Give Yourself a Treat—Go Out to Nature (or at Least View Some Nature Pictures)


Exposure to nature is beneficial for human well-being. Contact with nature is good for both physical and mental health and is related to a higher level of happiness and lower levels of stress and anger.

In the last two years, the world has been facing the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, one of the common tools to contain transmission of the virus has been the implementation of stay-at-home restrictions and these are linked to increased anxiety and depression.

Would More Time With Nature Help?

Exposure to ongoing and uncontrolled stress affects immune processes, and influences susceptibility to and the course of disease. Therefore, developing individual resilience during such times is crucial. We thought contact with nature might help reduce stress and enhance individuals’ well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic, but  stay-at-home restrictions have limited people’s ability to spend time outdoors.

Therefore, we studied four possible ways of having contact with real nature:

  • The presence of nature close to home
  • Nature viewed from the person’s window
  • Actually being in nature on the preceding day
  • Seeing images of nature

We included nature images because these have been extensively used in research on the restorative benefits of nature. Just observing nature images can serve as a type of therapy for people with accessibility limitations or barriers to real contact with nature.

Our survey was done in the last week of a five-week first lockdown in Israel. The stay-at-home orders restricted people to remain within 100 meters of home. Over 700 people answered questions about demographics, contact with nature, and emotional well-being measures. Also, some participants looked at nature images before completing the questionnaire, some examined urban images, and some completed the questionnaire without seeing any images. Below is one of the nature images we used (a walking path in a woods with flowers) and also one of the urban pictures (tall buildings with little greenery):

Image of walking path in nature

aerial view of city

How Does Nature Help? Let Us Count The Ways

Nature near home and nature viewed from the windows contributed to higher levels of well-being, and being in nature on the preceding day was associated with higher levels of positive affect. These benefits emerged even among those who had been economically hurt by the pandemic. Viewing nature images also impacted well-being, mainly by reducing stress and negative affect.

Furthermore, exposure to nature was more beneficial for women than for men. For positive affect, vitality, and stress, the difference between those who had nature near home and those who did not was higher for women than for men.

A visit to an urban park, a tree viewed from your window, or a walk in nature will do you good. If you can’t do those things, try nature videos on your TV!


For Further Reading

Mintz, K. K., Ayalon, O., Nathan, O., & Eshet, T. (2021). See or be? Contact with nature and well-being during COVID-19 lockdown. Journal of Environmental Psychology78,  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2021.101714
 

Keren Kaplan Mintz is a researcher at Shamir Research Institute, and a faculty member at the Department of Learning and Instructional Sciences, Faculty of Education, the University of Haifa. She studies environmental psychology and environmental education.

Ofira Ayalon is a Professor at the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, University of Haifa and a Senior Researcher, Head of Environment Cluster Samuel Neaman Institute, Technion, Haifa, Israel. Her interests are is related to environmental concerns and policy implications. 

 

Social Support Protects You From Daily Stress, but Who You Are Matters More

When I moved from Germany to the U.S. to do post-PhD research, my social network was limited to my partner, who kindly crossed the Atlantic with me. Moving thousands of miles away from most significant others in my life during a period of transition and professional challenge put me in a vulnerable position. The beneficial effects of my supportive relationships were less accessible when all I had were texts, calls, or sporadic mail. A few weeks in, during one of the rare in-person events before the pandemic, I talked to one of my new colleagues about settling in. I explained that I had enrolled in an arts class to connect to others and, possibly, make friends. “And did you find anyone?” she asked. I hadn’t, yet. I was determined to forge new connections, to surround myself with caring others, but I also started to wonder how much of this really depended on my conscious choices.

Social Support Shapes the Ways We Think, Feel, and Behave

This recognition is rooted in Émile Durkheim’s (1897) work on suicides which, he argued, are more prevalent among individuals with fewer social ties. Interest in the relationship between social support and psychological outcomes, such as stress, was revived by epidemiological studies in the 1970s and 80s. Since then, the positive link between social support and well-being has been confirmed many times. Some authors believe that the effects of social relationships on stress resistance are comparable to those observed for established risk factors like smoking and alcohol consumption.

The power that social relationships seem to have over our well-being is impressive. How is it possible that the presence of caring others minimizes our mortality risk in ways only achieved by a balanced lifestyle? The answer to this question is less straightforward than you might think.

Personality Also Matters

One thing that obscures clear-cut conclusions in this domain is that the unique effects of social support on health are difficult to disentangle from our personalities. People likely select themselves into environments that match the ways they tend to think, feel, and behave. Thus, as much as a general disposition itself affects our social relationships, any link between social support and stress is likely to be a product of our personality. But the question whether the protective effects of social support could instead be viewed as due to our personalities has rarely been discussed.

In our study we revisited the claim that the experience and management of stress are to a great extent determined by social interaction. We based our analyses on fine-grained data of stress experiences in daily life, collected from 391 participants multiple times per day for two 2-day periods. We asked them to report on things that caused daily stress related to task demand (for example whether the task required working hard, fast, or juggling several tasks at once) and social conflicts—as well as how stressed they felt in response. We then examined the separate and joint impacts of social support and personality, which we measured with standard questionnaires.

