Stress- National Geographic Movie Questions

Psychology and the Social World Assignment #3 – Stress 1 . What hormones are responsible for the stress response? What does your body do to prepare you for a stressful encounter? What are some of the health/ physical concerns related to the constant exposure to stress? In order to prepare for a stressful encounter, the body will make many changes in a matter of milliseconds. It begins by sending signals to the kidneys adrenal glands to secrete a type of adrenaline called epinephrine. This hormone has so many effects on the body and its systems.

It targets the stomach and mall intestines and shuts them down, stopping digestion. Epinephrine is also responsible for the tension of the muscles and the increase of blood pressure. The body also produces a steroid hormone called glorification, which promotes the replenishment of energy and efficient cardiovascular function. Dealing with stress long-term can really affect one’s health. The first stress- related disease to be discovered was the ulcer. Australian researchers later found out that ulcers were actually caused by bacteria that could be found within the stomach.

But further research showed that this bacteria can be found in the stomach of any human being, but the effects of stress can cause the immune system to weaken, allowing the bacteria to grow and reproduce without being fought against. Long-term stress can also affect a person’s overall happiness and ability to be happy. Dopamine is a hormone that is secreted in relation to pleasure. As long as a person is encountering stress, dopamine is not being used, which can in result cause the person to no longer be able to appreciate things in their life that would normally give them pleasure

Also, stress hormones accelerate the shortening of telemeter, which are the protective wrappings at the end of chromosomes. The enzyme that repairs these telemeter is called telemeters, which can be produced when encountering humorous and compassionate activities. These are hard for a person to enjoy because of the stress they deal with, therefore the more stress a person goes through, the harder it is to get their health back on track. Stress has also been linked to weight gain and the distribution of body fat.

Recent studies have shown that fat that is more localized to the midsection can e related to stress. This could possibly reflect the obesity problem of the United States. 2. Describe the research by Dry. Supplies. Why did he choose to study baboons? What are some of the things he looks for when collecting blood samples of baboons? Thirty years ago, Dry. Supplies began a study the effects of stress on baboons of a particular tribe. Baboons stress each other, both socially and psychologically, by torturing those that are lower in rank to them.

The ranks are set to represent who they are allowed to irritate and pick on, and who is allowed to do so to them. By obtaining blood samples from various baboons within this tribe, Dry. Supplies was able to see how baboons of different ranks differed in the effects of stress. He concluded that the lower the baboon’s rank, the unhealthier they were. Monkeys with more stress exhibited overall higher blood pressure than those with a higher rank and less stress. Twenty years into the study- about ten years ago- about 50% of Dry.

Espousal’s study tribe traumatically died off. This was a very sad point in the study, but the reasons and results were very interesting. It was concluded that the baboons died because they ingested food that was affected with tuberculosis, a bacterial infection that affects the lungs. The most interesting part, though, was that since the baboons higher in rank “deserved” the food more than those of lower rank, they didn’t share and were therefore the ones to die.

This in result caused the tribe to lose all of its alpha males, and the oldest baboons were female. Since the baboons that survived were not used to a high rank involving torture of those underneath them, all of the hostility within the tribe was lost all of the monkeys got along. Dry. Supplies continued to test the blood of the tribe’s baboons and found that future generations had significantly lower blood pressure and less of a heart risk compared to just a few years before. 3. Describe the Whitehall study. What did the researchers find?

What makes the British Civil Service a particularly good population to study when it comes to stress? The Whitehall study was performed to study how a hierarchy/rank-related population related in stress. The objective was to study people of the British Civil Service, where people were expected to respond to those that were higher on the research than them. The result of this study were similar to the findings of Dry. Sulkiness study; people with a lower rank were at a much greater risk of heart disease and other diseases compared to those that were higher.

It was found that the type of job a person was expected to do was not a factor in the risk of heart disease at all- it all really depended on their rank and how much grief they received. The study also added that in this particular population, everyone was offered the same type of healthcare and benefits, meaning those higher up did not get special treatment when it came to health. This shows that the risk of heart disease and other diseases has nothing to do with previous or future health care.

It all comes down to how much stress a person encounters in their life. 4. Based on all of the research discussed in the video, do you think social economic status (I. E. , wealth) and social rank (I. E. , status) play significant roles in stress and health in the United States? What factors do you think are contributing differences in stress levels across groups of people? What can be done about stress in our society? Absolutely believe that economic and social statuses play a very important role n the stress and health in the United States.

Even though our country is known as the “land of the free,” we are all still expected to respond to those above us. No, we are not a hierarchy, but the way our country is set up, it might as well be. One of the easiest ways to reduce the stress of economic and social status stress is to get rid of the “status,” part. If a person isn’t viewed in comparison to another, there is no reason for one to feel higher or lower than the other. But as long as our government requires us to have an “alpha male,” being our president, he stress of these statuses is not manageable.

People who are higher up have no stress in these areas. They have no motive to change what thieve doing. Why would they give up their title as higher up for the reduced stress of people who are lower than them? We live in a society of people that are only concerned about their own well-being, and as long as this is the overall mentality, there is nothing that can be done about the stress of Americans. The overall question in finding a way to reduce stress in the United States is, how can we create a baboon society?