Stress is a certainty. Your stress response, however, is much more variable and malleable. While challenging situations occur, your response to stress doesn't have to be negative.
In life, expecting no setbacks guarantees disappointment. The key lies in effectively managing our responses to these challenges and equipping ourselves with a robust set of tools to combat them. As humans, we inevitably face daily hassles, major life events, and more. While adversity is unavoidable, enduring suffering is not our only option.
What is Psychological Stress?
Psychological stress is a state of mental or emotional strain caused by challenging circumstances. It encompasses the emotional and physiological reactions that occur when an individual confronts situations that exceed their coping abilities. It occurs when perceived demands surpass one's perceived or actual ability to cope.

Psychological stress manifests as mental or emotional strain resulting from challenging circumstances. It involves both emotional and physiological reactions triggered when individuals face situations beyond their coping capabilities. This state activates the body, increasing arousal and mobilizing energy through physiological changes such as heightened heart rate. It enhances focus and allocates resources to prepare for a potential fight-or-flight responses.
The fight-or-flight response is a rapid physiological reaction triggered by sympathetic nervous system activation. It increases blood flow to muscles, heart rate, and blood pressure, dilates pupils, and enhances airway function while inhibiting digestive and urinary activities. Stress hormones like epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol are released, mobilizing energy and suppressing non-essential functions for immediate survival. While beneficial in the short term, chronic activation of these systems due to prolonged stress can lead to physiological and psychological exhaustion, impacting overall health.
The "rest and digest" response involves parasympathetic nervous system activation. During this phase, digestion is enhanced, facilitating nutrient absorption and supporting growth and repair processes within the body. Additionally, activities associated with the "fight-flight" response, such as heart rate, are decreased, promoting a state of relaxation and recuperation.
Positive Psychology offers significant insights into how we make appraisals—evaluating situations for their potential impact, significance, and threat. It examines the nature of these appraisals, how they influence our response to stressors, and our ability to recover from them. Primary appraisal assesses the meaning of the situation. Secondary appraisal is our assessment of the resources we have that are available for coping. Positive psychology can make a difference on stress if we do have the resources to cope.
According to the stress buffering hypothesis, the undoing hypothesis suggests a mechanism through which positive emotions can mitigate stress. It proposes that positive emotions have an "undoing effect," accelerating recovery from stress. For instance, in a study where participants watched a sad film, researchers observed whether participants spontaneously smiled. Those who smiled during the film returned to their normal cardiovascular state more rapidly compared to those who did not smile, providing support for the undoing hypothesis (Fredrickson & Levinson, 1998)⁷.
Recovery strategies are likely familiar to you when feeling overwhelmed by stress. If you find yourself in such a situation, it's important to calm down and consider what actions you can take.
One effective approach is meditation, such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. This practice involves focusing on the present moment, being non-judgmental, letting go of negative thoughts, concentrating on your breathing, and accepting whatever is happening.
Other effective strategies include engaging in breathing exercises, finding distractions, releasing pent-up energy through physical activity like exercise, ensuring sufficient rest to restore your energy levels, and consciously focusing on the positive aspects of your situation—perhaps even something as simple as a smile.
In a study by Dr. Kraft and Pressman (2012)⁸, researchers examined the impact of covertly manipulating positive facial expressions on cardiovascular and emotional responses to stress. They found that participants who smiled, regardless of awareness, exhibited lower heart rates during stress recovery compared to those with neutral expressions, indicating both physiological and psychological benefits from maintaining positive facial expressions during stress.
The Broaden-and-Build theory suggests that positive emotions, like gratitude, expand the range of thoughts, actions, and attention. This process, as proposed by Fredrickson and Branigan (2005)⁹ and Le Nguyen and Fredrickson (2017)¹⁰, contributes to the accumulation of long-term resources across physical, psychological, social, and intellectual domains, potentially aiding individuals during times of stress.
Positive emotions can play a crucial role in managing stress. In primary appraisals, we may either disregard stressors as irrelevant, reinterpret threats as opportunities or challenges that can be overcome, or reassess the severity of negative situations. In secondary appraisals, we adjust our perceptions of coping abilities and strategies to reduce stress more effectively and promote quicker recovery. For instance, seeking support from friends to discuss stressors rather than turning to substance abuse, or utilizing knowledge to actively solve problems rather than avoiding them due to uncertainty.
