10.1: Stress and Positive Psychology
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- Understand the role of positive psychology in stress management, including its emphasis on resilience, positive emotions, and social support as buffers against stress.
- Describe the principles and applications of mindfulness-based interventions, such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), in preventing and managing stress, including its mechanisms and effectiveness based on current research.
Read the article Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience: Have We Underestimated the Human (2004)¹ by George Bonnano which explores the concept of resilience.
We will be going over concepts discussed in earlier chapters, so read this brief article on the Undoing Effect of Positive Emotions² by Penn State University.
Afterwards, review the positive effects of social support on stress in The Stress-Buffering Hypothesis (2004)³, a paper written by Dr. Sarah Pressman and Dr. Sheldon Cohen.
Read this brief article Mindfulness meditation: A research-proven way to reduce stress (2019)⁴ to learn what mindfulness is and why it is beneficial for stress and well-being.
Also, read The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions⁵ by Dr. Barbara Fredrickson.
Watch Dr. Richard Davidson discuss Mindfulness and its potential to enhance resilience to stress in this video uploaded by NourFoundation on YouTube called Can Mindfulness Increase Our Resilience to Stress⁶.
- What are the definitions of resilience and recovery?
- What is the evidence that resilience is a common experience?
- What are some characteristics tied to greater resilience to stress?
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.
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.
Challenge vs. Threat Appraisals
The Biopsychosocial Model of Threat explains how various physiological signals impact health and performance, influenced by our interpretation of stressors. When perceiving a situation as a threat—for example, feeling overwhelmed due to inadequate preparation—the typical response might involve giving up or avoiding the challenge. This perception triggers the release of cortisol, a stress hormone. Conversely, interpreting a situation as a challenge—anticipating the opportunity to demonstrate knowledge or skill—typically leads to proactive responses such as preparation and approaching the problem directly. For instance, viewing a challenge as an opportunity to learn something new, show knowledge gained through hard work, and demonstrate competence versus viewing it pessimistically as inevitable failure with no potential for improvement.
What Does it Mean to be Resilient?
Resilience refers to our ability to adapt effectively to difficult situations. It's often described as the capacity to "bounce back" from challenges and adversity. This trait is fundamental, essential for navigating life's stressful events and circumstances successfully. It helps individuals cope and thrive in the face of various trials they encounter.
In the short term, effective stress responses involve becoming less reactive to stress, recovering quickly from stressful situations, not perceiving certain events as stressful initially, and avoiding long-term mental or physical harm caused by stress. Viewing stress as a challenge rather than a threat is also crucial for maintaining a healthy stress response over time.
Coping
Utilizing effective coping skills can significantly enhance resilience by aiming to mitigate the harmful psychological and physiological impacts of stress. Coping strategies encompass a wide array of cognitive and behavioral methods that individuals employ to manage stressful situations. It's important to recognize that there are both healthy and unhealthy ways of coping with stress. Negative examples include behaviors such as insufficient or excessive sleep, alcohol and drug use, excessive social media consumption (doomscrolling), avoidance, and unhealthy eating habits.
Think about the last time that you faced a major stressor? One that really did make you feel overwhelmed, aroused, and/or it took a while to get over.
- Please list the coping strategies you used. Describe how each strategy affected your emotions and outcomes.
- Some examples of coping: active coping, planning, positive reframing, acceptance, humor, religion, using emotional support, using instrumental support, self-distraction, denial, venting, substance use, behavioral disengagement, and self-blame.
- Think of a time when you were resilient to stress. Maybe you didn’t have a strong reaction to the stressor, you were able to believe you could conquer it, or you were just able to handle it it really well and get over it quickly.
- What types of coping strategies did you use this time? How did it feel? What happened?
- Based on what you just learned, what strategies will you use next time you face a major stressor?
- What new strategies could you try (e.g., things you learned from this textbook) that would help you become more resilient to stress?
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.
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