Stress seems to be the state that many of us occupy these days. Stress can take your prefrontal cortex offline essentially cutting off access to thoughtful behaviour. It strengthens the amygdala so behaviour becomes reflexive, leading to knee jerk reactions. That’s how we get road rage and angry outbursts. Chronic stress also has negative health consequences, contributing to high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. But, there are ways that you can reduce the negative effects of stress.
Key Takeaway
The negative health and psychological consequences of stress are not inevitable. Simply changing our perception of stress as “being bad” to “being helpful” can improve our psychological wellbeing and lower our mortality risk by 43%. And after experiencing a stressful life event, helping others can lower our mortality risk by 30%.
"Stress is good"
Simply changing your view that “stress is bad” to “stress is good” can prolong your life. Using data from a 1998 survey of 30,000 people conducted by the US National Center for Health Statistics, Keller and colleagues found that reporting a lot of stress and perceiving that stress affects health a lot increased the risk of death by 43%! But those who had a lot of stress but believed that stress didn’t affect their health were no more likely to die than those who had a minimal amount of stress! ’Just believing' that stress is bad would rank as the 15th highest cause of death, ahead of HIV, skin cancer or homicide.
Just by changing your view that 'stress is bad' to 'stress is good' you could prolong your life!
"Stress is helpful"
How we view stress can protect our health. In a study from Harvard University, participants were asked to give a speech in front of 2 evaluators and then count backwards in steps of 7 from 996. These tasks were designed to be really stressful! Some participants were shown how to reappraise their increased arousal to stressful situations as our body's way of helping us successfully address stressors and aid our performance in stressful situations.
The researchers then measured the constriction of the participants’ blood vessels - a physiological measure of stress. Compared to those who were told to ignore their nervousness, the reappraisal group had significantly less blood vessel constriction. In fact, their blood vessels appeared similar to what is seen when people feel joy or courage!
Simply changing your view that “stress to negative” to “stress is helpful” can protect us from the negative health and psychological consequences of stress!
"Help others"
Helping others can prolong your life. In a study by Poulin and colleagues, the researchers asked 846 older adults if they had experienced any of the following events in the past 12 months: serious non–life-threatening illness, burglary, job loss, financial difficulties, or death of a family member. And the number of these events (potentially ranging from 0 to 5) was used as an index of recent stressful events.
Helping behavior directed toward friends, neighbours, or relatives who did not live with them was also measured at the start of the study. The researchers then monitored the participants’ mortality for 5 years.
When looking at their survival rates, the researchers found that helping behaviour increased the odds of 5 year survival for those with high stress and it approached the odds of survival of those with low stress. Among individuals who did not help others, exposure to a stressful life event was associated with 30% increased mortality risk.
And after experiencing a stressful life event, helping others can lower our mortality risk by 30%.
There you have it: three ways that you can mitigate the negative effects of stress: change your view about stress to "stress is good" and "stress is helpful;" and help others.
Dear Irena,
Thank you for sharing this research result. Showing a simple way to reduce the negative impact of pressure. You still create a nice platform for people to share their knowing to go further in same topic which benefit me a lot.
I’m glad that my work is valuable to you. Thank you for your kind comment, Breeze.
yes! as a Meta-Coach I realize that we are meaning makers…and the meanings we make of any event determine how we respond to it, think about it, focus on it and behave in the face of it…and I coach to those meanings…the meanings we make, determine the quality of our life…thanks for your articles!
Sterling
Absolutely!
Hello again Irena,
I found another study that I think you and your readers will find quite informative:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2670798
I look forward to seeing you at the presentation about which I wrote to you in an email I sent you today.
Thanks again for the link, Andrea.
Thank you, Irene, for suggesting several strategies for dealing with stress.
I invite you to copy and paste in your browser the following web link to read research studies on Transcendental Meditation, which has been shown to be one of the most effective ways for dealing with the negative impact of stress:
https://www.tm.org/popups-responsive/research.html
The site discusses research that was published in the following two journals: Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 16(3):415-24, 1992
American Journal of Hypertension 21 (3): 310-6, 2008.
As a practioner since 1971 and certified TM Teacher since 1973, as well as a ICF Certified Coach, I can attest to the results in my own life and to the way it assists me in being an even more effective Coach!
Thank you for sharing the links, Andrea. Of course, changing one’s beliefs is not the only way to protect against the negative health effects of stress. There are many studies showing the benefits of meditation, and other interventions such as heart rate variability, nature, and yoga, to name a few.
Hi Irena,
Do you know of the research done by Montreal University on stress and mental health issues at work called “L’étude SALVEO” ?
They have studied the level of cortisol in people according to the type or level of health involvment of different companies. It is in French:
http://events.snwebcastcenter.com/manulife/GBRS/Prod/Media/PDFs/SL/gf13611.pdf
http://asstsas.qc.ca/sites/default/files/publications/documents/OP/2017/op401014d_sant%C3%A9psy.pdf
Thank you Marie Louise for these links 🙂
Very true…a new perception always helps to see things with a new point if view.
Exactly Michelle.
If I am getting it correctly : It is good and helpful to have some stress in our life and even if we are very busy we should help others!
Yes, some stress is good. Stress is what gets us out of bed in the morning and excited about our work. While it’s true that helping others can buffer the negative effects of stress when we have been faced with a significant stressor, this doesn’t mean we should run ourselves ragged helping others. That would only create more stress. I know, Maryse, that you work long hours and I also know that you’re very excited by your work. So you frame your stress in a positive way. And I’m sure that, by helping business people look their best, you are helping others more than you think 🙂
I love this take on the subject, Irena. Well written! If only people would see how easy it is to simply swap your mental chatter for something more productive and helpful.
This is so true, Rochelle. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes not that easy to change our mental chatter.