Learning and

Caring for the

Self: Taking
Charge of One’s
Health
For this Chapter:
STRESSORS AND RESPONSES
SOURCES OF COPING AND STRENGTH
TAKING CARE OF THE SELF

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Let’s
Start
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Top 5 Things Today’s Teens Struggle With
1. Depression: An estimated 1 out of 3 adolescents
in the world had at least one major depressive
episode in the past year. Depressive disorders are
treatable but it’s important to seek professional
help. If a teen seems withdrawn, experiences a
change in his sleep patterns, or starts to perform
badly in school, schedule an appointment with his
teen’s physician or contact a mental health
professional.

Sources: _ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sexual Risk Behaviors. Data Resource Center for Children &
Adolescent Health. National Survey for Children’s Health,
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Top 5 Things Today’s Teens Struggle With
4. Peer Pressure: While peer pressure isn’t a
new issue, social media brings it to a whole
new level. or when he or she makes a
mistake.
5. Social Media: Facebook, Instagram, and
Twitter can be great ways for teens to
connect with one another. But, social media
can be problematic for several reasons.
Unhealthy messages often go viral on social
media and teens frequently compare
themselves to one another.

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Top 5 Things Today’s Teens Struggle With
2. Bullying: The rise of social media use by
teens has made bullying much more public
and more pervasive.

3. Academic Problems: It’s no longer just the

“troubled teens” who are dropping out of
school. Some teens feel so much pressure to
get into a good college that they’re burning
themselves out before they graduate from
high school.

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Stress, Stressors and Responses
Life is always a change. Every day one is faced with
some kind of challenges big or small. Just
deciding what ride to take to beat the traffic for
an office worker or students to be on time for
early class schedule, how to budget the day’s
expenses for marketing for a housewife or how
to face the office work for an employee. There
are decisions to be made and changes to some
already made plans. These post threats to ones
wellbeing and that one has to respond in some
way

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Definition of Stress
Hans Selye states that stress is the term used to denote
physical, emotional, cognitive and behavioral
responses to events that are threatening or
challenging.

Stress shows itself in various ways. Physical problem may

include unusual fatigue, sleeping problems, frequent
colds, nausea, and even chest pain. People under
stress react differently: pacing, eating too much,
crying a lot, smoking and drinking more than usual.
At times they are physically violent, hitting others or
throwing things.

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Definition of Stress
Although stress has been involved as factor in
illness, some degree of stress is normal,
necessary and unavoidable. Stress act as
motivation to . make one adjust his
behaviour to meet challenging demands. For
Instance, reviewing for an examination or
going to a job interview, one would
experience a form of stress or anxiety. At
times stress is pleasant stress or negative
stress.

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Definition of Stress
Pleasant stress or eustress is
experienced by one’s body as an
unpleasant stimulus but becomes a
source of motivation. This
happens when the achievement of
a goal is expected.

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Definition of Stress
Negative stress or distress causes pain in the mind
and in the body that makes the person literally
sick. This results from hopelessness and
helplessness caused by the stressor.

For instance, an architect graduate Who failed in

board examination despite intensive review got
so frustrated Which is enough to stress the body
and mind of the graduate architect student.

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Definition of Stress
Neustress this neutral or negative stress is caused
by a disturbing event that does not affect a
person directly but it may trigger anxiety,
sadness, fear and other stressful feeling.

For instance, if one hears or read in the newspaper

that a child 18 kidnapped, one would be upset
deeply and he would experience emotion
related to stress but his response is just mild
because he is not directly involved. (Hales&
Hales,2016)

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Sources of Stress
Stressors have a major influence upon one’s
mood, one’s sense of well-being, behavior
and health. Acute stress responses in
young, healthy individuals may be
adaptive and typically do not impose a
health burden. However, if the threat is
unremitting particularly in older or
unhealthy individuals, the long term
effects of stressors can damage help.

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Sources of Stress
For young adults, stressors may come from the
following:

1. School demands and expectations

2. Separation anxiety
3. Romantic relationship or the lack of it
4. Family demands and expectations
5. Demands of social life

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Psychological Stress
Psychological Stress Psychological stress maybe classified
into frustration, pressure, trauma, conflict and
change.

▪ Frustration pertains to emotional state caused when

one is blocked from attaining a goal. This situation
has some obstacles that come between the person and
the expected goals.
For instance a student who failed in his board examination
despite of intensive review or a young man who
cannot find an ideal girlfriend despite of many young
girls around, would be frustrated.

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Psychological Stress
▪ Pressures is an emotional state caused when one
is faced with personal responsibilities that imposed
on ones abilities. Pressure situations require a
person to do work on so much for a short period of
time.

