The Easy Walking Technique That Reduces Stress (M)
This type of walking reduces stress and anxiety.
Category: Stress
6 Warning Signs You Are One Step Away From A Burnout Breakdown (M)
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The Attitude To Stress That Could Be Killing Your Mind And Body (M)
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How To Redefine Stress For A Winning Mindset (M)
The technique that turns stress into a stepping stone to success.
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The Ironic Reason Downtime Does Not Re-Energise You (M)
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The Best Way To Support People Who Are Stressed
Attempts to support others that are phrased in the wrong way can increase stress rather than decrease it.
Attempts to support others that are phrased in the wrong way can increase stress rather than decrease it.
Validating other people’s feelings is the best way to provide support when they are stressed, research finds.
For example, saying “I can understand why you are upset,” is a helpful response.
Implicit in this message is agreement with — and acceptance of — the person’s feelings.
Other examples of supportive messages that are effective include:
- “I’m sorry you are going through this. I’m worried about you and how you must be feeling right now.”
- “It’s understandable that you are stressed out since it’s something you really care about”
In contrast, saying “Just don’t think about it,” is not a helpful response because it denies the person’s feelings.
Saying this tends to minimise the other person’s emotions and can be experienced as critical.
Attempts to support others that are phrased in the wrong way can increase stress rather than decrease it, psychologists have found.
Ms Xi Tian, the study’s first author, explains:
“One recommendation is for people to avoid using language that conveys control or uses arguments without sound justification.
For example, instead of telling a distressed person how to feel, like ‘don’t take it so hard’ or ‘don’t think about it,’ you could encourage them to talk about their thoughts or feelings so that person can come to their own conclusions about how to change their feelings or behaviors.”
For the study, 478 married adults who had recently had an argument were recruited.
They then looked at a series of six potentially supportive messages and imagined how they would react to them.
The messages varied in how ‘person-centred’ they were.
In other words, some messages supported and validated their feelings, others did not.
For example, this is a message that does not validate a person’s feelings:
- “Nobody is worth getting so worked up about. Stop being so depressed.”
The results clearly showed that messages like this failed to improve marital distress.
Ms Tian expanded:
“In fact, those messages were perceived as dominating and lacking argument strength.
Those messages induced more resistance to social support, such that the participants reported feeling angry after receiving the message.
They also reported actually criticizing the message while reading it.”
In comparison, messages that centred on the person did make people feel better.
Professor Denise Solomon, study co-author, said:
“Another recommendation that can be taken from this research is that people may want to use moderately to highly person-centered messages when helping others cope with everyday stressors.”
The study was published in the Journal of Communication (Tian et al., 2020).
This Is The Most Stressful Personality Trait
The personality trait strongly linked to stress and 11 ways to reduce the toxic emotion.
The personality trait strongly linked to stress and 11 ways to reduce the toxic emotion.
People who are higher in the personality trait of neuroticism are more susceptible to stress, a large review of the research finds.
Neuroticism is one of the five major aspects of personality — it runs on a continuum from very stable to very neurotic, with most people in the middle of the range.
People higher in neuroticism are at greater risk of depression as they have a stronger response to frustration, threat and loss.
The other four aspects of personality were all negatively related to stress.
In other words, people who are more agreeable, conscientious, extraverted and open to experience are less likely to have a ‘stressful personality’.
Dr Bo Zhang, the study’s first author, said:
“Stress is a significant mental and physical health issue that affects many people and many important domains of life, and some individuals are more likely to experience or perceive stress disproportionately or more intensely than others, which can then play a role in mental and physical health problems such as anxiety or depression.
We found that individuals high in neuroticism demonstrated a relationship with both stressor exposure and perceived stress that was stronger than the other four personality traits.”
The conclusions come from a review of around 300 separate studies on the link between stress and personality.
Neuroticism was the personality trait most strongly linked to stress, explained Dr Zhang:
“The other main personality factors have a link to stress, but it’s not as pronounced as in someone who’s neurotic.
With agreeableness and conscientiousness, for example, it is possible that agreeable people are less likely to encounter stressful situations such as interpersonal conflict because of the tendency to be caring, understanding and forgiving.
Similarly, conscientious people are less likely to experience stress because their good self-regulation abilities can protect them from the encounters of stressful experiences, as well as the negative psychological impacts of stressors.”
Neurotics, though, are more likely to find themselves in stressful situations, said Dr Zhang:
“Neuroticism and stress share common components, so individuals high in neuroticism are likely to play an instrumental role in generating stressors and reacting to a wide variety of events in negative ways, leading to an increased likelihood or chronicity of negative experiences.”
11 ways to reduce stress
Scientifically supported ways of reducing stress include:
- eating a diet higher in fruits and vegetables,
- seeking out ‘flow states’, as they help reduce the effects of stress,
- strolling in nature, which reduces activity in the amygdala, also try adding a little mindfulness to the walk,
- thinking about your romantic partner,
- hug someone,
- sing,
- try mindfulness with hypnosis,
- petting a cat or dog,
- give yourself a foot massage,
- look at trees,
- and listen to birdsong,
The study was published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review (Luo et al., 2022).
The 2 Worst Ways To Deal With Stress (M)
Deal with stress ahead of time but avoid two techniques that will put you in a worse mood.
