Having support from a loved one also helps a lot in reducing stress.One study showed that the power of having support from a loved one, or just having social support, lowered stress in individual subjects. Painful shocks were applied to married womens ankles. In some trials women were able to hold their husbands hand, in other trials they held a strangers hand, and then held no ones hand. When the women were holding their husbands hand, the response was reduced in many brain areas. When holding the strangers hand the response was reduced a little, but not as much as when they were holding their husbands hand. Social support helps reduce stress and even more so if the support is from a loved one. Cognitive appraisal
Lazarus argued that, in order for a psychosocial situation to be stressful, it must be appraised as such. He argued that cognitive processes of appraisal are central in determining whether a situation is potentially threatening, constitutes a harm/loss or a challenge, or is benign. Both personal and environmental factors influence this primary appraisal, which then triggers the selection of coping processes. Problem-focused coping is directed at managing the problem, whereas emotion-focused coping processes are directed at managing the negative emotions. Secondary appraisal refers to the evaluation of the resources available to cope with the problem, and may alter the primary appraisal.
He argued that all people have a natural urge and need to work for their own benefit, a message that found favor with industrialists and governments. He also coined the term stressor to refer to the causative event or stimulus, as opposed to the resulting state of stress. Selye was in contact with the tobacco industry from 1958 and they were undeclared allies in litigation and the promotion of the concept of stress, clouding the link between smoking and cancer, and portraying smoking as a "diversion", or in Selyes concept a "deviation", from environmental stress.From the late 1960s, academic psychologists started to adopt Selyes concept; they sought to quantify "life stress" by scoring "significant life events", and a large amount of research was undertaken to examine links between stress and disease of all kinds. By the late 1970s, stress had become the medical area of greatest concern to the general population, and more basic research was called for to better address the issue. There was also renewed laboratory research into the neuroendocrine, molecular, and immunological bases of stress, conceived as a useful heuristic not necessarily tied to Selyes original hypotheses. The US military became a key center of stress research, attempting to understand and reduce combat neurosis and psychiatric casualties.The psychiatric diagnosis post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was coined in the mid-1970s, in part through the efforts of anti-Vietnam War activists and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and Chaim F. Shatan.