On its own, social support decreased the probability of experiencing stress. However, both social support and personality mattered to the likelihood of stress. Hence, when considered in isolation, both social support and personality independently contributed to the prediction of stress experiences in our participants’ daily lives.

But examining personality and social support together yielded another discovery. It is already well known that being more neurotic and being less extraverted are correlated with being more stress-prone. What we found is that having social support did not add any extra protection from stress if the person was high on these traits.

Around the time I was packing for my move back to Europe, I realized how difficult it was for me to leave Pittsburgh. Over the past two years, I had become part of a supportive and compassionate network of friends with whom lockdown and isolation became a communal and manageable experience. I often think of a conversation I had with one of my very close friends over the phone, sharing how I felt about the move. “You can feel comfortable wherever you end up,” she said. It took some time, but she was right.

Of course, because our results are based on correlations, we cannot say beyond doubt that personality is a stronger determinant of stress than, say, friendships or marriage. But we can say that emotionally stable people are better at stress management and that this matters more than the simple fact of social support. The patterns we found are sufficiently strong and pervasive to justify more research that tries to get at the causes and mechanisms of a person’s likelihood to have stress reactions in their daily lives.


For Further Reading

Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk: A meta-analytic review. PLoS med, 7(7), e1000316. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316

Kaurin, A., Wright, A. G., & Kamarck, T. (in press). Daily stress reactivity: The unique roles of personality and social context. Journal of Personality. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12633

Wills, T. A., & Shinar, O. (2000). Measuring perceived and received social support. In S. Cohen, L. G. Underwood, & B. H. Gottlieb (Eds.), Social support measurement and intervention: A guide for health and social scientists (p. 86–135). Oxford University Press.


Aleksa Kaurin is an Assistant Professor of Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychology at Witten/Herdecke University in Germany. She studies how close relationships affect the ways we cope with stressful events and how these processes are impacted by individual differences and psychopathology throughout development.

Two Ways Stress Makes it Hard to be a Supportive Partner

To say the past year has been stressful would be an understatement. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many of us faced a slew of new stressors, such as working remotely, helping kids do their schooling from home, protecting the health and well-being of loved ones, and managing unexpected financial problems. Both scientific evidence and conventional wisdom tell us that for couples’ relationships to thrive during difficult times like these, partners need to support each other. When partners effectively support one another, they not only feel less stressed, but also feel a greater sense of closeness within the relationship.

Unfortunately, being a good support provider is not always easy. In an ideal world, partners would take turns feeling stressed—that way, the non-stressed partner can readily give their time and energy to supporting the stressed partner. In fact, we know of many couples who have jokingly agreed that only one person in the relationship is allowed to freak out at any given time!

Sadly, life doesn’t always work that way. All too often, we are expected to provide support to our partner at times when we are struggling with our own problems. Given that managing stress can drain a person’s energy and resources, we wondered whether individuals who are experiencing their own stress may have difficulty providing support to their partner.

Using data collected from different-sex married couples prior to the pandemic, we first looked at whether stressed individuals are even able to notice their partner’s support needs. After all, the first step to being a good support provider is recognizing that your partner wants or needs support. Though this sounds simple enough, determining whether your partner wants support can be surprisingly difficult. People often express their desire for support using indirect or ambiguous tactics, like sighing or hinting. Thus, good support providers must be on the lookout for those subtle cues of support seeking. However, because stress can diminish our ability to take the perspective of others, we expected it may interfere with picking up on these cues.

To test this idea, each member of the couple reported how much stress they were experiencing in a variety of life domains (such as work, relationships with extended family members, or finances) before completing a questionnaire every night for two weeks describing the day they just had. They reported how much they wanted support from their partner that day and how much they believed their partner wanted support from them that day. In this way, we were able to compare an individual’s perceptions of their partner’s support needs to their partner’s actual support needs.

We found that husbands who were more stressed were less accurate in perceiving their wives’ support needs over the two-week period compared to husbands who were less stressed. Interestingly, wives’ stress levels were not associated with their tendency to notice their husband’s support needs.

But what happens if stressed individuals are able to notice that their partner desires support? Will they be able to act on that knowledge and provide the support that they know their partner needs? We expected that stress may interfere with this part of the support process as well.

For example, imagine you are having an incredibly stressful time at work, with a huge deadline coming up and barely enough time to meet it. One evening, you notice that your partner seems down and you know you should probably talk to them. However, you are feeling drained and exhausted and all you want to do is relax for an hour before going to bed. Can you muster the energy to be a good and attentive listener for your partner instead?

To test this question, we also asked participants to indicate how much support they provided to their partner on each day of the daily questionnaire. We found that when husbands were stressed, they provided less support to their wives, even when they noticed that their partners needed support. Again, wives’ stress was not linked to their support provision.

These results highlight how difficult it can be for partners to support each other during stressful times, especially for men. The fact that women’s stress did not seem to interfere with their support provision was not entirely unexpected, as some other studies have suggested that although unstressed men and women are equally skilled at supporting their partners, women may find it easier to comfort others while also managing their own stress.

So, what should couples do? Although we don’t have an easy answer to this question, one piece of advice is to try and be more direct about your support needs so that your partner is less likely to miss them. And during times when you both are feeling stressed in the relationship, perhaps cut each other some slack and recognize that neither of you may be the best support provider at the moment. Hopefully, you can go back to taking turns being stressed soon.


