13 Adjustment and Stress · 13.1 Adjustment and stress
13.1.2 Stress reactions, coping and stress management
Stress shows itself in emotional, physiological, cognitive and behavioural reactions; Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome (alarm → resistance → exhaustion) explains how long stress wears the body down and weakens immunity; coping is the conscious, changing effort to manage stress (task-, emotion- or avoidance-oriented), unlike unconscious defence mechanisms; and stress is managed by relaxation, meditation, biofeedback, creative visualisation, cognitive-behavioural techniques and exercise, backed by life skills, social support and resilience. Sources of stress are in PSY-ST-01; appraisal, problem- vs emotion-focused coping and empathy are in MAB-EI-02.
- APPSC Paper I
- Standard level
- 15 min read
- Free
Core facts
- Four kinds of stress reactions (NCERT):
- Emotional: anxiety, irritability, mood swings, low mood, feeling of helplessness.
- Physiological: release of adrenaline and noradrenaline and cortisol; faster heart rate, raised blood pressure, slower digestion, tense muscles.
- Cognitive: poor concentration, forgetfulness, confused or negative thinking, poor decisions.
- Behavioural: disturbed sleep and eating, more smoking or drinking, absenteeism, withdrawal.
- Fight-or-flight response: Walter Cannon (1915, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage); the sympathetic nervous system and the adrenal medulla prepare the body to fight or run.
- General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS): Hans Selye (1936; The Stress of Life, 1956), from experiments on rats; the body's response to any prolonged stressor is the same (non-specific). Three stages, in order:
- Alarm reaction: the stressor is noticed; the body mobilises (adrenaline, fight-or-flight); resistance briefly drops (shock), then rises.
- Resistance: the body adapts and keeps up its defence while the stressor continues; cortisol stays high; resources are used up.
- Exhaustion: resources run out; resistance collapses; illness (Selye's "diseases of adaptation") becomes likely.
- Stress and health: long stress raises cortisol, which suppresses the immune system. Psychoneuroimmunology (Robert Ader: the field grew from Ader and Cohen's 1975 experiments; the term from his 1981 book) studies the links among mind, nervous system and immunity.
- Psychosomatic (psychophysiological) disorders: real physical illnesses made worse by stress: hypertension, peptic ulcers, asthma, coronary heart disease, migraine.
- Burnout: physical, emotional and mental exhaustion from long work stress (Maslach: exhaustion, depersonalisation, reduced accomplishment).
- Coping: a dynamic, situation-specific reaction to stress; Lazarus and Folkman (1984) call it the constantly changing cognitive and behavioural efforts to manage demands that tax or exceed a person's resources.
- Three coping styles: Endler and Parker (1990):
- Task-oriented: get information, plan, schedule time better, set priorities, act directly on the problem.
- Emotion-oriented: reduce the upset feeling: talk it out, vent, hope, fantasise, blame oneself, preoccupation.
- Avoidance-oriented: deny or play down the problem; distract oneself (watch TV, sleep, go out with friends).
- Defence mechanisms: unconscious ways the ego protects itself from anxiety by distorting reality (Sigmund Freud; listed and systematised by Anna Freud, 1936). They reduce anxiety for a while but do not solve the problem.
- Defence mechanism vs coping: coping is conscious and deliberate; a defence mechanism is unconscious. Identification and projection are defences, not stress-management techniques.
- Stress-management techniques (NCERT list):
- Relaxation: Progressive muscle relaxation (Edmund Jacobson, 1929): tense and release muscle groups one by one; it starts from the lower part of the body (feet) and moves up to the facial muscles.
- Meditation: learned attention control; focusing on a word, the breath or an object, with detachment from passing thoughts.
- Biofeedback: monitoring a body function (heart rate, muscle tension, skin temperature) on an instrument and learning to control it.
- Creative visualisation: building a calm, vivid mental image (a quiet beach) to relax or rehearse success.
- Cognitive-behavioural techniques: changing the thoughts that create stress; Stress Inoculation Training (Donald Meichenbaum, 1985): replace negative self-talk with positive, coping self-statements.
- Exercise: aerobic activity (walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, yoga) burns off arousal and improves health.
- Life skills: abilities for adaptive, positive behaviour that help us deal with everyday challenges (WHO). NCERT's set for meeting life challenges: assertiveness, time management, rational thinking, improving relationships, self-care, overcoming unhelpful habits (perfectionism, avoidance, procrastination).