Positive emotions are also important in the coping process. The revised stress and coping model includes positive emotions in the stress process and highlights how positive emotions help restore physiological and psychosocial coping resources. You can take a look at the model by Dr. Susan Folkman in a paper titled Positive psychological states and coping with severe stress¹¹.
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Our ability to leverage our mindset is profound: by reinterpreting stressors, we can change how our bodies respond (stress re-appraisal). For example, viewing stress as not inherently harmful can alter its physiological effects. Kelly McGonigal explores this concept in her TED talk How to make stress your friend¹², emphasizing how our attitude towards stress can redefine its impact.
Alia Crum's¹³ research further underscores this idea, demonstrating that our beliefs about stress significantly influence its effects on us. Embracing stress as potentially enhancing rather than purely negative can lead to distinct physiological and psychological outcomes.
Dr. Alia Crum explains the power of mindsets in this video uploaded by the World Economic Forum titled The science of how mindset transforms the human experience¹⁴.
10 Healthy Coping Strategies
- Positive reappraisal/benefit finding
- Problem-solving
- Acceptance
- Humor/laughter
- Practicing Gratitude
- Meditation & mindfulness
- Self-compassion
- Seeking social support
- Exercising
- Engaging in a fun hobby
Research has identified several coping strategies empirically linked to resilience. One effective approach is positive reappraisal or benefit finding, where individuals seek out the positive aspects or silver linings in negative events. It's important to remember that this list isn't comprehensive, as different strategies work better for different people. Factors such as cultural background, specific circumstances, socioeconomic status, and individual personality traits can all influence how effective these coping strategies are in promoting resilience.
Definition: Appraisals
evaluating situations for their potential impact, significance, and threat
Attribution
¹Bonanno, G. A. (2004). Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience: Have We Underestimated the Human Capacity to Thrive After Extremely Aversive Events? The American Psychologist, 59(1), 20–28. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.20
²Guthrie Yarwood, M. (2022). Undoing Effect of Positive Emotions. In Psychology of human emotion: An open access textbook. Pressbooks.
³Cohen, Sheldon & Pressman, Sarah. (2004). The Stress-Buffering Hypothesis. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264860666_The_Stress-Buffering_Hypothesis#fullTextFileContent
⁴Mindfulness meditation: A research-proven way to reduce stress. (2019, October 30). https://www.apa.org. https://www.apa.org/topics/mindfulness/meditation
⁵Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218–226. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.56.3.218
⁶NourFoundation. (2013, Feb 20). Can Mindfulness Increase Our Resilience to Stress? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALjF1yb-VLw&t=229s&ab_channel=NourFoundation
⁷L. Fredrickson, B., & Levenson, R. W. (1998). Positive Emotions Speed Recovery from the Cardiovascular Sequelae of Negative Emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 12(2), 191–220. https://doi.org/10.1080/026999398379718
⁸Kraft, T. L., & Pressman, S. D. (2012). Grin and Bear It: The Influence of Manipulated Facial Expression on the Stress Response. Psychological Science, 23(11), 1372-1378. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612445312
⁹Fredrickson, B. L., & Branigan, C. (2005). Positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought‐action repertoires. Cognition and Emotion, 19(3), 313–332. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930441000238
¹⁰Le Nguyen, K. D. L., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2017). Positive Emotions and Well-Being. In D.S. Dunn (Ed.), Positive Psychology: Established and Emerging Issues (pp. 29–45). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315106304
¹¹Folkman, S. (1997). Positive psychological states and coping with severe stress. Social science & medicine, 45(8), 1207-1221. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-9536(97)00040-3.
¹²McGonigal, K. (2013). Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend [Video]. TED Talks. https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend
¹³Mind and Body Lab. (2022). Stanford University, Department of Psychology (Alia Crum). https://mbl.stanford.edu/
¹⁴World Economic Forum. (2018, Feb 21). The science of how mindset transforms the human experience. [Video]. https://youtu.be/vTDYtwqKBI8?si=hhLM0dXMrrYvvneP