For Further Reading

Neff, L. A., Nguyen, T. T. T., & Williamson, H. C. (2020). Too stressed to help? The effects of stress on noticing partner needs and enacting support. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Advance online publication. DOI: 10.1177/0146167220974490

Neff, L. A., & Karney, B. R. (2017). Acknowledging the elephant in the room: How stressful environmental contexts shape relationship dynamics. Current Opinions in Psychology, 13, 107-110. DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.05.013

Bodenmann, G., Meuwly, N., Germann, J., Nussbeck, F. W., Heinrichs, M., & Bradbury, T. N. (2015). Effects of stress on the social support provided by men and women in intimate relationships. Psychological Science26(10), 1584-1594. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615594616
 

Lisa A. Neff is an Associate Professor in Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. She studies the factors that can hinder healthy relationship development, including stress.

Hannah C. Williamson is an Assistant Professor in Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on strengthening families, particularly among under-served groups, including low-income and ethnic minority couples.

Maintaining Close Relationships During a Pandemic

Living through a pandemic is stressful and is related to feelings of uncertainty. When people are confined to a shared space and spend more time than usual with others (e.g., roommates, family members, romantic partners), conflicts and tension are inevitable. How might stress and unc ertainty undermine our close relationships and how could people work towards mitigating conflicts during quarantine?

To answer these questions, we reached out to Drs. Nickola Overall and Jessica Maxwell, co-leaders of the REACH research group at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. One of the main focuses of the REACH lab is to better understand factors that might help initiate and maintain healthy close relationships. Below is a word from Nickola, Jessica and their research group on how to maintain close relationships during these unprecedented times.  

Social media is filled with jokes about the spikes in divorce following quarantine, and there is some evidence that this time might ‘make or break’ couples. Being stuck at home creates opportunities for people to get on each other’s nerves, especially since we often take out our frustrations on the ones we love. Many couples will also be facing additional challenges that are very stressful, such as loss of income or trying to manage additional childcare. This increased stress provides a breeding ground for conflict and depletes our ability to manage conflict effectively. Below are some tips on how couples could reduce the impact of stress on their relationships, manage conflict if it arises, take advantage of the opportunity to spend time together, and parent together as a team.

Reach out and support one another

One important way to reduce tensions and mitigate conflicts is for couples to focus on supporting each other to reduce the impact of stress. But, support is not always easy. Providing too much support can make people feel like they don’t think they can cope with the situation. Providing too little support leaves people feeling unloved and uncared for. To get the right balance, couples could try to follow these three support rules:

  • Responsiveness. Providing good support means being responsive to what your partner needs, not what you would find supportive. Do they want or like emotional comfort, or do they like practical advice to deal with the situation? Do they just want a hug, or do they want to stay up reading the latest news together? Listen and try to match what your partner needs, which might mean just being there without giving comfort or advice.
  • Reciprocity. People cope best when they are able to give as much support as they receive. Be open and express your concerns to provide the opportunity for your partner to provide support in return. This can mean sharing the household load, having turns taking a break or talking about your concerns, and balancing the stress of the situation with quality time together.
  • Reach widely. Remember that you need to keep physical, not emotional, distance from other people. Now more than ever it is important to connect with your wider social network. Reaching out to your family, friends and colleagues can help remind you how many people you have in your corner, and this will reduce the pressure on your relationship.

Acknowledge conflicts and face challenges together

Of course, even couples who are banding together to help each other through this time of uncertainty will inevitably face tensions and conflict at some point. Try to follow these three Cs to manage conflict:

  • Communicate. Resolving conflict requires couples to understand each other’s perspective, which can’t happen when you try to stifle your dissatisfaction with your partner or withdraw from each other. Try to express what is upsetting you so your partner understands how to help address the issue, and in turn be prepared to address your partner’s concerns by being motivated to solve any problems that arise.
  • Cool off. Being overwhelmed with anxiety or anger interferes with our ability to listen to our partner and express negativity in a constructive way. If negative emotions run high, allow each other to cool off (go to separate rooms or take a walk if you can), and make sure you agree to regroup to discuss the issue more calmly when you are ready
  • Commit to being a team. Working through negativity and conflict provides the opportunity to improve relationships. Committing to getting through this time together as a team puts any frustrations in context; this is a hurdle you can overcome together in ways that can strengthen your relationship.

Spend quality time and grow together

Quarantine can provide a unique opportunity for people in close relationships to have fun and relax together. You might finally get to binge-watch that movie or series that you both have been meaning to watch. Watching movies and TV shows together can even strengthen your relationship. A recent study found that couples asked to reflect on the relationships portrayed in movies were less likely to divorce. See this list of movies to watch and questions to discuss with your partner. 

Another great way to boost mood, be connected, and lower stress is having sex. The jokes on social media predicting “quarantine babies” arriving in 9 months do capture a truth: slowing down our busy lives creates more opportunities for intimacy. But, remember that it is normal for anxiety to reduce sexual desire. Just being emotionally and physically affectionate (e.g., cuddling, joking around) can help lift mood and combat stress. Taking the opportunity to reminisce about good times in the past, play games and have fun, try new activities together, or dream about what you would like to do in the future, are great ways to feel closer and more connected. For some fun couple activities to increase intimacy, see 36 questions you can ask your partner, 8 "dates" to have with your partner at home, or learn together by taking a free online course on the science of happiness, or on how to cook.

