society and lifestyles – UWS BA ePDPs

Society and Culture: Youth

Today in Society and Lifestyles we looked at the relationship between youth, culture and society. Culture is the values, norms, and habits of a group of people which are reflected in their way of life. Society is the interactions and relations between all people. Youth is a particular stage of life, before adulthood, this stage refers to … Continue reading Society and Culture: Youth

Ideology and Prejudice

Today’s lecture was very informative and interesting. Prior to this lecture I did not have a full understanding of what prejudice and ideology were and what they entailed. However, after the lecture and workshops I now have a better understanding and an idea of how I would approach a question involving these two topics in … Continue reading “Ideology and Prejudice”

Prejudice can be described as someone’s prejudgements or biased thoughts on religion, race, gender, sexuality etc. It is an idea or opinion that is not based on actual fact, it can be referred to as a negative attitude, particuarly when it is a hatred or intolerance to certain kinds of people. However, when someone acts on their prejudice it then becomes discrimination.

Furthermore, we discussed and learned about the 5 agents of socialisation: media, family, peers, technology and education. This is where social interactions in each context help people learn values, norms and beliefs that make up the patterns of their culture. For children, they tend to learn these prejudices either from their parents or upbringing. It is extremely important as inspiring teachers that we have a full understanding of this topic and ensure that we teach children that everyone should be treated with respect regardless of their up-brining, background, culture etc.

A particular part of the lecture that I found interesting was the “Micro and Macro World”. I had never heard about this before and found it particuarly interesting to how it relates with our society and culture.

I enjoyed today’s lecture and feel like I know have a deeper understanding of the theories surrounding ideology and prejudice. I will continue to do further research to deepen my understanding in preperation for my exam.

PDP – Ideology and Prejudice

Overall I feel I have learned that prejudice is something all people can experience, whether it may be based on their race, gender, religion etc. The power point also revealed to me that my prejudices are influenced by people in my micro and macro world and showed that prejudices are formed in the format of: learned […]

Stress Hardiness

Today’s lecture focused on aspects of stress, triggers, buffers and our own perception of stress. At the beginning of the lecture, I realised that I have never really thought about my own stress levels and the things that cause me to stress. I noted down some things in my life that I feel like cause me to stress out: my job, driving lessons, family problems, a heavy workload and exam time. However, after some discussion I realised that some of these aspects can be both good and bad stress. I think it is important as educators that we realise that everyone deals with stress differently and that everyone feels and copes with it differently.

Being stressed, can have serious impacts on our health, not just physically but also mentally. It can have impacts on our heart and breathing rate, five senses and many more. Our mental health can also be effected and it can have a big impact on people who already suffer from mental health problems. I feel like when I get stressed I get myself very worked up, I panick and get very emotional. However, I feel that when I have the support from my loved ones and I can speak to my family and friends I get through it. I do feel it is extremely important that we encourage children to speak about their emotions and feelings to others, and for the stigma around mental health to slowly disappear.

Our independent study involved us trying out “The Holmes-Rahe Stress Calculator”. At the end of the test I got a score of 157 which I was a little bit surprised at. My score came under the category where I have a 50% chance of a health breakdown in the next 2 years. On reflection, some of the questions in the test were a mix of positives and negatives and therefore I feel like my stress score is a reflection of good and bad things that have happened in my life over the past year. I have realised that I do stress a lot about a lot of things and I dont deal with stress very well and therefore I feel like I need to work at aspects of my life that affect my stress levels and I am going to start working on this.

There are stress buffers that can help support a healthy lifestyle such as:

Talking to people around us- it is important that if we have a problem or issue that we speak about it with our close ones or people around us, or even a helpline. This helps to release your stress levels and feel safe and find a solution to the problem. Exercise- it has been said that when we exercise it releases endorphins which give you energy and make you happier and more positive. It can be a good release for people to help them cope with their feelings or even get their anger out by taking part in some activities such as boxing. I have been personally taking part in exercise and I feel like it has really helped me with my stress levels. Seeking professional advice- nowadays we have more access to information and professional help that can reduce our stress levels as well as any mental and physical health issues such as NHS 24, Samaritans etc.

We also had to read the Pengilly and Dowd (2000) article on Stress Hardiness. This article basically explained a scale called the ‘hardiness scale’ which is the scale of challenge, commitment and control on the relationship between stress and depression which allows us to research reasons into combatting this. It stated 4 main factors which can negatively impact your health such as: lack of social support, loneliness, lack of human contact/touch, normative life transitions and non-normative life transitions. I found this article interesting as it gave me an insight into the types of things that can impact on my own health and stress levels.

Once we realise what it is that causes us to stress it becomes easier to help resolve these issues and start making a change to have a healthier lifestyle.

