Emotion and health

Psychiatry & Psychology

1. EMOTION & HEALTH Presented By Siti Nur Rifhan Kamaruddin

2. What is Emotion? Definition: A mind and body’s integrated response to a stimulus of some kind. Emotions involve Physiological arousal, Expressive behaviours and Conscious experience i.e Walking alone at night and you hear footsteps Physio. Arousal : Heart beating fast Expressive Behaviour : Walk faster or move towards street lights Conscious Experience : Feeling Fear, panic

3. Theories of Emotion Does physiological activity precede or follow emotional experience? Does your heart pound because you are afraid…. Or are you afraid because you feel your heart pounding? Does cognition (thinking) precede emotion (feeling)?

4. Commonsense View When you become happy, your heart starts beating faster. First comes conscious awareness, then comes physiological activity

5. James-Lange Theory Opposed to the common sense view This theory proposes that physiologic activity precedes the emotional experience

6. Cannon-Bard Theory They questioned the James-Lange theory States that emotion-triggering stimulus and body’s arousal take place simultaneously They don’t cause one another.

7. Two-factor Theory

8. The Basic Emotions ( Ekman & Keltner, 1997) Emotions that have been  scientifically proven  to have a certain facial expression associated with it . i .e “ Anger” can be recognized by this picture all around the world

9. Based on a research done to study an isolated culture of people from Fori tribe in Papua New Guinea in 1972. The tribe members were able to identify these six emotions on the photos.

10. Relation of Emotion to Health Emotion plays a big role in how we think and how we behave. It affect our psychological states and therefore, our bodies. Because , what is psychological is ultimately biological For instance, chronic anger and depression makes us vulnerable to all kinds of health problems (Hypertension, Cardiovascular disease and infection )

11. Poor emotional health can weaken body’s immune systems – vulnerable to infection during emotionally difficult times. Also, when you don’t feel good, you may not take care of your health as well as you should. May not feel like eating, exercising, taking medicine Abuse of alcohol, tobacco and other d rugs – sign of poor emotional health

12. Introduction to Stress DEFINITION: The process by which we perceive and response to certain events or stressors , that we view as challeging or threatening. Stress isnt technically an emotion – more to a reaction to a disturbing or distruptive stimulus. Reaction depends of own’s appraisal of the stimulus.

13. Stress and Stressors Catastrophes - Earthquakes, floods Significant life changes - Moving, death of loved ones, changing job Everyday Inconveniences - Road traffics, fight with roommate

14. Body Response to Stress

15. Impact of Stress to Health Susceptibility to chronic diseases Susceptibility to infections Increased risk of Cardiovascular Disease Stress and Cancer Stress and PTSD

16. Stress and Health : Introduction Psychological states cause physical illness. Stress can be adaptive . In a fearful or stress-causing situation – we can run away and save our lives Stress can be maladaptive. If it is prolonged (chronic stress), it increases risk of illness and health problems.

17. Stress and Susceptibility to Disease B Lymphocytes fight bacterial infections, T lymphocytes attack cancer cells and viruses and microphages ingest foreign substances. During stress, energy is mobilized away from the immune system making it vulnerable.

18. Stress and Colds People with the highest life stress scores were also the most vulnerable when exposed to an experimental cold virus

19. Stress and Heart Disease Stress that leads to increase blood pressure may result in Coronary Heart Disease, a clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle. Supported by Personality Type - Type A (competitive, hard driving, anger prone people) are more likely to develop CHD than Type B ( Easygoing, relaxed)

20. Pessimism and Heart Disease Pessimistic adult men are twice as likely to develop heart disease over 10-year period ( Kubzansky et al. 2001)

21. Stress and Cancer Stress does not create cancer cells. Researchers disagree on whether the stress influences the progression of cancer. However, they do agree that avoiding stress and having hopeful attitude help in coping with the disease.

22. Stress and PTSD When an individual is exposed to a severely stressful experience (death, violence) it may result in PTSD. The trauma experienced is severe enough to causes stress responses for months or even years after the event. The trauma overwhelms the victim’s ability to cope and memories of the event trigger anxiety and physical stress responses. CBT seeks to change the way a trauma victim feels and acts by changing the patterns of thinking/ behaviour .

23. Thank you! 

24. References Chapter 3 Basic Emotions, Paul Ekman . Handbook of Cognition and Emotion. 1999 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Emotion and Health: An Overview. P.Pandey and A.K Choubey . SIS J.Proj . Psy . & Mental Health (2010) 17: 135-152 Boundless. “Introduction to Stress.”  Psychology (11th Edition) . Boundless, 26 May. 2016. Boundless. “Biology of Emotion.”  Psychology (11th Edition) . Boundless, 08 Aug. 2016