Parent together as a team

Managing conflict, supporting each other and spending quality time together is all harder if you are also looking after children at home. This change in family routine may pose unique challenges. One parent might interfere with the typical parenting routine of the other, or parents might communicate conflicting information about what children should be doing. To parent well together, try to follow these three tips:

  • Share expectations. Effective co-parenting involves working together to establish shared parenting rules and expectations. Get on the same page of how you want the family to operate during this time (e.g., a regular school-like schedule balanced with TV and outdoor activities, or a holiday schedule of family time), and then try to share the responsibility of keeping this routine.
  • Support each other. Try to be realistic about each other’s parenting—you aren’t going to be “perfect” parents during these uncertain times. Be supportive and appreciative of each other’s parenting efforts and be understanding when it doesn’t go as you hoped. Feeling like you are a capable parent is needed to remain responsive to your children during these times.
  • Show a united front. Work together so that routines and expectations are consistently communicated to your children. Showing children that you are a united front helps children feel secure and enhances the well-being of the whole family.

Single or parenting on your own? The tips above apply to all kinds of social relationships. No matter who you are living with, managing conflict, irritation and sustaining positive social connections is important. Reaching out for support and providing support to others is the best way to maintain health and well-being. And the tips for parenting also apply to people caring for children on their own. Be kind and patient with yourself when things don’t go as planned, and try to be consistent in establishing routines and communicating your expectations so that you and your children feel like you are in this together.

Coping with the Stress of COVID-19

As our global society deals with the outbreak of COVID-19, many people are experiencing greater feelings of stress and fear. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) acknowledges that the stress brought on by this specific outbreak may be overwhelming for children and adults alike (2020). However, there are a number of strategies we can employ to manage and cope with stress.

Physically Managing Stress

  • Engage in physical activity – Physical activity has antidepressant effects and can serve as a buffer against the impact of stress (for review, see Salmon, 2001). With many gyms closed, working out can seem less than feasible. However, there are countless fitness videos available for free on YouTube and many online fitness subscription services are offering extended free trials or even free online classes. Also, taking a quick jog or walk around your neighborhood (while maintaining social distancing practices/adhering to your community’s guidelines) is a great way to break a sweat and get some fresh air.
  • Eat a good meal – Eating foods that are high in fat and sugar may temporarily alleviate stress, but they can have downstream negative consequences like weight gain or changes to reward sensitivity (Yau & Potenza, 2013). Instead, consuming complex carbohydrates like whole grains, fruits, and vegetables can help lower stress by boosting serotonin levels and protein-rich foods like eggs, lentils, and chicken, beef, or pork which promote alertness and elevate mood (for review, see Singh, 2016). If you’re craving something sweet, try some dark chocolate which may even have cardiovascular benefits (for review, see Ding et al., 2006). 
  • Get more sleep – Previous research suggests there is a complex and bidirectional relationship between poor sleep quality and stress (for review, see Kahn, Sheppes, & Sadeh, 2013). It is likely that poor sleep exacerbates stress and greater stress can lead to more sleep problems. The University of Texas at Dallas’ Counseling Center recommends developing good “sleep hygiene” to cope with stress. They recommend setting an electronics curfew 60 minutes prior to bed and avoiding alcohol/caffeine 4-6 hours before going to bed.

Emotionally and Mentally Managing Stress

  • Stay connected with others – The need for social connection is central to human nature, and loneliness is associated with poor health outcomes (e.g., Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2010; Jaremka et al., 2013). Although it is vitally important to maintain physical distance during this time, social distancing does not and should not mean social isolation. Reaching out to friends or family via video chat can help with stress. Host a video happy hour, play games via a number of free apps for any smartphone, or just call a loved one to connect.
  • Take a break from the news – The ability to obtain news updates is greater than ever before, and people can acquire information through multiple platforms like social networking sites, television, and traditional print media. However, information overload occurs when we are exposed to more information than we’re able to process at one time (Lee et al., 2016). Information overload, especially cyber-based information, (i.e., information coming from laptops, smartphones, texts, emails, and news websites) is associated with greater perceived stress, poorer health, and less time devoted to contemplative activities (Misra & Stokols, 2012). It’s good to take a break from the never-ending stream of information. Set a news “time limit” for each day. Then, turn on a show or movie that makes you laugh, play a board game with your roommates (or your partner/kids), or use your creative side and paint, sing, or dance. Don’t lose sight of your hobbies even during this time of uncertainty.
  • Practice relaxing – Individual differences like personality may impact coping technique preferences (for review, see Carver & Connor-Smith, 2009). There are many practices that are associated with stress reduction including mindfulness and/or meditation (for review, see Goyal et al., 2014), focused, deep breathing exercises (e.g., Paul, Elam, & Verhulst, 2007), engaging in prayer or spiritual reflection (e.g., Belding et al., 2010), or journaling about one’s cognitive and emotional experiences with stress (e.g., Ullrich & Lutgendorf, 2002). Reflect on what helps you cope during times of stress and anxiety, and create time in your schedule to implement these practices.

