Author: Yuliya Shneyderman

What are sources of stress?

Every year, the American Psychological Association conducts a survey about stress in the United States. Some of the more common stressors are money, family responsibilities, health-related concerns, and work. To see more sources of stress, and see some generational differences and trends on stress level, see https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2018/interactive-graphics.

A modern type of stress comes from overuse and over-reliance on technology. This has been termed technostress and it can have serious harmful effects. For more on how to deal with this, see
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/prefrontal-nudity/201708/dealing-technostress .

An important step in considering how to manage your stress level is to first figure out what are your stressors. Think about the top 5 stressors in your life. Are there any changes you can make to help manage your stress when responding to these stressors?

General Adaptation Syndrome

One way to understand how long-term stress affects your health is through the General Adaptation Syndrome, which describes the three stages of stress – alarm, resistance, and exhaustion – https://www.healthline.com/health/general-adaptation-syndrome.

Before you experience stress, your body is in homeostasis. This is the state where the various body systems are in equilibrium. When you first perceive something stressful, the fight or flight response of the alarm phase begins.

What is stress?

When you perceive something as a threat to you, your body activates part of your autonomic nervous system called the sympathetic nervous system which sends hormones through your body. These hormones cause various changes that you can notice – all of these changes are called the fight or flight response.

Image explains the fight or flight response. Brain perceives the threat, in the hypothalamas signals are sent to the pituitary gland, which then communicates with other endocrine glands to release adrenaline (epinephrine) and cortisol. This causes increase in heart rate, dilated pupils, bladder relaxation, flushed face, shaking, dry mouth, slowed digestion.
From Wikimedia Foundation

Stress can be good (known as eustress) or bad (distress). Eustress often comes from events or situations that are challenging, like going to college, getting a new job, or a new baby, but that ultimately lead to growth and success. Distress is caused by things like losing a loved one, losing a job, breaking up with a partner, and other difficult situations. Stress from these events can lead to negative health outcomes.

Read more here:

How-stress-affects-your-health – APADownload

Stress can affect how you feel, physically and emotionally.

Image showing health problems arising from stress. Brain and nerves: headaches, feelings of despair, lack of energy, sadness, nervousness, increased or decreased eating, trouble concentrating, memory problems, trouble sleeping, mental health problems. Skin: acne and other skin problems. Muscles and joints: muscles aches and tension, increased risk of bone density reduction. Heart: faster heart beat, rise in blood pressure, increased cholesterol, increased risk of heart attack. Stomach: nausea, stomach pain, heartburn, weight gain. Pancreas: risk of diabetes. Intestines: diarrhea, constipation, other digestive problems. Reproductive system: in women - irregular or more painful periods and reduced sexual desire, in men - lower sperm production, reduced sexual desire. Immune system: lower ability to fight or recover from illness.
From Wikimedia Foundation

There are different kinds of stress: acute, episodic acute, and chronic – https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/stress-kinds.

Stress reduction

There are many reasons to feel stress, whether good or bad. The stress process often has a harmful effect on our bodies. But there are many things we can do to manage our stress.

What are your favorite ways to manage your stress? What do you like to do, eat, read, create to unwind and take a breather during your day?

Mortality in 1900 vs. 2010

Mortality in 1900 vs. 2010

Over the last 100 years, there have been many advances in public health and medicine. Read about it here https://www.ncdemography.org/2014/06/16/mortality-and-cause-of-death-1900-v-2010/.

Bar graph of top 10 causes of death in the USA in 1900 and 2010. In 1900, people died most from pneumonia and influenza, tuberculosis, gastrointestinal infections. In 2010, most common causes of death were heart disease and cancer.

Consider this question: How have the causes of death changed in the last 100 years?

Consider this question: Why have the causes of death changed in the last 100 years?

How can we improve our health?

What are some of the most common behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of death? And is there anything we can do to change our likelihood of death from a particular cause?

The behaviors that are responsible for most deaths in the United States are: using tobacco, a sedentary lifestyle, drinking alcohol and an unhealthy diet.

Health behaviors are considered to be modifiable determinants of health – that is, you can change them! But how can people change these common behaviors? The field of health education uses several theories to explain the process of making behavior change.
• Health belief model – http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/SB/BehavioralChangeTheories/BehavioralChangeTheories2.html
• Theory of planned behavior – http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/SB/BehavioralChangeTheories/BehavioralChangeTheories3.html
• Social cognitive theory – http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/SB/BehavioralChangeTheories/BehavioralChangeTheories5.html
• Transtheoretical model or Stages of Change – http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/SB/BehavioralChangeTheories/BehavioralChangeTheories6.html

Healthy People 2020 and 2030

Our government and many health-related organizations put together a plan every 10 years to improve the health of the nation. This decade’s plan is called HealthyPeople 2020 – https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/About-Healthy-People

Some of the broad areas that Healthy People 2020 focuses on are:

  • Reducing or eliminating illness, disability or premature death
  • Eliminating health disparities
  • Addressing social determinants of health
  • Improving access to quality health care
  • and many others

HealthyPeople 2020 mid-course review shows which of the most important indicators of health are improving, staying the same, or declining – https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/data-search/midcourse-review/lhi

Just this month, Healthy People 2030 was released, though work still continues to evaluate some of the Leading Health Indicators – https://health.gov/healthypeople

Leading causes of death

One way to track the health of the nation every year is with the leading causes of death which can be found here https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm for all ages in the United States. To learn more about different causes of death by sex, age, and race, download or read the following report from National Vital Statistics (this is optional). The rate of death is called mortality.

Leading-causes-of-death-2017-CDC

Deaths: Leading causes for 2017 by Dr. Melonie HeronDownload

We can also see how long people are expected to live – this is called life expectancy. Right now the average life expectancy is 78.6 years according to the CDC. You can also see differences by sex and ethnicity here – https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db328.htm.

Generally, life expectancy has been on the rise across most of the world, reflecting advances in medicine. However, in the US life expectancy has declined for the past 3 years – https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-life-expectancy-drops-third-year-row-reflecting-rising-drug-overdose-suicide-rates-180970942/.

In the Untied States, there exist health disparities – differences in health status and health outcomes in different groups. One of the missions of HealthyPeople 2020 is to achieve health equity, that is the improve health for all groups and to close the gaps that currently exist between groups. The CDC in partnership with many organizations, both public and private, work to reach health equity – some examples of programs are here https://www.cdc.gov/minorityhealth/strategies2016/index.html.


What is health?

How would you define health? There are several interconnected and related
dimensions of wellness that are dynamic – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5508938

Model of determinants of health. In the middle of the image are biological factors, then individual lifestyle behaviors, then social and community networks, then socio-economic, cultural and environmental factors

What makes your health better or worse? All of the factors that influence
your health for better or worse, including your genetic code, your behaviors, and your environment,
are called the determinants of health – https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/about/foundation-health-measures/Determinants-of-Health

Social determinants of health – https://www.cdc.gov/socialdeterminants/index.htm

To learn more about how social determinants of health can impact our lives,
watch this movie (this is optional). Go to the BMCC Library website – http://lib1.bmcc.cuny.edu/ and click on Databases. Select Video Databases, then select Kanopy Streaming Videos. If you are not on campus, you will have to log in with your BMCC log-on (the same credentials you use to log into computers on campus). When you are in the Kanopy database, search for Unnatural Causes. Your result will say Collection on it. Watch the movie titled In Sickness and in Wealth.

Is the United States a healthy country? Read more here – https://unnaturalcauses.org/assets/uploads/file/AmazingFacts_small.pdf.