- Factors that promote positive health: diet, exercise, positive attitude, positive thinking, social support.
- Resilience: the ability to bounce back from adversity. Hardiness (Suzanne Kobasa, 1979): commitment, control, challenge (the "3 Cs").
- Social support: the perceived comfort, care and help from others; kinds: tangible (material help), informational, emotional.
Explained
1. The four reactions in one person. A young probation officer has a heavy caseload and a court deadline. Emotional: she is irritable. Physiological: headaches and a racing heart. Cognitive: she forgets case details. Behavioural: she skips meals and sleeps badly. A question naming any one of these asks which kind of reaction it is.
2. GAS at a glance
| Stage | What happens | Body | Example (exam season) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alarm | danger noticed, body mobilised | adrenaline, fight-or-flight | panic on seeing the timetable |
| Resistance | body adapts, keeps fighting | cortisol high, energy spent | weeks of late-night study |
| Exhaustion | reserves used up | immunity falls, illness | falls ill after the exams |
Selye's point: different stressors (cold, injury, worry) all produce the same bodily pattern. Critics later showed that appraisal matters: the same stressor does not trigger GAS equally in everyone (Lazarus).
3. Coping styles compared
| Style | Aim | Example | Usual result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Task-oriented | change the problem | making a timetable, asking for help | best in the long run when the problem can be changed |
| Emotion-oriented | change the feeling | crying it out, talking to a friend | useful when nothing can be changed |
| Avoidance-oriented | escape the problem | denying it, watching films all day | short relief, problem stays |
Lazarus and Folkman's own two-way split was problem-focused vs emotion-focused (MAB-EI-02). Endler and Parker added avoidance. "Approach-oriented" is not one of Endler and Parker's three.
4. Common defence mechanisms (MAB-EI-02 explains six; the rest are added here)
| Mechanism | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Repression | painful memory pushed out of awareness | no memory of an accident |
| Denial | refusing to admit a reality | "My son never steals" |
| Projection | own unacceptable feeling seen in others | a hostile person sees everyone as hostile |
| Displacement | feelings vented on a safer target | angry at the boss, kicking the dog |
| Rationalisation | a good-sounding excuse for failure | "The paper was out of syllabus" |
| Reaction formation | showing the opposite of the real feeling | excessive politeness to someone one dislikes |
| Regression | going back to an earlier stage of behaviour | a 6-year-old bed-wetting after a sibling's birth |
| Sublimation | urge turned into a socially valued activity | aggression into boxing |
| Identification | taking on the qualities of an admired person | a boy copying a film hero |
| Compensation | making up for a weakness by excelling elsewhere | a weak athlete becoming a top scholar |
| Intellectualisation | discussing a painful event coolly, without feeling | describing one's own illness like a case study |
5. How the techniques work
- Relaxation lowers the arousal of the sympathetic system. In Jacobson's method the person learns the difference between a tense and a relaxed muscle, group by group, from the feet up to the face. Deep breathing is often added.
- Biofeedback has three stages: developing awareness of the body response; learning to control it in quiet conditions; transferring that control to everyday life. Used for tension headache, high blood pressure and anxiety.
- Meditation trains attention; regular practice lowers heart rate and blood pressure and reduces anxiety. Yoga combines posture, breathing and meditation (more under applications of psychology).
- Creative visualisation works best when the mind is quiet; the person imagines the scene with all senses.
- Stress inoculation training has three phases: conceptualisation (understand one's stress), skill acquisition and rehearsal (relaxation, positive self-statements), application and follow-through (use them in real situations, like a vaccine of small doses).
6. Life skills in NCERT's list
| Skill | In practice |
|---|---|
| Assertiveness | saying "no" or stating a need clearly without hostility |
| Time management | planning, prioritising, not taking on more than one can do |
| Rational thinking | challenging distorted thoughts ("I always fail") |
| Improving relationships | listening, expressing feelings, avoiding needless arguments |
| Self-care | healthy diet, sleep, exercise, breathing well |
| Overcoming unhelpful habits | dropping perfectionism, avoidance, procrastination |
WHO (1997) lists ten core life skills: decision making, problem solving, creative thinking, critical thinking, effective communication, interpersonal relationship skills, self-awareness, empathy, coping with emotions, coping with stress.