Sources

Belding, J. N., Howard, M. G., McGuire, A. M., Schwartz, A. C., & Wilson, J. H. (2010). Social Buffering by God: Prayer and Measures of Stress. Journal of Religion and Health, 49(2), 179–187. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-009-9256-8

Carver, C. S., & Connor-Smith, J. (2010). Personality and Coping. Annual Review of Psychology, 61(1), 679–704. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.093008.100352

Ding, E. L., Hutfless, S. M., Ding, X., & Girotra, S. (2006). Chocolate and Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease: A Systematic Review. Nutrition & Metabolism, 3(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.1186/1743-7075-3-2

Goyal, M., Singh, S., Sibinga, E. M. S., Gould, N. F., Rowland-Seymour, A., Sharma, R., Berger, Z., Sleicher, D., Maron, D. D., Shihab, H. M., Ranasinghe, P. D., Linn, S., Saha, S., Bass, E. B., & Haythornthwaite, J. A. (2014). Meditation programs for psychological stress and well-being: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Internal Medicine, 174(3), 357–368. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.13018

Hawkley, L. C., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2010). Loneliness Matters: A Theoretical and Empirical Review of Consequences and Mechanisms. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 40(2), 218–227. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-010-9210-8

Jaremka, L. M., Fagundes, C. P., Glaser, R., Bennett, J. M., Malarkey, W. B., & Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K. (2013). Loneliness predicts pain, depression, and fatigue: Understanding the role of immune dysregulation. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 38(8), 1310–1317. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2012.11.016

Kahn, M., Sheppes, G., & Sadeh, A. (2013). Sleep and emotions: Bidirectional links and underlying mechanisms. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 89(2), 218–228. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2013.05.010

Lee, A. R., Son, S.-M., & Kim, K. K. (2016). Information and communication technology overload and social networking service fatigue: A stress perspective. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, 51–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.08.011

Misra, S., & Stokols, D. (2012). Psychological and Health Outcomes of Perceived Information Overload. Environment and Behavior, 44(6), 737–759. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916511404408

Paul, G., Elam, B., & Verhulst, S. J. (2007). A Longitudinal Study of Students’ Perceptions of Using Deep Breathing Meditation to Reduce Testing Stresses. Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 19(3), 287–292. https://doi.org/10.1080/10401330701366754

Salmon, P. (2001). Effects of physical exercise on anxiety, depression, and sensitivity to stress: A unifying theory. Clinical Psychology Review, 21(1), 33–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0272-7358(99)00032-X

Singh, K. (2016). Nutrient and Stress Management. Journal of Nutrition & Food Sciences, 6(4). https://doi.org/10.4172/2155-9600.1000528

The University of Texas at Dallas’ Counseling Center. (2020). Anxiety Toolbox Workbook.

Ullrich, P. M., & Lutgendorf, S. K. (2002). Journaling about stressful events: Effects of cognitive processing and emotional expression. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 24(3), 244–250. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15324796ABM2403_10

Yau, Y. H. C., & Potenza, M. N. (2013). Stress and Eating Behaviors. Minerva Endocrinologica, 38(3), 255–267.

People with More Self-control are Less Stressed Out

Good self-control has been called the essence of “the good life.” This may surprise you. You probably know that self-control is important, but is it really that important? If we trust the scientific literature on the topic then, yes, self-control is really that important. Research across many scientific disciplines shows that people with good self-control tend to have stronger social relationships, perform better in school, report higher subjective well-being, and have lower financial debt, among other positive outcomes. Now, I’m going to add yet another benefit of having good self-control—being less stressed.

Self-control refers to people’s ability to change or inhibit their thoughts, emotions, and behavioral impulses. This definition illuminates why my collaborators, Jan Bauer and Wilhelm Hofmann, and I expected people with good self-control to be less stressed out. People who have greater self-control may be able to regulate their stressful thoughts more effectively, making those thoughts less intrusive and overpowering. On top of that, people with good self-control are better at putting themselves into situations that support their goals and emotional well-being. So, good self-controllers steer clear of potentially stressful situations better than people with lower self-control.

Although the connection between self-control and stress may seem obvious, few studies have examined this link, and most of those studies studied only undergraduate students in the United States. Therefore, we set out to investigate the relationship between self-control and stress by studying over 4,000 participants from different socioeconomic backgrounds in Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the United States.

As expected, people with good self-control reported considerably lower stress levels than people with poorer self-control. And, this was true in each of the four countries. However, we did observe interesting differences across countries in the strength of the link between self-control and stress. For example, people’s self-control ability was more strongly related to lower stress in the U.S. and less related to stress in Poland.

Why was self-control more strongly related to stress levels in the United States? The honest answer is that we don’t know for sure, but one reason might be that Poland has a stronger social safety net than the U.S., which may help shield people in Poland against stressful adversities in life that are caused by poor self-control.

Intrigued by these results, we set out to unpack one of the many remaining questions about self-control’s link to stress. One question that especially interested us was whether people with better self-control also experience less variability in their stress across time. Remember that self-control involves the ability to regulate thoughts, emotions, and behavior. Because this ability comes in handy when trying to avoid or battle with stressful thoughts, people who are high in self-control may not only experience less stress overall, but their level of stress may vary less over time.

