UNIT ACTIVITY

IMPROVING PERFORMANCE

OBJECTIVES
In this unit activity you will:

● Use mathematics to model real-world situations

● Conduct online research in which you will collect information
● Apply mathematical tools and knowledge to analyze real-world situations
● Employ online tools for research and assess and validate information

INTRODUCTION
In the physical world, stress is the result of an object pushing or pulling on another. For example, the chair
that you’re sitting on right now is undergoing stress from the weight of your body. The amount of stress
depends on your weight and the materials that make up the chair.

With regard to your health, stress is a way that your mind and body react when demands are placed on
them. You might feel pressured to do well in school or sports. You might be dealing with illness in your
family or financial problems. The way that a person reacts to such stress varies from one individual to the
next.

Eating healthy foods regularly and exercising are two effective methods to combat stress. Not all stress is
bad. Sometimes we need to feel stress to stay active and engaged or even escape from dangerous
situations.

In this activity, you will investigate how stress levels can be affected by diet and exercise. You will see the
relationship between stress and your body, including your cardiorespiratory system, muscular system, and
flexibility. You will also identify some alternative methods of coping with stress. Finally, you will study stress
in a more traditional sense as it relates to the field of biomechanics.

To get started, take this stress screener to see whether you are wound tight as a drum or are as cool as a
cucumber. The quiz is just for fun, so don’t take it too seriously. It’s not a clinical diagnosis. Remember that
you alone are in the best position to judge how you react to stressors in your life. The quiz might give your
insight into stressors that you haven’t thought about.

As you work your way through the tasks, consider using some of the online resources listed in Task 1 to
help you. Any textbook on the subject of health is also a useful reference.

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SCORING
Task 1: Minimizing Stress Through Exercise Task Points: 3

Research fight-or-flight response 1

Research how exercise reduces stress 1

Investigate how a stress ball works 1

Task 2: Minimizing Stress Through Diet Task Points: 3

Research caffeine’s effect on stress 1

Research the role of comfort food in stress 1

Explain a stress-reducing diet 1

Task 3: Minimizing Stress Through Other Means Task Points: 1

Discover other ways to regulate stress 1

Task 4: Stress and Biomechanics Task Points: 3

Pressure calculations (parts a, b, and c; ½ point each) 1.5

Area reduction calculations (parts d, e, and f; ½ point each) 1.5

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TASK 1: MINIMIZING STRESS THROUGH EXERCISE
According to the American Institute of Stress, it is estimated that 75 to 90 percent of visits made to primary
care doctors in the United States are related to a stress-related illness. You can prevent visits like these by
learning to manage and cope with stress. One way is to take good care of your body. In this task, you will
do some research about stress and exercise and answer some questions. Each answer should be two to
three paragraphs long, with about 50 to 100 words per paragraph.

Before you move on to the task, look at these resources:

● Teens Health
● US Department of Health and Human Services
● Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
● The American Institute of Stress
● National Institute of Mental Health
● American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
● Mental Health America

PART A
Describe what stress is and how it affects your body. Address physiological fight-or-flight responses and
how those responses relate to your cardiorespiratory and muscular systems.

Enter your answer to Part A here:

Stress is a common state of a mind where the person would be anxious of his future activities while a
thought constantly bothers him in his subconscious realm. This obstructs or hesitates the body in
completing daily tasks on the full scale of potential a person usually does. Along with that, we have a
natural built in fight-or-flight response. This response kicks in during the anxious, high-stress one second
moments where we choose to stand or free. This response makes our heart beat faster and makes us
very quick to move so our muscles stand on edge. This also tires them out easier.

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PART B
Explain the physiological process of how exercise can help you fight stress. Explain what endorphins are
and the role they play in this process. How can exercises that promote cardiorespiratory fitness and
endurance, muscular fitness and endurance, and flexibility help you fight stress?

Enter your answer to Part B here:

Physiological process of how exercise helps stress is that it helps in decreasing it. Your brain releases
dopamine which are endorphins which make you feel happy as well as serotonin.

PART C
What is a stress ball? How does it work? What are the benefits of using a stress ball? Try to link your ideas
to what you learned in the earlier sections of this task.

Enter your answer to Part C here:

During times of stress, you are often fidgety and do movements which are not necessarily needed such
as talking too much, looking around, or unnecessarily kicking random objects by your foot. THe stress
ball substitutes this by diverting your mind away from those involuntary actions and substituting it by
squeezing a squishy ball over and over again.

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TASK 2: MINIMIZING STRESS THROUGH DIET
You should now understand that moving your body, even slightly, can alleviate stress. But exercise is just
one component of stress relief. Another is diet. What you put into your body can have a significant impact
on how your body battles stress. In this task, you will study some high-risk foods and ingredients when it
comes to stress and you’ll learn what foods you can replace them with to lower your anxiety level. Each
answer in this section should be two to three paragraphs long, with about 50 to 100 words per paragraph.

PART A
Describe how caffeine can affect your stress level. How does it affect your cardiorespiratory system?
Include information about the hormone called adrenalin.

Enter your answer to Part A here:

Caffeine provides you with extra energy as it helps get your adrenaline up and helps you feel more awake
in the morning rather than being drowsy. For this reason, caffeine’s behavior within the body and how hot
it reacts with it can be associated with sugar as sugar gets you up and running as fast it hits but also
wears out very quickly. As we know, caffeine is the same. This makes you more tired during workouts that
involve running constantly or making you breathe harder. Your muscles begin to tire out faster as the
adrenaline wears off quickly and consistently.

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PART B
What is comfort food? How does comfort food affect your stress levels? What are some of the dangers of
comfort food as it pertains to your level of physical fitness? Describe how neurotransmitters, such as
serotonin, work in relation to stress and comfort food.