For instance the professor announces that there will be

along quiz tomorrow on the lessons that some
students missed to attend for several days, may
cause pressure on them. People under pressure
start to perform poorly that soon affect their health
and may lead to other stress related problems.

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Psychological Stress
▪ Trauma is a shocking physical or emotional
experience. Calamities like typhoon. fire, or
torture are examples of situations that lead to
sums.

People victims of calamities who are placed in

evacuation centers experience so much trauma
due to loss of properties, lack of foods, water
and other sustenance are enough to cause them
stress.

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Some Reactions to Stress
Stress reactions maybe classified into psychological,
physical and behavioral.

Psychological Stress Reaction - Stressful situations create

emotional reaction such as:
1. Anxiety is the most common response to stressors.
This is the unpleasant emotion characterized by
apprehension, tension, and fear. For instance, people
who live through events that are beyond their normal
suffering, like natural calamities, kidnapping, or rape,
at times develop sever set of anxiety-related symptom
called posttraumatic stress disorder. One major sign
of this is numbness

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Some Reactions to Stress
2. Anger and Aggression - anger is the common
reaction to stress that lead to aggression.
Aggression happens when there is crowding,
electric shock or failure to get an expected
reward.

3. Apathy and Depression - Apathy or

indifference is a frequent response to
frustration. When an individual is not able to
cope with frustration the apathy may lead to
depression

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Some Reactions to Stress
4. Cognitive Impairment - When a person is
faced with a serious stressors, he may find it
difficult to concentrate and think logically. He
may be distracted and as a result his
performance may lead to failure.

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Some Reactions to Stress
Physical Stress, Reaction - When ‘a person
experienced a near accident or other very
frightening event, he feels rapid
breathing, increased heartbeat, sweating,
general shakiness particularly in the arms
and legs. These reactions are parts of
general pattern or syndrome called light
or flight. This tight or flight prepares the
person to face or flee (get away) an
immediate threat. (Berstein, 1991) as
quoted by Arenas.

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Coping with Stress
The psychological and physiological
feelings created by the stressful
Situations are extremely
uncomfortable and the discomfort
motivates the individual to do
something to relieve his feelings.
Coping is used to refer to the
process by which a person tries to
manage the stressful demand.

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Coping with Stress
Problem-focused coping - This is when the person
has to focus on the specific problem that has
occurred and find ways of changing or avoiding
it in the future. People who try to use problem
focused coping in stressful situations show
lower levels of depression both during and after
the stressful happening and can be effective in
helping themselves overcome the stressful
demand.

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Coping with Stress
Here are some suggested strategies in problem focus
coping;

1. Define the problem.

2. Create alternative solutions
3. Weigh the alternative in relation to cost and
benefit
4. Choose the best alternative
5. Implement the chosen alternative .

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Coping with Stress
Emotion-focused coping - This is when a person can
focus on reducing the emotion related to '
stressful situation, even if the situation itself
cannot be changed. People use emotion-focused
coping to prevent their negative emotion from
overcoming them and making them not able to
take action in solving the problems. They also
use emotion-focus coping when the problem
cannot be controlled.

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Coping with Stress
There are many ways of coping with negative emotions.

Behavioral coping strategy - This is when one learns

how to rearrange one’s situation in ways that
minimize the effect of stressors or paying attention
to the total weight of stressors and keep them
within manageable limits. This coping strategy
include time management, by following a more
strict schedule or enrolling in study course to learn
skill efficiently

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Coping with Stress
Cognitive coping strategy - This involves changing
how people interpret stressors. Cognitive coping
strategy help people think more calmly, rationally,
and constructively in the face of stress. They
replace tragic thinking with thoughts that stressors
are seen as challenges not threats to self-esteem.
For instance a university scholar who losses his
scholarship that semester due to family problem,
instead of quitting his study he consider it a
challenge and use substitution process called
reconstruction by being a working student. .

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Coping with Stress
Physical-coping strategy - This is when people cope
with stress by changing their physical responses
before, during or after stressors occur. The most
common physical coping strategy is the use of
drugs or other prescribed chemicals to reduce
temporary shock. Non-chemical methods of
reducing physical stress reaction include
relaxation, training, physical exercise and
meditation. This procedures lead to state of
reduced physiological arousal, but no one method
of coping with stressors is universally successful.

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Key Takeaways
▪ Stress is the term used to denote physical,
emotional, cognitive and behavioral responses
to events that are threatening or challenging.‘
▪ Identifying sources of stress is vital in
addressing it appropriately.
▪ Coping is used to refer to the process by which
a person tries to manage the stressful demand.
▪ Coping mechanisms can be problem focused or
emotional focused.

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Thanks!

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References:
▪ Frando, M., & Isip, L. (2019). Understanding the
Self. Mandaluyong City, Philippines: Books Atbp.
Publishing Corp.

▪ Google Images.

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