To test this idea, we conducted a two-week study in the United Kingdom. Every day for two weeks, 594 research participants reported their level of stress on that day, which allowed us to analyze how their stress levels fluctuated over the two weeks and whether self-control had anything to do with the variability in their experience of stress.

It turns out that people with good self-control experienced more stable stress levels, on average, than people with lower self-control. Obviously, having a stable level of stress is not necessarily a good thing if your stress is stable at a high level. So, we again tested whether people with good self-control also reported lower stress overall, and they did.

Until now, I have talked about ways in which self-control may lead to important life outcomes such as less stress and lower stress variability. But not only does self-control affect stress, but stress can also influence self-control. In fact, prolonged stress during childhood can undermine the development of brain areas that are critical for the exertion of self-control, such as the prefrontal cortex. Even brief experiences of stress can make self-control much harder—just think about the last time you were really stressed and how hard it was to perform cognitively demanding tasks.

All in all, this research suggests that there are potential beneficial effects of improving your self-control.


For Further Reading

Duckworth, A. L., Milkman, K. L., & Laibson, D. (2018). Beyond willpower: Strategies for reducing failures of self-control. Psychological Science in the Public Interest19, 102-129.

Mullainathan, S., & Shafir, E. (2013). Scarcity: Why having too little means so much. Macmillan.

Sapolsky, R. M. (1994). Why zebras don't get ulcers: A guide to stress, stress-related diseases, and coping. New York: Freeman.

Webb, T. L., Lindquist, K. A., Jones, K., Avishai, A., & Sheeran, P. (2018). Situation selection is a particularly effective emotion regulation strategy for people who need help regulating their emotions. Cognition and Emotion32, 231-248.
 

Kristian Steensen Nielsen is a behavioral scientist working as a research associate at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on behavior change in the context of climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation.

Sleep Loss Makes Self-control More Difficult: Why?

Take a moment and think back to the last time you didn’t get enough sleep. How did you feel the next day? Tired? Irritable? Stressed? Although these are a few of the common problems that occur after a poor night of sleep, one particularly important consequence of sleep loss is the impaired ability for self-control. In other words, when we don’t get enough sleep, it is harder to control our desires and impulses—even when we know we should.

What kind of desires and impulses are hard to control? Classic examples of self-control include not eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream while we are on a diet, walking away from a blackjack table before we lose all our money, and holding our tongue when a nasty boss yells at us. In other words, self-control involves ignoring what we want to do in the moment because we know it isn’t good for us long term. 

And sleep loss makes self-control harder. After a night of poor or insufficient sleep, people are more likely to insult others, steal office supplies, and quit exercising early. Although there is a clear link between sleep loss and self-control difficulties, scientists are still exploring why this link exists. In our study, Zlatan Krizan, Tracy DeHart, and I examined increased stress as one potential explanation.

We recruited 211 college students to complete a survey each evening for 30 days, resulting in a total sample of approximately 5,500 daily reports. Each time they completed this survey, participants were asked how long they slept the night before, how stressful their day had been, and their experiences of self-control difficulty at that moment (for example, “Right now I am having a hard time controlling my urges”).

What did we find? Replicating prior findings, people reported experiencing greater self-control difficulties when they slept less the night before. In addition, people also had more stressful days after a night of short sleep, and more stressful days led to greater self-control difficulties.

We then examined the key question: Is increased stress part of the reason that sleep loss makes self-control more difficult? Indeed, it was. In fact, stress accounted for almost half of the effect of sleep loss on self-control difficulties! Sleep loss made the day more stressful, and being stressed then led people to have a harder time controlling themselves. This suggests that stress is one important reason for why sleeping too little can harm self-control.

 

Diagram: Decreased sleep duration leads to Increased stress leads to Increased self-control difficulties

Understanding that increased stress is a major reason that sleep loss undermines self-control gives us insight into how the negative effects of sleep loss can be decreased. It is a sad reality that a large proportion of the U.S. population chronically does not get enough sleep, leading people to have difficulties restraining and resisting temptations. But, if getting enough sleep is not a realistic option for you, how can you keep your sleepless nights from ruining your self-control?

Our research suggests that if you haven’t slept enough, you should make a special effort to manage your stress. For example, you could put off demanding tasks, practice mindfulness, or seek support from other people. Managing your stress when sleep deprived will help you avoid lapses of self-control—such as that late night raid on the refrigerator.


For Further Reading:

Hisler, G. C., Krizan, Z., & DeHart, T. (2018). Does stress explain the effect of sleep on self-control difficulties? A Month-long daily diary study. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin45, 864-877.

Gordon, A. M., Mendes, W. B., & Prather, A. A. (2017). The social side of sleep: Elucidating the links between sleep and social processes. Current Directions in Psychological Science26, 470-475.

Huffington, A. (2016). The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time. New York: Harmony.

Krizan, Z., & Hisler, G. (2016). The essential role of sleep in self-regulation. In K. D. Vohs & R. F. Baumeister (Eds.), Handbook of Self-regulation (3rd ed., pp. 182-202). New York, NY: John Wiley

 

Garrett Hisler is a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Pittsburgh who is broadly interested in sleep but tends to study the dynamics among sleep, self-control, and personality.

