It may seem like ancient history, but we lived in stressful times even before a viral pandemic swept across the planet. According to the vintage for the vintage 2019 “Stress in America“Survey supervised by American Psychological Association, some of the biggest stressors in the country at the time included rising health care costs, mass shootings, discrimination, climate change, immigration and the upcoming presidential election. On the personal front, about 60 percent of all adults reported feeling stressed about work and even more about money. Suffice it to say, 2020 has not improved the matter.
According to a new report in Washington PostStress affects many of us so deeply and deeply that we cannot simply focus and complete the basic functions of our jobs and lives. “I have people coming to me for the first time and thinking they may have ADHD,” explained Roseann Capanna-Hodge, Ed.D., LPC, a Connecticut-based clinical psychologist. “United stressors have really taken a toll on a nation that was already at a record high level of stress.”
If you experience acute stress or any of the side effects associated with stress – such as, according to the Mayo Clinic, includes headaches, restlessness, angry outbursts, social withdrawal, muscle tension, sadness and depression, poor sleep and lack of motivation or focus – you may be interested in the results of a new study published in the journal Feeling, which offers at least one practical mental tactic that you can try at home (or elsewhere, for that matter) that can help you better navigate your emotions. (More on that below.)
According to the study’s authors, from the Department of Psychology and the University Hospital of Psychiatry at the University of Zurich, people react to stress differently, and everything boils to a large extent to varying degrees of resilience.
“While a large portion of the population proves to be resilient in times of stress and potentially traumatic events, others are less robust and develop stress-related illnesses,” they write. “Events that some perceive as draining seem to be a source of motivation and creativity for others.”
In other words, researchers say that those who cross through stressful situations better are endowed with more “self-efficacy” – or the belief that “we have the ability to influence things to at least a small degree.”
“Self-effective people have stronger problem-solving ability and higher endurance,” they explain. “They also show changes in brain activation in regions linked to emotional regulation.”
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Everything raises the question: Are there things that the rest of us can do to inject a little more self-efficacy when we feel stressed and as if life is too difficult to handle? The answer is yes, and it is simply done: You should take time to breathe and then remember a very specific moment in your life when you felt “especially self-effective.” Examples are times when you may have had a successful conversation, passed a really hard test or exam or the time you nailed the presentation. “In many cases,” the authors state, “it was already enough to do this exercise once to achieve a positive effect.”
What is important is that you choose a moment where you showed all the properties of the effect –you worked well and handled your influence. You rose to the occasion – and succeeded. “Our study shows that recalling self-effective autobiographical events can be used as a tool both in everyday life and in clinical settings to increase personal resilience,” the authors conclude.
What is interesting is that thinking about a moment of self-efficacy was much more useful for study participants in reducing stress and forgetting traumatic experiences than just imagining a positive event, such as a beautiful day or being with people you love. “People who actively recalled their own self-effective behavior found it easier to re-evaluate a negative situation and see it in a different light,” the authors state. “They perceived the negative experience as less disturbing than the subjects who were instructed to reflect on a positive memory that was not linked to self-efficacy.”
After all, in times of stress, it’s important to remind yourself that “you can get through this” – whatever it may be. And for more reasons, you should get your stress under control, make sure you are aware of what stress each day does to your body.
