As research shows, men and women do experience different levels of stress, thereby impacting their health. Focusing exclusively on the behavior, and health of young men results in generalizations and incomplete information about how we behave, why we're healthy, etc. If we expand research to include other groups (such as women), we can facilitate discovery of ways to avoid and treat these problems.


Conclusion: Gender, Stress, and Health

Men and women are at differential risk for mental illnesses. Different forms of response/adaptation could predispose men and women to different illnesses and health problems, such as psychophysiological differences between men and women in context of stress




Boston University

Gender can be defined as socially constructed characteristics of women, men, people outside the expected binary. Some examples being norms, roles and relationships among and between groups of women and men.



Gender is a nonexplanitory measure, meaning gender can not be counted as the cause of a difference in population statistics. Learned behaviors or differences in physicality, among other things, can be counted as explanitory information.

Gender

The body's response to stressors from within the body or from the environment. 

Stress (Psychological Stress)

Stress is a process through which an individual perceives and responds to events, known as stressors, that they appraise as overwhelming or threatening to their well-being. This cognitive appraisal of the event and one's ability to cope with it is a key determinant of the resulting physiological or psychological strain. While often viewed negatively, stress can also be an adaptive response to challenging situations.

Stress

Baum, A., & Grunberg, N. E. (1991). Gender, Stress, and Health. Health Psychology, 10(2), 80–85. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.10.2.80


Gender, stress, and health.

The social construction of gender refers to how meanings of gender are created through social interactions and norms. 
- Gender is not innate and is subject to change:
 - Pink used to be a "boy" color and blue was a "girl" color; now pink is considered a "girl" color and blue a "boy" color
 - What is considered gender appropriate is determined collectively
 
Candace West and Don Zimmerman developed this idea that we "do" gender, instead of it being something that we are. They claim this by saying that we "do" gender knowing that we will be judged by others and held accountable for our gender performances. 

The Social Construction of Gender

This refers to the way that different social relations are linked together, examples of these types of social relations are race, gender, class, ability, sexuality, geography, etc. 
- Femininity intersects with ethnicity, religion and nationality:
- Filipino immigrants tend to think of American girls as uncaring and promiscuous, while holding the belief that Filipina girls were sexually modest and dedicated to their families
- This shows that girls are expected to maintain both gender norms and ethnocultural norms

Due to the connection between social relations one cannot look at something like gender and ignore race or ethnicity. 

Intersectional Perspective on Gender

- Institutional Inequality
- Gender and Violence

Gender Inequality

Much of the research has been conducted on binary gender identifying participants. The data has problems with inconsistent results, but it appears that men have greater risk for procrastinating in academic life. 

- men are more likely than women to procrastinate
- women show higher levels of academic performance, correlated with less procrastination
- men's procrastination adversely impacts their performance and satisfaction

Gender differences with procrastination

Gender studies is an interdisciplinary field that explores how all gender identities are developed and how they affect people’s experiences in society.

Gender Studies

Through Vipassana Meditation females, especially non-buddhists, reported experiencing reactions to gender discrimination as well as  increased femininity, despite VM being a non-gendered practice.

Vipassana Meditation and Gender

Gender, Stress, and Health

Individuals who experience Gender Dysphoria and feel that their gender identity is incongruent with their sex assigned at birth experience psychological distress due deviation from the societal norm, and Compassion-based Art Therapy combined with mindfulness can help build self-compassion and greater resilience

Mindfulness-Based Art Therapy for Gender- Variant Individuals

Wolf et. al argue that core cultural values moderate gender stereotypes, particularly that stereotypes of men align more closely with this values than those of women. Essentially, key values in a particular culture are more often ascribed to men when compared to cultures that don't share the same values. Thus, stereotypes for men and women vary across cultures in being culturally mediated rather than universal. 