Enter your answer to Part B here:

Comfort food is mainly related to brain activity when eating a food. There is a specific food registered in
our brains to grant us happiness which helps our stress levels in decreasing as we are slowly put back in
our comfort zone during times of stress. Serotonin, a chemical in our mind, helps regulate pain ,
happiness, and other stress-countering chemicals which are released when eating comfort food hence
making us feel happier and less stressed.

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PART C
Describe a diet that can lower your stress level. What does the diet look like? What kinds of foods and
drinks are in the diet? What quantities of food are in the diet? Include your thoughts about how the stress
hormone cortisol or the feel-good neurotransmitter, serotonin, relate to diet that reduces stress.

Enter your answer to Part C here:

A diet that consists of naturally well-holding food nutrients which are healthy and can be substituted for
comfort food is the definition of a good, healthy diet. The quantities of the food should be rationed so one
does not indulge in too much of one category of food. A diet like described can help reduce stress
hormones such as cortisol and other hormones which promote and heighten stress.

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TASK 3: MINIMIZING STRESS THROUGH OTHER MEANS
By now, you should know that stress is something that can be controlled through diet and exercise. This
article describes other ways to keep stress under control. Which of the recommendations in this article do
you currently use to manage stress? If you don’t use any of the recommendations, what other techniques
work for you? If you don’t use any stress-reduction techniques, write about one or more of the
recommendations that you could foresee using in the future. Under what circumstances might you use the
techniques? Your response to these questions should be two to three paragraphs long, with about 50 to
100 words per paragraph.

Enter your answer to Task 3 here:

Personally not using any stress-reduction techniques, I do see one technique I could foresee myself
using in the near future: practicing something that makes me nervous. Stress usually occurs when a
person might be nervous or is not fully able to grasp a deep and intense situation. This is why practicing a
situation or being mentally accepting of future scenarios can help in tackling stress when it hits.

Practicing a situation that can come in times of stress can mean putting yourself through the situation by
playing it out by yourself. This can be such as talking to someone or practicing for a job interview by
preparing for the questions that are expected to come or be encountered. This technique can help me in
the future to prepare for bigger situations such as the SAT exam or job interviews.

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TASK 4: STRESS AND BIOMECHANICS
In the physical world, stress is pressure or tension that is placed on something. Biomechanical engineering
is a field that studies mechanical stress. In one branch of this field, engineers apply their understanding of
statics, dynamics, and fluid flow to solve difficult problems of the heart and blood vessels. Think of your
heart as a pump and your blood vessels as pipelines. The pump and pipelines need to be in good working
order so blood can carry nutrients and oxygen to cells of your body.

Imagine that you’re a biomechanical engineer. You want to determine how much pressure, or stress, a
certain membrane can withstand before bursting. The membrane could belong to a blood vessel or even
the human heart. The membrane acts like a balloon that’s being inflated: Just enough air will sufficiently
inflate the balloon. Too much air will cause the skin of the balloon to tear, popping the balloon. In this task,
you will assign some numbers to this situation to further your understanding of mechanical stress.

PART A
One kind of stress is called pressure. Pressure is calculated as force divided by area. Force is a push or a
pull. It is measured in units such as pounds or newtons. Area is measured in units such as square inches or
square meters. The equation for calculating pressure is P = F/A, where P is pressure, F is force, and A is
area.

Use the equation to calculate the average pressure on the membrane below. Express your answer in units
of pounds per square inch (psi).

Enter your answer to Part A here:

P = 2.5 pounds per square inch

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PART B
Here’s another kind of pressure problem. A force of 22 pounds presses on a membrane. The average
pressure on the membrane is 2.75 pounds per square inch (psi). What is the area of the membrane in
square inches? The equation for calculating pressure is P = F/A where P is pressure, F is force, and A is
area.

Enter your answer to Part B here:

The area is 0.125 square inches

PART C
Imagine that the membranes in parts A and B make up the wall of the human heart or the wall of a blood
vessel. Based on what you know about mechanical stress, what do you think high blood pressure over
extended periods of time can do to such walls?

Enter your answer to Part C here:

High blood pressure may put too much pressure on the heart and the wall of a blood vessel leading to
damage or not working properly. It can also lead to irregularities which eventually lead to mishaps in
cardiac beating patterns as well as damaged blood vessels.

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PART D
Some forms of cardiovascular disease involve the buildup of plaque on the inside walls of blood vessels.
The buildup can put added stress on the heart and vessels, reducing or preventing blood flow to vital
organs of the body.

Imagine that the diagram is a circular cross section of a blood vessel. What is the area of the inside of the
blood vessel (i.e., the yellow part) in square units? Round your answer to the nearest tenth. The equation
for the area of a circle is A = πr2, where A is area, π ≈ 3.14, and r is the radius. Recall that the radius is half
of the diameter.

Enter your answer to Part D here:

Whole blood vessel: 38.5

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PART E
Imagine that plaque uniformly coats the walls of the blood vessel in the diagram. Based on the diagram,
what is the reduced area inside the blood vessel? Round your answer to the nearest tenth. The equation
for the area of a circle is A = πr2, where A is area, π ≈ 3.14, and r is the radius. Recall that the radius is half
of the diameter.

Enter your answer to Part D here:

Reduced Area: 12.56

PART F
What fraction of the original area is the area of the reduced blood vessel? How might a calculation like this
help a biomechanical engineer working in the field? Include your understanding of the cardiovascular
system in your answer.

Enter your answer to Part D here:

The reduced area is about 3/10 of the original blood vessel. A calculation like this may help a
biomechanical engineer in understanding what can be used to fill these gaps and he can also better and
further understand the blood flow which happens. I understand that these blood vessels are a vital part of
the cardiovascular system as blood vessels provide energy as well as oxygen throughout the body.

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