Our bodies and minds aren't separate, so it's not surprising that mental illness can affect your body. Depression can be accompanied by headaches, fatigue and digestive problems, and anxiety can lead to an upset stomach, for example. Other symptoms may include insomnia, restlessness, and difficulty concentrating. Your mental health plays a very important role in your overall well-being.
Being in a good mental state can keep you healthy and help prevent serious health problems. A study found that positive psychological well-being can reduce the risks of heart attacks and strokes. On the other hand, poor mental health can lead to poor physical health or harmful behavior. Long-term activation of the stress response system and overexposure to cortisol and other accompanying stress hormones can disrupt nearly every process in the body.
This can increase the risk of suffering from a variety of physical and mental health problems, such as anxiety, depression, digestive problems, headaches, muscle tension and pain, heart disease, heart attacks, high blood pressure, strokes, problems sleeping, weight gain, and problems with memory and concentration. Therefore, health psychologists are interested in how biological, psychological, and social factors affect health and illness. Therefore, they are dedicated to the promotion and maintenance of health-related behaviors, to the prevention and treatment of diseases, and to the analysis and improvement of the health care system. Stressors have a major influence on mood, our sense of well-being, behavior and health.
Responses to acute stress in young, healthy people can be adaptive and usually do not burden health. However, if the threat is relentless, especially in older or sick people, the long-term effects of stressors can harm health. The relationship between psychosocial stressors and illness is affected by the nature, number and persistence of stressors, as well as by the person's biological vulnerability (i.e., psychosocial interventions have proven to be useful for treating stress-related disorders and can influence the course of chronic diseases).A widely used definition of stressful situations is one in which the demands of the situation threaten to exceed the individual's resources (Lazarus and Folkman 198). It's clear that we're all exposed to stressful situations at a social, community and interpersonal level).
How we face these challenges will inform us about the health of our society and our own. In fact, people who are optimistic and have good coping responses can benefit from these experiences and cope with chronic stressors (Garmezy 1991, Glanz & Johnson 199). Conversely, if stressors are too strong and persistent in people who are biologically vulnerable due to age, genetic, or constitutional factors, stressors can lead to illness. This is particularly the case if the person has few psychosocial resources and poor coping capacity.
In this chapter, we have documented the associations between stressors and illness and have described how endocrino-immune interactions appear to mediate the relationship. We have also described how psychosocial stressors influence mental health and how psychosocial treatments can improve mental and physical disorders. We don't yet know much about the relationship between stress and health, but scientific discoveries being made in the areas of cognitive-emotional psychology, molecular biology, neuroscience, clinical psychology and medicine will undoubtedly lead to better health outcomes. Health psychology is a specialty area that focuses on how biology, psychology, behavior, and social factors influence health and the disease.
Other terms, such as medical psychology and behavioral medicine, are sometimes used interchangeably with the term health psychology. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological and social well-being. It affects the way we think, feel and act. It also helps determine how we manage stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices.1 Mental health is important at all stages of life, from childhood and adolescence to adulthood. For years, we've known about the dangers of smoking and that we need to eat less and move more.
But, in the end, what motivates us to drop the donut and go for a run or to follow the doctor's instructions carefully about medications and follow-up visits? Discover what it takes to become a health psychologist Health psychology focuses on how biological, social and psychological factors influence health and illness. Health psychology is an important part of managing the psychological and emotional impact that health and illness can have on your life. Counseling psychology is a specialty in the field of psychology in which professionals help individuals, as individuals and groups, to improve their well-being, alleviate their distress, resolve their crises, and increase their ability to solve problems and make decisions. The American Psychological Association defines clinical psychology as “a clinical discipline that involves the provision of diagnostic, evaluation, treatment plan, treatment, prevention and consultation services to patients in emergency rooms, inpatient units and hospital clinics. Rehabilitation psychology is a clinical specialty applied to professional psychology that deals with the treatment and science of chronic and disabling diseases.
Clinical psychology is the application of psychological knowledge and skills, research and intervention techniques to health and illness, particularly as it relates to mental health. Health psychologists apply psychological research and methods to the prevention and treatment of diseases, the promotion and maintenance of health, the identification of psychological factors that contribute to physical illness, the improvement of the health care system, and the formulation of health policies. Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, a psychology educator and the author of the book Everything Psychology. Written by Kendra Cherry, MSed Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the book Everything Psychology Book.
Health psychology is a field of psychology focused on health promotion, as well as on the prevention and treatment of diseases and ailments.