Cultural Values and Gender 

When a paper you read mentions a form of stress, add it here as a bullet point, then create a concept child node defining it. Also make sure to add your reference to this node.
- Emotional Stress
- Stress caused via media
- Climate Grief
- Oxidative Stress
- Covid-19 Pandemic Stress
- Time Stress
- Anticipatory Stress
- Situational Stress
- Encounter Stress
- Workplace/Academia Stress
- Gender-related Stress
- Chronic illness and Stress
- Physical stress
- Psychological stress
- Psychosocial stress
- Psycho-spiritual stress
- Generational stress/ Generational trauma

Types of Stress

Stress reduction in the workplace can be done through group-based (instructor-lead) or computer-based (computer-presented format) intervention. However, compliance is more problematic in computer-based intervention since there is limited human supervision online, while individuals in clinician-guided mental health experienced greater improvement and satisfaction than computer-guided groups.

Group-based vs. Computer-based Stress-management Intervention

Stress can be broken up into several descriptive levels.
- Acute Stress
- Episodic Stress
- Chronic Acute Stress

Levels of Stress

Researchers have agreed that there are unhealthy and healthy ways of managing stress.

Ways of Coping with Stress

 Psychological responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have been found to highly correlate with fear and stress. This high association leads to different responding behaviors. The overwhelming amount of data is creating a need to find a way to best measure amounts of stress and fear.

The Psychological Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic Associated with Stress and Fear

The stress in the context of the pandemic promotes more severe Covid-19 symptoms and diminishes antibody response to vaccination.

Stress and Immunity to Covid-19

An emerging body of literature on stress, coping, and health among African American women identify strength as a factor that may exacerbate the influence of stress on health outcomes in this population. Although strength can be a positive attribute, behaviors related to strength (e.g., emotional suppression, extraordinary caregiving, and self-care postponement) may jeopardize health.

Health Disparities Related to Stress and Strength among African American Women

Distress in the four D's looks at people's perceptions of the dysfunction in an individual’s life, whether or not the person feels particularly distressed by it. However, dysfunction and distress may not always go hand in hand together.

Distress

There are various ways one can manage and regular their stress. This may include:
- Coping 
- Social support
- Perceived control
- Stress reduction techniques
- Virtual reality stress treatment

Regulation of Stress

Stress triggers a wide range of reactions, which can be grouped into three main categories: physiological, cognitive, and behavioral. These responses encompass the various ways individuals react to stressful experiences.

Categorization of Stress Responses

When individuals perceive life events as stressful, employing effective coping strategies becomes essential for managing the stress.

The Necessity of Coping for Stress Management

Research suggests that stress affects immunology mainly through autonomic nerves innervating lymphoid tissue, hormone-mediated alteration of immune cells, or adoption of coping behaviors.

Stress and Immunology

- Negative Life Events 
- Perceived Stress
- Negative Affect
- Social Isolation
- Socioeconomic Status

Factors contributing to Stress

Stress Hormones

- Cholesterol levels are used to identify coronary heart disease 
  - Could lead to atherosclerosis, which is plaque buildup in arteries
- Lipid levels increase in response to stress
- Increased cholesterol in the blood poses a risk for CHD, which then increases its permeability through the innermost layer of the blood vessel wall

Stress and Lipids

The Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course is a program where one is taught multiple practices of how to be accepting and non-judgemental of their present experiences or thoughts. In addition, individuals who participate in this course are taught mindfulness practices, such as being more mindful when eating or taking a walk and being more attentive with their breathing and body sensations. These practices often lead individuals to be more wise with how they respond to their external circumstances.

Critical Skill To Combat Stress Through Mindfulness

Stress is different for everyone as it is based on one's personality. Some stressors may affect some a lot more than others. Primary triggers that cause stress for most people externally consists of external related stress.

Causations of Stress

Stress can impact one's life mentally, emotionally, behaviorally, and physically. As many experiences stress differently, some may experience only a few or more symptoms in these categories.

Symptoms of Stress

Chronic and Acute Stress

Stress is a complex phenomenon that affects individuals in various ways. The study of stress has led to the development of several theories that attempt to explain its causes and effects.

