Stress

Thanksgiving works: Gratitude journaling seen to lower stress and negative cognitive processes

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Dur­ing the ear­ly days of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, many peo­ple suf­fered extreme stress. Peo­ple couldn’t work and faced finan­cial anx­i­ety, they felt lone­ly and iso­lat­ed, they wor­ried about catch­ing a dead­ly dis­ease or giv­ing it to some­one they loved, and their men­tal health suffered.

For researcher Erin Fekete, of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Indi­anapo­lis, the unfold­ing pan­dem­ic was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to answer a long­stand­ing ques­tion about the best way to cope in moments of suf­fer­ing. Do we get more relief by reflect­ing on our thoughts and feel­ings about what we’re going through, or from turn­ing our minds to the pos­i­tive things in our lives? [Read more…] about Thanks­giv­ing works: Grat­i­tude jour­nal­ing seen to low­er stress and neg­a­tive cog­ni­tive processes

Study: Practicing gratitude helps lower physiological stress levels of the “expresser” AND the “receiver”

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Express­ing grat­i­tude nur­tures our rela­tion­ships, help­ing us to feel clos­er to our friends and roman­tic part­ners. Some research sug­gests that grate­ful peo­ple seem to cope bet­ter with stress and enjoy supe­ri­or phys­i­cal health, per­haps because of those stronger social relationships.

What about expe­ri­enc­ing grat­i­tude with peo­ple we don’t know so well—like those we work with? Could show­ing appre­ci­a­tion towards them affect our stress lev­els on the job? [Read more…] about Study: Prac­tic­ing grat­i­tude helps low­er phys­i­o­log­i­cal stress lev­els of the “express­er” AND the “receiv­er”

How ’sleeping on it’ can help the prefrontal cortex regulate emotional responses, making us feel better in the morning

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Instead of lying awake wor­ry­ing, we’re often told to “sleep on it” when mak­ing deci­sions both big and small. And there’s actu­al­ly a sci­en­tif­ic basis for this advice. Sleep can influ­ence our response to emo­tion­al sit­u­a­tions, and helps us to man­age our men­tal health.

To under­stand why sleep and emo­tions are so con­nect­ed, it’s impor­tant to first under­stand what hap­pens in the brain when we encounter some­thing emo­tive. [Read more…] about How ’sleep­ing on it’ can help the pre­frontal cor­tex reg­u­late emo­tion­al respons­es, mak­ing us feel bet­ter in the morning

On uncertainty, stress, emotion regulation, and carpe diem

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Ros­ale­da at Par­que del Oeste in Madrid, Spain

Ever since it began, the pan­dem­ic has been a crash course in uncer­tain­ty. Safe behav­iors, school open­ings, vac­ci­na­tion time­lines, the job mar­ket, new variants—these have all seemed to change on a week­ly basis, threat­en­ing our sense of secu­ri­ty and stability.

Uncer­tain­ty is stress­ful and per­haps even harm­ful to our health, research sug­gests, and it can dri­ve us to cling to our social groups to the exclu­sion of oth­ers. But a new study has uncov­ered a sur­pris­ing upside to feel­ing uncer­tain: It might dri­ve us to appre­ci­ate the lit­tle things in life.

In one exper­i­ment, researchers sta­tioned on a side­walk hand­ed out fly­ers that said one of two things: “Life is unpre­dictable: Stop and smell the ros­es” or “Life is con­stant: Stop and smell the ros­es.” A short dis­tance away was a table with a dozen red ros­es on it and a sign match­ing the fly­er they’d just received. [Read more…] about On uncer­tain­ty, stress, emo­tion reg­u­la­tion, and carpe diem

To lower stress levels (ours and others’), practice cognitive reframing instead of venting

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We all get upset from time to time—some of us more than oth­ers. Whether we’re sad about the loss of a loved one, angry at friends or fam­i­ly, or fear­ful about the state of the world, it often feels good to let it all out. [Read more…] about To low­er stress lev­els (ours and oth­ers’), prac­tice cog­ni­tive refram­ing instead of venting

The neuroscience behind why our brains will need time to adjust to ‘un-social distancing’

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With COVID-19 vac­cines work­ing and restric­tions lift­ing across the coun­try, it’s final­ly time for those now vac­ci­nat­ed who’ve been hun­kered down at home to ditch the sweat­pants and reemerge from their Net­flix caves. But your brain may not be so eager to dive back into your for­mer social life. [Read more…] about The neu­ro­science behind why our brains will need time to adjust to ‘un-social distancing’