatic Breathing
6. Awareness of Stress
1. A lot of this lesson was him just reading the slides so if you really want a good review of this lecture than I would suggest looking at the slides on Stress Management: Introduction