Exercising Helps Us Bounce Back From Stress

We all know, or have at least heard the rumors, that exercise is good for us. There’s this intuition that says when we get moving we’ll feel mentally or emotionally stronger, quicker, and better. Research shows that regular exercisers do tend to report less depressed and anxious mood. Moreover, there are encouraging clinical trials showing that when people who have mood and anxiety disorders engage in exercise programs, they tend to have better mental health outcomes. But why? It’s unclear exactly how exercise changes people’s emotional experiences. In our study recently published in Health Psychology, we found evidence for one of many potential pathways.

A lot of people think about exercise as a tool for boosting mood– this is the “go for a run– you’ll feel better!” hypothesis. However, this theory is insufficient. Many studies—including ones in our lab— don't find consistent post-exercise improvements in mood. So instead of repeatedly picking you up, maybe exercise prevents you from getting pulled too far down or getting stuck in an emotional low– what we think of as preventing depressed or anxious mood. Importantly, negative emotions, such as sadness or anxiety, are not inherently bad. And people who exercise get just as upset as people who don’t. The problem occurs when people struggle to bounce back. We wanted to know if exercise before a person experiences something distressing can help them cope.

Ninety-five individuals came into the lab for three separate visits. At each visit, people completed one of three activities: cycling, resting, or stretching. Everyone was randomly assigned an order in which to complete these visits. After finishing their assigned activity for the day, participants then performed various computer tasks before undergoing a stressful experience. The stressor included serial subtraction tasks and challenging verbal puzzles, some of which were impossible to solve.

We found that individuals who ruminated more about the stressor, meaning repetitive, self-focused, passive negative thinking, tended to feel worse and worse for longer. This is unsurprising as rumination is strongly associated with lower emotional well-being and emotional disorders.  Interestingly, exercise lessened the negative effects this type of problematic thinking had on peoples’ moods. This means that a single session of exercise before a stressor had even occurred helped ruminators recover better than on days when those same people had either stretched or rested. Exercise helped them bounce back.

We hope that identifying specific psychological benefits of exercise will be useful for a few main reasons. First, with a better understanding of such specific effects, we can potentially use exercise in a more targeted, effective way for both prevention and intervention efforts. Knowing specific, immediate benefits of even single sessions of exercise can potentially help motivate people to be active, and do so better than more long-term or abstract benefits, such as reducing the likelihood of a heart attack later in life. And learning what specific processes are altered by exercise and account for its positive effects can give us insights into what processes go awry in emotional disorders. The takeaway from our study is that we can all benefit by being physically active. Exercise seems to make us more resilient or better equipped to weather what comes our way.


Emily Bernstein is interested in the intersection of emotion regulation and information processing, and her research aims to identify transdiagnostic interventions for the prevention and treatment of affective disorders. Emily is currently working on studies examining how aerobic exercise influences emotional responses to positive and negative stimuli, and how exercise may benefit mood through enhanced attentional control and emotional resilience.

Stressed? How We Cope Depends on the Opportunities We Have

New research suggests that most Americans are coping with many sources of stress as they go about their day-to-day lives. A survey of American adults found that over half experience significant stress in their lives from worrying about things like the future of the nation, violence and crime, personal finance and the economy, mass shootings, social divisiveness, and health care. Nearly three in 10 adults report experiencing too much stress in their everyday life to think about the future. Roughly three-fourths of adults report experiencing recent psychological difficulties due to their stress. Clearly, stress is a familiar experience for most of us.

Understanding how people choose to cope with stress has important implications for their well-being. We wanted to know what strategies people use for coping with negative emotions that result from stress, and when they prefer one type of coping strategy over another. We set out to answer these questions in our research.

A Tale of Two Coping Strategies

Stress can result from feeling unsafe due to threats in the environment. The past few years have produced no shortage of examples, including the COVID-19 pandemic, social injustices, economic calamities, climate-related disasters, and the waging wars in Ukraine and Gaza. How do people cope with the negative emotions that arise from feeling unsafe?

Prior research shows that people generally adopt one of two strategies for coping. On the one hand, people might do things that help address the root cause of their stress. This is known as problem-focused coping. In the case of stress from feeling unsafe, this may lead people to buy home security systems, wear protective equipment such as bike helmets, seatbelts, and masks, or increase their physical fitness through diet and exercise, for example. On the other hand, people might try to deal with the emotional toll of their stress. This is known as emotion-focused coping. In this case, people might indulge in comfort foods like chocolate, pizza, and candy, distract themselves with movies or video games, or immerse themselves in pleasant hobbies, for example.

How We Cope Depends on What's Available to Us

While prior research provides extensive documentation of problem-focused and emotion-focused coping, researchers still know surprisingly little about when people are more likely to favor one strategy over the other. Our research sheds light on this issue. We conducted a series of studies involving more than 2,500 U.S. college students and found that the strategy people prefer depends on whether they can engage in behaviors that can address the source of stress right now or only in the future.

For example, in some studies, we asked participants to imagine feeling unsafe from being in a crime-ridden neighborhood. We then assessed their desire for certain products and varied the products that were made available to them. When products helped address the cause of their safety-related stress immediately (for example, a neighborhood surveillance app), participants rated them as highly desirable. When products only helped address their safety-related stress in the future (for example, healthy food that makes people more physically fit over time), they rated products that helped make them feel better in the here and now (such as comfort food) as more desirable. So, whether people focus on addressing the source of stress or the feelings it creates depends on whether they have options that address the source of the stress now or in the future.

