On December 11, 12 and 13, the university extension course took place at the CA UNED Dénia The influence of stress on physical and brain development.
Stress has become a concept that appears in all areas of life. There is talk of the importance of its control, activities to eliminate it are offered, but is it important or harmful?
The course talked about its treatment and management as well as the mechanisms that induce it, the consequences on brain development since childhood, its influence in different areas of everyday life and how it can influence sports activity.
This activity is related to objective 3 of the United Nations Development Goals. The course was mainly attended by psychology students with a large influx also of people interested in knowing more about stress, having an important presence on a daily basis.
The course was presented by Mª Ángeles Menéndez, Academic and Quality Coordinator who emphasized that "Stress is a topic that is very topical and that worries everyone", which is why the CA UNED Dénia has considered its inclusion in the academic programming of the center. In the course were also present Raquel Martí, Director of CA UNED Dénia, and José Salvador Monserrat Crespo, Legal Technical Manager of the same and the Secretary of the Center, Jaume Tortosa.
The first day of the course began with the conference "Treatment of stress: cognitive-behavioral techniques" by Cristina Cano Jurado, Health and Educational Psychologist who stressed that "It is inevitable to be exposed to stressful situations. That is why the acquisition of resources becomes important of coping that help both reduce or even cancel the tension and physiological activation, as well as eliminate negative cognitions "giving way to practical exercises where students learned to treat it.
Then the presentation "Psychological tools to manage stress" by María Pilar Fernández Ruiz Health and Forensic Psychologist. It was a participatory presentation, in which guidelines and practical exercises were provided, to manage stress, in its early stages, learning to identify and combat it or reduce it to more tolerable levels.
The second day began with two lectures by Georgia Ribes Zankl, Clinical Neuropsychologist, Systemic Therapist and Traumatherapist, Psychotherapist, Teacher and Course Coordinator: the conference "Systemic Neuropsychology: the influence of early stress on brain development", where commented on how early stress affects the development of the child - and his brain - and how it contributes to the development of pathologies or learning problems; and the conference "Child psychopathology and stress" where, after highlighting how child psychopathology is increasing, some of the most common disorders -autism, ADHD ...- were approached from a systemic perspective, outlining a proposal for diagnosis and treatment that It goes beyond the individual and his brain.
In the early afternoon, the presentation "The relationship of stress in eating behavior" was held by Ramón Portolés Torregrosa, Endocrine Doctor who stressed that "The most important thing is to have an orderly, calm, serene pattern of behavior that on the one hand allow me to enjoy food and on the other maintain a state of health and well-being. "
The conference "Stress as sports interference. More is not better" was continued by Miguel Martínez Ramos Elite Sportsman in Handball and Sports Coach who stressed that "It has been proven that, on many occasions, it is the athlete himself with his Inappropriate mental representation of events which usually generates more stress than the external stressors themselves. ”
The third day the day was dedicated to Psychobiology with Emilio Ambrosio Flores, Professor of Psychobiology of the UNED and Director of the course, with two papers: a first presentation entitled "Stress Psychobiology" where the importance of maintaining an active brain was highlighted that "Your brain will still be alive, just like that of young people" highlighting that "Experiences, training, education are capable of modifying the activity of DNA"; and a second paper entitled "Importance of stress in induction and recurrence of psychopathological disorders", highlighting as one of the examples presented cases of relapse in addiction, where stress is present in most of those cases.
“The influence of stress on physical and brain development” has been a unique course, where stress has been seen in detail in all its aspects, both theoretically and practically, with emphasis on all conferences in the great influence it has stress in the early ages, and can even modify the epigenetic expression of the person in adulthood.
