Health Psychology
Smoking and sleeping are two negative behaviors that impacts ones physical and psychological health. Smoking is associated with significant increases in rates of lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, emphysema, other respiratory problems and death. Smoking is more common among people who live in poverty and those with less education. Most people begin smoking before the age of 18 and starting to smoke is often associated with higher levels of stress and anxiety, increased contact with kids that smoke and parental modeling. Adolescents are more susceptible to initiating the behavior and less concerned about potential health risks associated with smoking. Difficult sleeping can be an acute or short term problem. When behaviors in children such as sleepwalking, sleep terrors and nightmare are recurrent they may have non-rapid eye movement sleep arousal disorder or nightmare disorder. Narcolepsy a disorder defined as irrepressible need to sleep, lapsing into sleep or napping and insomnia persistent sleep difficulties that are associated with impairment in daily functioning are two common sleep disorders. Sleep problems can result from stress, anxiety or depression. Sleep difficulties are a part of the diagnostic criteria for depressive disorder and generalized disorder.
Health psychologist can help promote healthier alternatives by continuing to study how people develop positive and negative health habits, how stress and health are related and which