7. Example. "When I schedule my time better to avoid stress, I am using which coping strategy?" Solution. Acting on the problem itself = task-oriented coping (Endler and Parker). Talking to a friend about the worry would be emotion-oriented; going to a film to forget it would be avoidance-oriented.
Common traps
- ✗ "GAS stages: alarm, exhaustion, resistance." ✓ Alarm → resistance → exhaustion (Selye).
- ✗ "Fight-or-flight was described by Selye." ✓ Fight-or-flight = Walter Cannon; GAS = Hans Selye.
- ✗ "Coping is a fixed personality trait." ✓ Coping is a dynamic, situation-specific reaction; the efforts keep changing.
- ✗ "Defence mechanisms are conscious coping strategies." ✓ Defences are unconscious; coping is conscious.
- ✗ "Identification is a stress-management technique." ✓ It is a defence mechanism; exercise, biofeedback and creative visualisation are techniques.
- ✗ "Scheduling time better is emotion-oriented coping." ✓ It is task-oriented.
- ✗ "Endler and Parker's three styles include approach-oriented coping." ✓ The three are task-, emotion- and avoidance-oriented.
- ✗ "Progressive relaxation starts from the head." ✓ It starts from the lower part of the body and moves up to the face (Jacobson).
- ✗ "Biofeedback means a doctor gives feedback on behaviour." ✓ It is feedback from an instrument about a body function, used to learn to control that function.
- ✗ "Stress inoculation training was developed by Lazarus." ✓ It was developed by Donald Meichenbaum.
- ✗ "Hardiness: commitment, confidence, courage." ✓ Kobasa's 3 Cs: commitment, control, challenge.
Quick revision
- Stress reactions: emotional, physiological, cognitive, behavioural.
- Cannon: fight-or-flight; Selye: GAS = alarm → resistance → exhaustion.
- Long stress → cortisol → weaker immunity (psychoneuroimmunology); psychosomatic disorders: hypertension, ulcers, asthma.
- Coping = dynamic, situation-specific, constantly changing efforts (Lazarus and Folkman 1984).
- Endler and Parker 1990: task-, emotion-, avoidance-oriented coping.
- Defence mechanisms = unconscious (Anna Freud 1936): repression, denial, projection, displacement, rationalisation, reaction formation, regression, sublimation, identification.
- Techniques: relaxation (Jacobson; feet → face), meditation, biofeedback (awareness → control → transfer), creative visualisation, cognitive-behavioural (Meichenbaum SIT), exercise.
- Life skills (NCERT): assertiveness, time management, rational thinking, relationships, self-care, overcoming unhelpful habits.
- Positive health: diet, exercise, positive attitude, positive thinking, social support.
- Hardiness (Kobasa 1979): commitment, control, challenge; resilience = bouncing back.
Go deeper: Deeper (beyond what APPSC Paper I usually asks)
Deeper Advanced
1. The stress hormone pathways. Two systems work together. The fast sympathetic-adrenal medullary (SAM) system releases adrenaline and noradrenaline within seconds (Cannon's fight-or-flight). The slower hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis works through CRH from the hypothalamus, ACTH from the pituitary and cortisol from the adrenal cortex; cortisol raises blood sugar and damps inflammation and immunity. Long-term high cortisol is what links Selye's resistance and exhaustion stages to illness.
2. Tend and befriend. Shelley Taylor (2000) argued that, especially in women, stress also triggers caring for offspring ("tend") and seeking a social group ("befriend"), linked with the hormone oxytocin: an addition to fight-or-flight.
3. No coping style is good everywhere. Coping works when it fits the situation: task-oriented coping helps when the stressor is controllable; emotion-oriented coping (acceptance, reappraisal, seeking support) helps when it is not. Avoidance helps briefly with short stressors (waiting for a result) but harms with long ones. Flexible copers do best.
4. Lifestyle and positive health. Stress affects health directly (hormones, immunity) and indirectly through habits: smoking, drinking, poor sleep, overeating. Hence the NCERT stress on a balanced diet, exercise, positive attitude and thinking, and social support as protective factors, and the idea of wellness as more than the absence of illness.
5. Resilience at work. Officers who deal daily with offenders, victims and families face secondary trauma and burnout. Supervision, debriefing, peer support and reasonable caseloads build resilience at the organisational level, not only in the individual.
Practise this topic. Questions on Stress reactions, coping and stress management, with answers explained.
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