The value of social contacts

Humans have a powerful instinct to socialize and to establish contact with other humans. It is in the DNA! A positive connection also creates a molecular change in our brains that helps to reduce stress and provide a comfortable feeling of being in good company. This need and benefit to connect has always been assumed, but is now getting scientific proof that it actually improves the psychology and biology of each person involved.

Of course, we all have our negative connections with co-workers, family, and friends. One day we are in love or have a great relationship, and the next day we are suing for divorce, quitting the job, or become estranged from family or friends. It's just the human condition and it has not changed since day one, or will it. But we all have felt the negative feelings of discomfort with an awkward situation with others and how great you feel when you are in love or have a closeness with family, friends and co-workers. All these feelings are produced by thoughts and they all alter our chemical composition in our brains.

There are more and more people becoming estranged and separated from friends and family as the single population has grown larger than the married segment, and the baby boomers age older and their spouses die or divorce. They all still need connections.

One of the great ways to connect, whether to stay connected or reconnect, is to send greeting cards. They are available for every conceivable event or occasion or you can invent your own. People appreciate a card since it shows that the other person cares enough to send you one and gives you a great vehicle to respond. E-greeting cards are benefiting from this trend and provide and easy and inexpensive way to connect.

Why not reconnect with someone you have not heard from in a long time or heal a wounded relationship with a greeting card. You will feel better, they will feel better, and you will help to reduce your stress. A real win-win situation!

Come see us at www.stress-less.com to learn how to reduce your life stress and to life a happier life.

  

Thinking is doing!

Although it may come as a surprise to you, you are the master of your universe that you elect to create by your thinking, Your thinking creates your feelings and your feelings create your life. 

Want to feel good and love your life-then start to think good thoughts and be positive?

Try this on for size. Visualize you are eating a fresh cut lime. Do you feel the sour taste in your mouth? Now, think about eating some sugar to dilute the sour taste. 

Feel the difference? The sugar taste will overtake the sour taste and change your feelings of sour vs. sweet. This can work on any issue you have and can always work in your favor if you think the right thoughts.

It is so simple it is a shame that the vast majority of people are not aware or just too lazy to learn how to control their thoughts and feelings. It will cost nothing and return significant dividends.

Start to control your life for the better and begin your own self improvement program by working on your positive thoughts which will begin to change how you feel and how you live your life.

Come see us at www.stress-less.com

 

Stress and the Familiarity of Support Providers

Social support is only helpful from people you know

Researchers at Bowling Green State University recently published a pair of studies that clarify one of the circumstances in which social support is helpful for people in stressful situations. Their studies emphasize the importance of the people providing social support. The people providing social support in their studies were not people who knew the participants. They were complete strangers. 

Unlike other research, in which social support was provided by people who the participants knew or had a reasonable opportunity to get acquainted with, the presence of the other person either did not provide any stress relief.

Participants in the studies were asked to prepare and deliver a speech that they were told would be videotaped and evaluated by experts. Depending on the condition, another person was also in the room with the participants to evaluate. In some conditions, the other person also provided social support. Across all the conditions in both studies, the presence of the other person did not change the participants' bodily stress reactions (e.g., blood pressure, heart rate) or self-reported level of stress.

Evidently, for social support to be a source of stress relief, the people providing the support need to be people who are familiar to the person experiencing stress. In these studies, if the support from the other person actually did provide any benefit, it was probably covered up by the additional stress prompted by the other person's role as an evaluator.

Source: Anthony, J. L., & O'Brien, W. H. (1999). An evaluation of the impact of social support manipulations on cardiovascular reactivity to laboratory stressors. Behavioral Medicine, 25, 78-87.

Come see us at www.stress-less.com

 "Miner" Stress

The recent Utah miner entrapment is a good example of 'Acute Stress' among four different groups-miners, owners, rescuers, and miner families. Since everyone reacts to stress in their own ways, there are probably many coping techniques being used by the different groups.
The miners, assuming they are alive, are battling for food, water, air, and basic survival.
The owners are battling the unions, media, seismologists, and basic business survival.
The families are battling uncertainty, fear of the unknown, and possible loss of a loved one.

The rescuers are battling the elements, time, and potential loss of life.

All can benefit from the basic stress management tools available. The first and foremost is using common sense and facts vs. emotion to evaluate the situation. Right now, there is no indication the miners are dead or alive, so assume they are alive and need rescuing. 

Projecting death or the worst case scenario only will bring up unwanted emotions and resignation. Getting out to exercise or walk around will be most beneficial to all, even the miners, assuming they can move around where they are. Praying and meditating and tuning out the media speculation will help calm the mind and emotions. Bonding and social interaction is one of the most important elements in the crises among family members, friends, co-workers, etc. 

Positive thinking will keep spirits alive and hope as a basic foundation for every one's effort. Watching what you eat and not filling up on caffeine will help to keep the tensions down and people flowing smoothly so they can work together and get their minds working for maximum concentration and effort.

So, even though there are different points of view from the four groups, they all can benefit during the crises by employing the same stress management strategies to help cope, not only during the acute phase, but just as important, afterwards. This is why stress management training is so important as an ongoing tool of coping mechanisms to use constantly for day-to-day functioning, but also in times of acute crises like the mine collapse.

Come see us at www.stress-less.com

 47% not satisfied with work!

A recent poll found that one half of all workers are not happy at their chosen field of work. This is disturbing news and underscores how work can be considered the number one stressor in people's lives. If you loved your work, you still are going to have stressful situations with people, deadlines, clients, etc. But, to go to work each day dreading the time you spend, it is no wonder it becomes even more stressful that it has to be.

