PSY 3121 Lecture 14: Stress, Coping, and Psychopathology

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 3121
• Professor: Kathleen Biard

Document Summary

An inevitable part of life; occurs when challenging situations exceed people"s resources and endanger their well-being. Experience of stress includes tomorrow: perceptions of stressors; how to cope with them. Sudden and severe stress generally produces: increases in heart rate, increase in breathing rate (lung dilate, decrease in digestive activity (don"t feel hungry) The hypothalamus in the brain is in charge of the stress response: when a stress response is triggered, it sends signals to two other structures: the pituitary gland and the adrenal medulla. These short term responses are produced by the fight or flight response via the. Long term stress is regulated by the hypothalamic pituitary-adrenal (hpa) system. The adrenal cortex releases stress hormones called cortisol: this has a number of functions, including releasing stored glucose from the liver (for energy) and controlling swelling after injury, the immune system is suppressed while this happens. The stressor activates the hypothalamic pituitary axis.