Implications For Psychological Well-being

How might this research help you cope with stress? We think our work offers three main takeaways for handling stress.

First, take stock of your sources of stress and recognize which are inputs that you can control. For instance, if you notice that watching the news too long makes you angry and anxious, set a limit to how much of it you consume.

Second, when faced with a source of stress that's unavoidable, take stock of your options and be aware of the coping strategies available. If you can do something that immediately helps address the root cause of your stress, then by all means, go ahead and do it. However, if you cannot address the root cause of stress, or if there is nothing you can do that will fix the stress in the here and now, then it is okay to do something that will make you feel better. Just be mindful of the behavior and do it in moderation.

Finally, recognize that both coping strategies—whether focused on the causes of stress or its emotional consequences—have a rightful spot in every person's coping toolkit, as both can be beneficial to a person's psychological well-being.


For Further Reading

Salerno, A. S., Janiszewski, C., & Laran, J. (2023) Focus on the need or feeling good? Coping through instrumental action versus prohedonic distraction depends on the temporal efficacy of means Motivation and Emotion, 47, 887–907 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-023-10034-1


Anthony Salerno is an Associate Professor of Marketing in the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University. His research investigates how people's emotions and goals affect their decision-making.

How Do Black People Cope With Racism?

What do you do when feeling stressed? Do you read books? Meditate? Exercise? Talk with friends? Write in a journal? Make a to-do list?

Nearly every day, people face stressors. These can include conflict with friends, financial difficulties, and exams at school. When subjected to stress, individuals will use coping strategies—thoughts or behaviors for managing the effects of stress.

Black people face an additional type of stress: racism. Therefore, Black people who are regularly exposed to racial discrimination need coping mechanisms to manage race-based stress. How do they do it? In our study, we examined 26 published articles that tried to answer that question.

What is the Answer?

Black people use more than one strategy in response to racism. The two most frequently mentioned strategies were social support, such as talking with friends and family, and religion, which includes praying, going to church, and engaging spiritually.

The type of racist experience also influences the type of coping strategy that was used. When Black people face institutional racism, they tend to use active coping strategies—taking direct action to reduce the effects or distress resulting from the situation. When Black people face cultural racism, they tend to use collective coping and social support. When Black people face interpersonal racism, they tend to use spiritually-centered coping strategies.

We also observed gender differences in the coping strategies. Black women frequently use social support and religion to validate their experiences and find support. Overt strategies and covert strategies are also utilized. Overt strategies are confronting or speaking out and the covert ones are strategies that are not obviously observable, such as trying to blend in and modifying their own behavior to reduce barriers. We did not find uniform strategies among Black men. Various strategies were reported, such as planning, social support, acceptance, and substance use. We noted that passive strategies such as ignoring were more frequently used by men than women. This could be attributed to the ways society punishes Black men whose reactions and strategies are externally visible.

Do the Strategies Work?

After identifying the strategies, our team sought to evaluate their effectiveness in reducing stress levels. Some coping strategies are more functional than others. Ultimately, functionality depends on the desired goal: reduce emotional distress in the short term, or stop racial discrimination from occurring. We categorized the strategies into three types: dysfunctional, ambiguous, and functional.

  • Dysfunctional coping strategies can have harmful effects on an individual's well-being. An example is John Henryism. This strategy is observed among Black persons who compensate with high levels of effort to cope with long-term stressors such as discrimination. Prolonged use of this strategy can have negative physical impacts such as increased cardiovascular health risks.
  • Ambiguous coping can be helpful or harmful depending on the way the strategies are used. For example, avoidance (such as avoiding confrontation) is a survival skill for Black Americans who face racism. At certain times, confrontation can put Black people in dangerous situations. There are negative impacts related to confrontation including repressed anger, depression, and less autonomy. But there are also positive outcomes of confrontation including having agency and overcoming powerlessness, especially in the context of racial discrimination.
  • Functional coping strategies are the most optimal when coping with racism. Social support is one of the most beneficial tools against racial trauma. Social networks can lead to positive affirmation. Affirmation from others can be very effective when managing stress. Also, identity-affirming strategies like Africultural coping are favorable as they allow Black people to reclaim the value of their identity. Finally, religious practice provides individuals with meaning as to their role in the world and offers an established positive viewpoint on self-identity.

Empowerment and Social Change

Coping strategies will relieve emotional distress, but will not be useful in reducing racism, the fundamental cause of the problem. Social change will occur when strategies are directed at eliminating racism. This can be achieved through the promotion of empowerment which is also essential for well-being. Black people will feel better prepared to cope with racism when they understand how it works, when they feel secure with their identity, and when they have the tools to address racial discrimination when it presents itself. Racialized individuals must be empowered in order to progress toward the goal of eradicating racism.


For Further Reading

Jacob, G., Faber, S. C., Faber, N., Bartlett, A., Ouimet, A. J., & Williams, M. T. (2023). A systematic review of Black people coping with racism: Approaches, analysis, and empowerment. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 18(2), 392–415. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916221100509


Grace Jacob is a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology at the University of Ottawa. She is interested in mental health within Black communities.