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Embodying psychological thriving: physical thriving in response to stress - Thriving: Broadening the Paradigm Beyond Illness to Health
Journal of Social Issues, Summer, 1998 by Elissa S. Epel, Bruce S. McEwen, Jeannette R. Ickovics
The sympathetic arousal from a defense response is also related to better psychological health and cognitive performance. A high catecholamine increase from rest to stress is related to positive attributes, such as better performance on the challenge (Ellertsen, Johnsen, & Ursin, 1978; Johansson, Frankenhaeuser, & Magnusson, 1973), better emotional adjustment (Rauste-von Wright, von Wright, & Frankenhaeuser, 1981), and lower daily life stress and neuroticism (Forsman, 1981). Thus, elevated catecholamines over a short period may have positive effects on mental and physical functioning. A challenge orientation toward tasks may increase sympathetic reactivity, which increases glucose availability, which in turn enhances performance and ability to cope. In this way, experiencing success from stressors may create a positive cycle of seeking further stressors (viewed as challenges) and benefiting from them (Dienstbier, 1989). Continued exposure to life events may take on a different meaning and function. Stressors may present themselves as opportunities for success and further growth rather than failure (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1995, p. 32).
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Recent research on cognitive appraisal and reactivity, using sensitive methods to assess both parasympathetic and sympathetic arousal, has found that whereas both challenge and threat appraisals can increase autonomic activity, they may do so by different mechanisms. Challenge appraisals are related to increased cardiac output and decreased total peripheral vascular resistance, whereas threat appraisals are related to increased peripheral vascular resistance (Blascovich & Tomaka, 1996; Schneider, 1997; Tomaka, Blascovich, Kelsey, & Leitten, 1993). Given these patterns of reactivity and the underlying sympathetic and parasympathetic mechanisms driving them (peripheral vascular resistance being the only response driven by sympathetic alpha adrenergic receptors), it has been suggested that challenge appraisals lead to parasympathetic inhibition, whereas threat appraisals lead to enhanced sympathetic activation (Schneider, 1997). This is relevant to our goal of identifying salutary responses to stress. If challenge responses lead to increased reactivity simply through decreasing parasympathetic activity, there are likely fewer catabolic processes accompanying this response than a defeated response driven by higher sympathetic reactivity. As a result, there may be less physical wear and tear from a challenged profile of reactivity and more resilience. Clearly, more research is needed to understand origins and effects of these different profiles of arousal.
Other psychological variables that have been related to lowered stress hormones or enhanced immunity in response to stressors are perceptions of personal competence and control over outcomes, such as self-esteem (Seeman et al, 1995), self-efficacy (Bandura, 1985; Bandura, Reese, & Adams, 1982), and a sense of coherence (Lutgendorf et al., 1998). When given a sense of control over their environment, nursing home residents' basal cortisol levels dropped dramatically (Rodin, 1980). In work environments, high task demands coupled with high control and autonomy were related to lower basal catecholamines (Karasek, Russell, & Theorell, 1982).
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