Module 43
Stress and Coping
475
Around 16% of soldiers returning from
Iraq show symptoms of PTSD. Further-
more, those who have experienced child
abuse or rape, rescue workers facing over-
whelming situations,
and victims of sudden
natural disasters or accidents that produce
feelings of helplessness and shock may suf-
fer from the same disorder (Hoge & Castro,
2006; Friedman, 2006; Marmar, 2009).
Terrorist attacks produce high inci-
dences of PTSD. For example, 11% of people
in New York
City had some form of PTSD
in the months after the September 11 terror-
ist attacks. But the responses varied signifi -
cantly with a resident’s proximity to the
attacks, as illustrated in Figure 1 ; the closer
someone lived to the World Trade Center,
the greater the likelihood of PTSD (Susser,
Herman, & Aaron, 2002; Lee, Isaac, & Janca,
2007; Marshall et al., 2007).
Background stressors, or more infor-
mally,
daily hassles , are the third major cat-
egory of stressors. Exemplifi ed by standing
in a long line at a bank and getting stuck in
a traffi c jam, daily hassles are the minor irri-
tations of life that we all face time and time
again. Another
type of background stressor
is a long-term, chronic problem, such as
experiencing dissatisfaction with school or a job, being in an unhappy relationship,
or living in crowded quarters without privacy (Weinstein et al., 2004; McIntyre, Korn,
& Matsuo, 2008).
By themselves, daily hassles do not require much coping
or even a response on
the individual’s part, although they certainly produce unpleasant emotions and
moods. Yet, daily hassles add up—and ultimately they may take as great of a toll as
a single, more stressful incident. In fact, the
number of daily hassles people face is
associated with psychological symptoms and health problems such as fl u, sore throat,
and backaches.
The fl ip side of hassles is
uplifts, the minor positive
events that make us feel
good—even if only temporarily. As indicated in Figure 2 on the next page , uplifts
range from relating well to a companion to fi nding one’s surroundings pleasing.
What is especially intriguing about uplifts is that they are associated with people’s
psychological health in just the opposite way that hassles are: The greater the num-
ber of uplifts we experience, the fewer the psychological symptoms we report later
(Chamberlain & Zika, 1990; Ravindran et al., 2002; Jain, Mills, & Von Känel, 2007).
The High Cost of Stress
Stress can produce both biological and psychological consequences. Often the most
immediate reaction to stress is biological. Exposure to stressors
generates a rise in
hormone secretions by the adrenal glands, an increase in heart rate and blood pres-
sure, and changes in how well the skin conducts electrical impulses. On a short-term
basis, these responses may be adaptive because they produce an “emergency reac-
tion” in which the body prepares to defend itself through activation of the sympa-
thetic nervous system. Those responses may allow more effective coping with the
stressful situation (Akil & Morano, 1996; McEwen, 1998).
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