You Can Reduce COVID Risk By Avoiding This Emotion (M)
Coping activities that increase the sense of control, coherence and connectedness are key to dealing with COVID stress.
Category: Stress
Avoid These Emotions For A Stronger Immune System
It is the reaction to stress that is important, rather than the stress itself.
It is the reaction to stress that is important, rather than the stress itself.
Negative emotions like sadness and anger are linked to higher levels of inflammation in the body, which can compromise the immune system.
Higher inflammation is part of the body’s response to things like infections and wounds.
Chronic inflammation can lead to health problems like cancer, heart disease and obesity.
However, a previous study shows that people who remain calm or cheerful in the face of irritations have a lower risk of inflammation.
In other words, it is the reaction to stress that is important, rather than the stress itself.
Typical everyday stressors include things like arguments with family, friends or co-workers, ongoing worries about money and childcare concerns.
Being able to remain positive in the face of these types of stressors is vital.
Women are particularly vulnerable to increased inflammation if they do not deal with the build-up of stress, the same previous study found.
Long-term stress has also been found to damage the brain’s short-term memory system.
Again, it is inflammation that causes short-term memory problems.
Once the inflammatory immune response to stress resolves, the problems disappear.
Emotions can be changed
The latest study included 220 people whose feelings were tracked over a two-week period.
The results showed that the more their negative moods accumulated, the higher their levels of inflammation.
Positive mood was linked to lower levels of inflammation — but only in men.
Emotions can be changed, Dr Jennifer Graham-Engeland, the study’s first author, underlined:
“Because affect is modifiable, we are excited about these findings and hope that they will spur additional research to understand the connection between affect and inflammation, which in turn may promote novel psychosocial interventions that promote health broadly and help break a cycle that can lead to chronic inflammation, disability, and disease.”
The study was published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity (Graham-Engeland et al., 2018).
How To Deal With COVID-19 Stress
The ability to adapt to the new circumstances is the key.
The ability to adapt to the new circumstances is the key.
Staying in touch with your emotions is a good way to deal with COVID-19 stress, research reveals.
It is natural to experience emotions like sadness, fear, loneliness and anxiety during the pandemic.
However, people who are psychologically flexible tend to do better.
Flexibility means acknowledging emotions, accepting them and taking whatever action is possible.
Continuing to do whatever is important to you — even if it is in modified form — is key to reducing stress.
For example, people in the study who called a family member or friend to talk it through experienced less stress than those who bottled it up and said nothing.
Dr Emily Kroska, the study’s first author, said:
“The goal is to try and help people become more resilient by remaining in touch with their emotions and finding creative ways to maintain or build upon relationships with people or activities that are important to them.
People who do that will generally not be as distressed, or anxious, as those who don’t.”
The study included 485 people in the US who described the difficulties they had faced due to the pandemic.
Dr Kroska said:
“Basically, we wanted to learn about the full sort of adversities that people encountered due to COVID-19.
We found everyone encountered some degree of adversity, which is quite sad but expected.”
People reported physical sensations like sweating and fear as well as problems making the rent, getting their groceries and living apart from loved ones.
The study revealed that people experienced less stress if they displayed psychological flexibility.
This is the ability to be open and aware of one’s emotions and how they are affecting one’s actions.
Dr Kroska said:
“If you are creative with trying to talk with your family remotely instead of in person, but you’re resentful about it the whole time and think it sucks, that’s going to cause more distress.
But if you’re willing to say, ‘OK, this isn’t what we were exactly hoping for, but we’re going to make the best of it,’ that’s the values and the openness piece.
It’s the combination that’s required.”
Being able to adapt to the new circumstances is the key, said Dr Kroska:
“People don’t want to be distressed, but they’re going to be during this pandemic.
Being flexible and continuing to do what is important to you even during these difficult times is important and is associated with less distress.
I think people are desperate for anything that will help them feel less stressed out.”
The study was published in the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science (Kroska et al., 2020).
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