The 2 worst ways to cope with stress for C-class executives…
Saturday, December 23, 2023.
This is a shout-out to my c-level, and enterprise-owning clients. There’s lot of great blog posts out there that will offer you the very best practices for reducing stress.
That’s not what this post is about.
The purpose of this post is to warn you If you’re trying to deal with stress aggressively, beware of these two tendencies which might damage your quiet repose with your family during the holiday break.
The 2 worse ways for dealing with stress…
Fantasizing about a preferred outcome, and pointless reflection, are two of the worst ways to deal with stress that humans regularly use, according to a 2015 study.
Of the strategies humans use to deal with stress, these two are the most likely to sour your mood when the stress hits when you return to work.
Better, but lesser known strategies to deal with an excess of stress included rehearsing a plan, and analysing the problem.
How the study was conducted
The conclusions come from a study that asked 43 humans over the age of 60 to keep track of their daily activities, stressors and feelings over eight days.
They were also asked each day whether they were anticipating stressful events on the next day, and how they planned to deal with them.
The 2 worst ways to deal with stress…
Although the humans in the study used all sorts of strategies to deal with stress, 2 had a particularly negative effect on their mood the next day:
One of these, ‘stagnant deliberation,’ involves unsuccessfully trying to solve a problem.
The other, is the pointless reflections on an ‘outcome fantasy,’ literally is engaging in magical thinking and hoping the problem will go away.
Dr Shevaun Neupert, the study’s lead author, said:
“…we learned that what you do on Monday really makes a difference for how you feel on Tuesday.”
People also changed their strategy to deal with stress from one day to the next, the researchers found.
Dr. Neupert continued:
“This finding tells us, for the first time, that these behaviors are dynamic.
This highlights a whole new area for researching the psychology of daily health and well-being.
And these are behaviors that can be taught.
The more we understand what’s really going on, the better we’ll be able to help people deal effectively with the stressors that come up in their lives.”
Final thoughts
I like this study for a couple of reasons. It’s fascinating to track how engaging in stagnant deliberation and outcome fantasies on Monday shows up as misery in your nervous system on Tuesday.
Sunday’s on the phone to Monday…Tuesday on the phone to me…
It’s also interesting to consider how therapists might design interventions which will encourage cognitive shifts toward the more helpful and regulating mindsets of analysis and planning. I’ll also be discussing cognitive distortions in an upcoming post.
Be well, stay kind, and Godspeed.
RESEARCH:
The study was published in The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences (Neupert et al., 2015).