You lack motivation, excitement for your tasks and co-workers, and are constantly thinking about how to move on to something better or the 'grass is greener' syndrome. Some people are never happy, but when you have one half of the working population saying they are not happy, then you have a lot of negative thinking going on which has to affect productivity.

So, how do we correct this societal problem? Part of the challenge is in the backgrounds of the workers. About 27% of people 25+years old hold a college degree or better. This means that nearly 75% of the working population have a high school diploma or less. This automatically categorizes most jobs into lower paying, low skilled labor positions which reduces the amount of control and creativity that can be used in the workforce.

Increasing education levels is one answer to the problem, but this is a slow build solution. On the job training and advanced educational opportunities is another on-going solution. Off shore manufacturing is taking away a lot of jobs and people are being forced to learn new skill sets or risk extinction. So, whether we like it or not, the labor force is going to have to advance educationally in order to survive in the rapid changes of our economy moving from manufacturing to service and higher levels of thought processing involved in the work. As this moves in this direction, people will hopefully start to connect their hearts with their brains and find work that likes them and they love going to each day. This is one way to start to reduce workplace stress.

Come see us at www.stress-less.com

 Motivation for Volunteering and Stress

Having too many motivations for volunteering can lead to added stress

When someone decides to volunteer for an organization they usually have at least one personal motivation for doing so.  A person may be motivated by their values, their desire to better understand other people, to meet a personal challenge or to show concern and empathy for others.  Despite these good intentions, volunteering does have a downside because it costs time and can be stressful.  Generally when people feel they have achieved their personal motivations, however, they report feeling less stress and very satisfied with their volunteering experience.  If achieving personal motivations reduces the stress associated with volunteering, would people with more than just one motivation to volunteer be more likely to enjoy their volunteering experience?  To answer this question, researchers conducted three experiments that compared volunteers who had just one or multiple motives for volunteering.

What was the research about?

The first experiment included 282 volunteers in an AIDS service organization who provided emotional support and day-to-day assistance to people with HIV/AIDS.  These volunteers completed an initial survey immediately before they began their volunteering duties, and then completed a follow-up survey 6 months later.  The initial survey asked the volunteers to indicate their personal motivations for choosing to volunteer.  The follow-up survey asked volunteers to report the stress they experienced while volunteering and how much volunteering had cost them (e.g., taking up too much time).  The follow-up survey also asked volunteers to report how much each of their motivations for volunteering had been fulfilled and how satisfied they felt about their experience.  Results showed that volunteers who had more than one motivation for volunteering reported experiencing more stress, more costs, less satisfaction and less fulfillment of their motivations compared to volunteers who had just one motivation for volunteering.  The second experiment also found these same results with a sample of 146 hospice volunteers.

The third experiment actually manipulated how many motivations participants had for volunteering.  Before they took part in a “volunteer activity” (stuffing envelopes for an environmental organization), participants read a testimonial supposedly written by another volunteer explaining why he had volunteered for the environmental organization.  Participants were instructed to use this testimonial to “get in the mindset” before they stuffed envelopes.  The testimonial contained either one or two motivations for volunteering.  After stuffing envelopes for 15 minutes participants indicated how much their motivations for volunteering (as read in the testimonial) were satisfied.  Results showed that participants who had only read about one motivation for volunteering reported more satisfaction.

Why should it matter to me?

Our time is a very precious commodity; therefore, when you actually do have the time to volunteer you may want to ask yourself exactly what your motivation for volunteering really is before you commit yourself.  If you have one single strong motivation to volunteer, chances are you will enjoy the experience more than if you have a variety of motivations.  Why might this be so?  One reason may be that people who have multiple motivations to volunteer just can’t satisfy any one of those motivations very much, therefore, they just don't enjoy the activity as much as a person who has one clear reason for volunteering.  So in the future, make sure you know why you are volunteering and you will probably feel much more fulfilled.

Source: Kiviniemi, Marc T., Snyder, Mark & Omoto, Allen M. (2002). Too Many of a Good Thing?  The Effeccts of Multiple Motivations on Stress, Cost, Fulfillment & Satisfaction. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 732-743. 

 Stress and Heart Problems

Certain types of stress responses in men may be linked to heart problems

Responding to stressful situations with anger, hostility, and aggression can have adverse health consequences. This form of responding, referred to as the AHA! syndrome, seems to be related to coronary heart disease. People who respond in this way are more likely to have elevated total serum cholesterol and low-density lipoproteins, two risk factors for the development of coronary heart disease. Researchers at the University of Ballarat and Curtin University of Technology in Australia recently published the results from a study aimed at identifying the specific parts of the AHA! syndrome that are related to total serum cholesterol and low-density lipoproteins.

What was the research about?

Ninety-eight healthy, 22- to 57-year-old, male employees of a large oil and gas company based in Australia participated in the study. The participants responded to questionnaires measuring a variety of personal characteristics related to the AHA! syndrome and general health. Total serum cholesterol and low-density lipoproteins levels were also recorded.

The results showed that the tendency to feel angry and act in an angry way in response to being frustrated, criticized, or treated unfairly was associated with having elevated levels of total serum cholesterol and low-density lipoproteins. Moreover, although age and saturated-fat intake were also related to these risk factors, the association with the anger response was actually stronger. 

Thus, men who typically feel angry and act in an angry way in response to being frustrated, criticized, or treated unfairly may have greater risk of developing coronary heart disease.

Why should it matter to me?

Men who respond to stressful situations in this way may have a greater chance of developing coronary heart disease, and consequently, may want to try responding to stressful situations with less anger, hostility, and aggression.

Source: Richards, J. C., Hof, A., Alvarenga, M. (2000). Serum lipids and their relationships with hostility and angry affect and behaviors in men. Health Psychology, 19, 393-398.