Theories of stress

- Positive
- Tolerable
- Toxic
- Physiological
- Cognitive
- Behavioral

Types of Stress Responses

References for Stress

Previous research has illustrated that emotional processing plays a role in moral decision making. Brain areas such as the amygdala, hippocampus, the anterior cingulate cortex, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which play important roles in emotional processing when activated, also can potentially play a role in moral decision making. By extension, stress has been seen to play a role as well. 

Impact of Stress on Moral Decision-Making: Emotional Processing 

When trauma is experienced, the brain recognizes it as a threat and therefore activates a neurobiological stress response. Though this stress response can be beneficial in the moment to help protect a person from danger, repeated exposure to stress/trauma and thus, the repeated, overactivation of a neurobiological stess response, can negatively affect the mind and body. Exposure to traumatic stress during childhood can damage and/or alter a child's brain as it is developing. Such damage can affect their ability to learn in school and even affect them into adulthood. 


Childhood Traumatic Stress 

Dysfunctional attitudes are mostly caused by stressful life events. It can develop in people with no psychological disorders and in people with psychological disorders such as depression and anxiety when they encounter too much stress. 

Dysfunctional Attitudes and Stress

3 Types of Stress Responses

- Immunoprotective
- Immunoregulatory/inhibitory
- Immunopathological

3 Types of Stress Effects on Immunity 

Reference for Stress Sensitization Model

Stress sensitization model is a term used to describe the theory that suggests that a person might become sensitized to stress over the course of time to the point where successive episodes only require a decreasing amount of stress to trigger them. 

Stress Sensitization Model 

Academic stress refers to the stress students experience related to school. It can be as a result of a heavy workload and/or due to the pressure to perform well. 

Academic Stress 

The stress response is a complex and coordinated set of physiological reactions that the body activates when needed. These reactions are adaptive, preparing an individual to cope with situations perceived as dangerous or threatening.

Stress Response

Contributors to Stress Research and Understanding

Refers to perceived threatening or demanding stimuli, and in turn initiating the stress process.

Stressors

There are differences in the stress level of demographic groups with variances in the following characteristics:

- Sex
- Age
- Race
- Education
- Employment
- Income ($US)

Stress and Demographics

Defining stress with precision is challenging because it is a fairly vague and complex concept. This difficulty in establishing a single, universally accepted definition has led to the development of several different conceptualizations, including stimulus-based, response-based, and appraisal-based definitions, as well as the distinction between good and bad stress.

The Challenge of Defining Stress

Contrary to its common negative association, stress can function as a beneficial force. It often serves as a key motivator for individuals to engage in actions that are in their own best interest, such as preparing for exams, seeking regular medical care, exercising, and striving for excellence in the workplace.

Beneficial Aspects of Stress

Profoundly negative health consequences can arise when stress becomes extreme or chronic. This prolonged stress is a significant contributor to the onset and progression of various psychological disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder, as well as a wide range of physical illnesses and diseases.

Negative Health Consequences of Chronic and Extreme Stress

The study of stress and illness explores the relationship between psychological stress and physical health, examining how stress can contribute to the onset or worsening of various diseases.

Stress and Illness

The Social Readjustment Rating Scale is a self-report questionnaire used to operationally define stress. It requires individuals to identify stressful life events they have experienced in the past year, assigning specific points based on the severity of each event—such as a divorce ($$73$$ points) or changing jobs ($$36$$ points)—to calculate a total stress score.

Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)

The Perceived Stress Scale is a specific operational definition utilized to quantify the abstract concept of stress. It serves as a self-report questionnaire where individuals provide scores that correspond to their level of perceived stress, thus transforming a theoretical variable into an observable and measurable format.

Perceived Stress Scale

Stress can be operationally defined using various physiological measures, beyond just self-report questionnaires. Researchers can quantify the stress response by recording specific biological variables within the body, such as elevated blood pressure levels or increased concentrations of the stress hormone cortisol.

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