It may feel like an anvil hanging over your head. However, that deadline awaits Stressing you out at work can benefit your brainaccording to new research from Youth Development Institute at the University of Georgia.
A new study shows that low to moderate stress can benefit people, helping them build resilience and ward off mental illness. Illustrated by Jackie Baxter Roberts
Published in Psychiatry Research, research found that low to moderate stress levels can help individuals develop resilience and reduce the risk of developing mental health disorders, such as depression and antisocial behaviors . Low to moderate stress can also help individuals cope with stressful encounters in the future.
“If you are in an environment where you have some level of stress, you can develop coping mechanisms that will allow you to be a more productive and effective worker and organize yourself in such a way that will help you get the job done,” says Assaf Oshrithe study’s lead author and an associate professor in College of Family and Consumer Sciences.
The stress that comes from studying for a test, preparing for a big meeting at work, or taking longer hours to complete a deal has the potential to lead to personal growth. For example, being rejected by a publisher can cause writers to rethink their style. And getting fired can make someone reconsider their strengths and whether they should stay in their niche or move into a new one.
But the line between the right amount of stress and too much stress is very thin.
Oshri, who also directs the UGA Institute for Youth Development, compared the phenomenon to developing calluses on your hands or feet as a result of physical activity. “You activate your skin to adapt to the pressure you are putting on it. But if you do too much, you will cut your skin.”
Good stress can act as a panacea against the effects of future adversity
The researchers drew on data from the Human Connectome Project, a national project funded by the National Institutes of Health that aims to provide insight into how the human brain works. For the current study, researchers analyzed project data from more than 1,200 young adults who reported their stress levels using questionnaires commonly used in research to measure Uncontrollable and stressful levels of people find their lives.
Participants answered questions about how often they experienced certain thoughts or feelings, such as “in the last month, how often did you feel upset because something happened unexpectedly?” and “in the last month, how often did you find that you couldn’t cope with all the things you had to do?”
Their neurocognitive abilities were then assessed using tests that measure attention and the ability to suppress automatic responses to visual stimuli; cognitive flexibility, or the ability to switch between tasks; visual sequence memory, which involves memorizing an increasingly long series of objects; working memory and processing speed.
The researchers compared those findings with participants’ responses from multiple measures of anxiety, attention problems and aggression, along with behavioral problems and other emotions.
The analysis showed that low to moderate levels of stress are psychologically beneficial, potentially acting as a kind of implant against the development of mental health symptoms.
“Most of us have had some adverse experience that really made us stronger,” says Oshri. “Having specific experiences can help you develop or develop skills that prepare you for the future.”
But the tolerance to stress and adversity varies widely from person to person.
Things like age, genetic predisposition, and having a supportive community to turn to in times of need all play a role in how well individuals handle challenges. While a little stress can be good for cognition, Oshri warns that persistently high levels of stress can be incredibly damaging, both physically and mentally.
“At some point, stress becomes toxic,” he says. “Chronic stress, like the stress that comes from living in poverty or being abused, can have very bad health and psychological consequences. It affects everything from your immune system, emotion regulation, to brain activity. Not all stress is good stress.”
Source: University of Georgia
