Be it the deadline at work, an argument with your family, or challenges in daily life, stress has become an inseparable part of modern life. Over time, these can pile up, leaving one overwhelmed, which may further worsen things. So, how do you really navigate through stress, and not mess up things?A new study by researchers from Penn State may have found the key to beating daily stress. The findings of the study are published in Communications Psychology.
How to tackle stress ?
The researchers found that the best way to resolve everyday inconveniences is to have a perception of control over things. The study showed that even minor actions that increase a person’s sense of control can help them handle everyday stressors more effectively. On days when people felt more in control of stressthey were 62% more likely to take action, like calling a plumber or having a tough conversation, and this effect was stronger in older adults.“This research shows that even small boosts in how much control people feel they have over everyday hassles make it more likely that those hassles actually get resolved. Learning to find and act on these pockets of control in daily life may not only reduce stress but also support long-term health and well-being,” David Almeida, professor of human development and family studies at Penn State and senior author on the paper, said.
The study
The researchers wanted to see if feeling in control of daily stressors, makes it more likely that the stress will be resolved.“If perceived stressor control promotes stress resolution, can we leverage that as a modifiable resource to influence stressor resolution and therefore our emotional health and well-being?” lead author Dakota Witzel, who was a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Healthy Aging at Penn State during the time of the research and is now an assistant professor at South Dakota State University, asked. The researchers asked 1700 participants of the study to report daily stressors that occurred in the past 24 hours and whether the stressor was resolved by the end of the day. The stressors included common types of stress, such as interpersonal tension, including arguments and avoided arguments, job or home-related stress, or work overload and network stress — stressors that happen to other people, like family or friends, but are stressful to the participant.
The participants were also asked about how much control they felt over these stressors in each situation. The participants were surveyed after 10 years. What they found was striking. They found that a person’s perceived sense of control over everyday hassles and challenges varies greatly from one day to the next. At the start of the study, on days of higher perceived control, participants were 61% more likely to resolve the stressor that day. Ten years later, the same boost in perceived control in the same people had a 65% chance that a stressor would be resolved.
“This work also begins to show that as we get older, not only do we have more control, but that control helps us get better at handling stress,” Witzel said.“It’s encouraging news that daily control isn’t fixed. It can be strengthened through practical strategies such as setting priorities or reframing what’s within reach. We need to figure out how we can create the context and setting to allow people to feel more control,” Almeida added.“In this study, we’re talking about daily stressors, the minor inconveniences that occur throughout the day, but there’s also chronic stress where people are continually impacted by stressors again and again. Exploring the idea of whether resolution can be a mechanism that decreases the effect of chronic stress is an interesting area to explore,” Witzel said.
