PSYCH-230 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Coronary Artery Disease, Behavioral Medicine, Telomere
28 Sep 2020
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Document Summary
Behavioral medicine- is a multidisciplinary field concerned with how psychological factors may predispose a person to psychical illness. (umbrella) Health psychology- concerned with the effects of stress and other psychological factors in the development and maintenance of physical problems. Stressor- can be positive or negative, big or small. Not so much what happens with you it"s how you cope with it. Characteristics that may help: high levels of optimism, greater psychological control/mastery, increased self-esteem, better social support. Characteristics that may hurt: genetic makeup can make some people more stress sensitive, stressful events early in life, previous stressful events (cumulative effect) The way one thinks about an event effects how we experience the stress and how we feel about it. Cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine: all stress hormones. Cytokines- immunes system chemicals that raises the risk of disease. Telomeres- ends of chromosomes that measure cells age; shorten with stress. Type a: driven work extreme impatience time urgency hostility.