Healthy Lifestyle

There are many factors that can have a negative effect of your health, some of these factors include: loneliness, lack of social support, lack of human contact/touch, normative life transitions and non-normative life transitions. Loneliness is often confused with alone. Being alone means that you are by yourself e.g. sitting alone, reading alone etc. and … Continue reading Healthy Lifestyle →

Loneliness is often confused with alone. Being alone means that you are by yourself e.g. sitting alone, reading alone etc. and it is a choice, you can choose to be alone. Whereas loneliness is the felling that no matter how many people you are surrounded by or how many friends you have, you still feel lonely. Loneliness can have negative effects on your health as it can cause major depression, diminished immune function, promotes unhealthy behaviours, causes excessive reactions to stress and you are 4 times more likely to get sick.

Social support is having someone you can talk to about all your problems and the things that are bothering you, this can include your family, friends, colleagues, help lines (ChildLine), help groups (AA), teachers/teaching staff or you partner/husband/wife. When someone doesn’t have any social support, it can affect their health, it can lead to negative feelings about oneself, more at risk of stress, decreased life expectancy, longer recovery times from surgery, increase need for medication in some chronic illnesses and promotes negative health practices.

Human contact/touch is a vital part of our human nature, it conveys emotion and allows us to connect with those around us. Human touch also has many positive effects on our health such as: stronger hearts, lower blood pressure, decreased stress levels and reduced overall tension. However, if someone isn’t exposed to human contact then they do not receive these benefits thus reducing their health.

Normative life transitions, for example retirement or moving home, are life events that we can predict and expect. These kinds of life event can cause stress which negatively effects the person’s health, but these affects are not as great as those that come from non-normative life transitions. Non-normative life transitions, for example divorce or loss of a job, are life events that cannot be predicted and cause even greater negative effects on the person’s health. These effects include: neurotic impairment, coronary heart disease, cancer and many others.

Here are some factors that can help in supporting a healthy lifestyle:

Religion and spirituality
Family support
Physical fitness
Coping mechanisms
Sense of control

Pengilly and Doud (2000) Stress Hardiness

There are many factors that can negatively impact individual(s) health within society, one being stress. Stress achieves a very negative impact on individuals as this often results in depression which shows that stress and depression must be linked and that they both work in turn with one another. This therefore shows that high-hardiness individuals are … Continue reading Pengilly and Doud (2000) Stress Hardiness →

Holmes-Rahe Reflection

After adding up my score on the Holmes-Rahe Scale I had a total of 146, this implies that I have had a relatively low amount of life change and have a low susceptibility to stress-induced health breakdown. I’m quite happy with this score as it means that my stress levels haven’t been too high over the past year. Well actually, although the scale tells me that my stress levels have been pretty low, I know for a fact that they have been much, much higher over the past year. As much as I think the Holmes-Rahe Scale is a useful tool, it doesn’t take into account the stress from other life events such as exams, personal anxiety or depression as examples. I think if these were also options on the scale, my score would be much higher, as I struggled with exam stress not once but twice last year and I was also affected by some anxiety issues as well which caused stress in other areas such as holidays, social interaction, finishing high school, moving away from home, starting at university and even going out in public. More recently however I have been stressing about University work and the upcoming exams, as well as having these exams to study for, I have also been stressed over the Literacy resit that I have to do as well. It gets to the point where I stress so much about having to study for all these exams that I end up doing no studying at all and I begin to lose sleep too, which is not good! Relieving stress is something I find quite difficult, because I live away from home I don’t really get the chance to confide in my family and I don’t want to burden my friends because I know that they have their own problems to deal with and exams to study for. So really the only way I have to get rid of stress is either to bottle it up or to comfort eat, which is also not good. That’s usually my way to resolve stress that has built up over time but I have some other ways of relieving stress as it happens, for example giving a presentation. This is where I either take deep breaths in fresh air, fidget (wring my fingers), bob my leg up and down or sometimes if I’m really stressed I’ll dig my fingernails into the backs of my fingers or the palm of my hand. I know that some of my tactics are not the greatest but they seem to work for me, which is all that really matters.

Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory

From completing the Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory my score was 115, therefore I fall into the category of ‘150 or less’ which means a relatively low amount of my life should change and ill have a lower susceptibility to stress or an induced health breakdown. My score of 115 actually came as a surprise to me, … Continue reading Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory →

The Holmes – Rahe Stress Inventory

After completing the Holmes Rahe Stress Inventory I scored 117. Thus the test therefore stated that I have experienced a relatively low amount of life change and so had a low susceptibility to stress-induced health breakdown. Looking over these questions it has highlighted to me that I have not experienced many of these life changes […]