Stress And Happiness – How Are They Linked?
Stress has a unique talent of being able to creep up on us. Slowly but surely, we go from stress being an occasional visitor to work colleague, housemate and then to our new but not-so-enjoyable life partner. Stress can build up over time, and before we know it, it’s an everyday part of our lives, bullying its way into every event, situation, or moment.
When stress hits, it can literally be a mood killer. It seems to deaden every other emotion, it becomes all-encompassing, narrowing our thoughts, feelings and vision, and at its worst, it can stop us in our tracks.
As stress and anxiety pile up, it takes up more room in our lives. Activities or events that used to be enjoyable become overwhelming; we find that life has suddenly become narrow, and the elements of life that used to bring us joy and happiness have suddenly disappeared.
Finding yourself in this situation is difficult, as the downward spiral of stress and anxiety-limiting behaviour is well entrenched and hard to reverse. However, there is good news, as creating an upward spiral using positive emotions can and has been shown in several studies to help reduce stress.
Small Bursts Of Happiness
It’s probably quite a common understanding that to manage stress, we need to add more activities that can reduce stress building up in our lives. Generally, exercise and meditation would be two of the top contenders to help, but often, as mentioned earlier, these types of activities can take time to pick up and start when life feels too overwhelming. So, actioning things a slightly differently may well be the key to kicking off an upward spiral of positive emotions.
Let’s start small, building resilience with tiny but perfectly manageable bursts.
There are many things that can lift our mood; your job is to find those small things in life that give you pleasure.
They can be as small as visiting your favourite café, playing with a pet, sitting in the sunshine at lunch, eating chocolate, or enjoying breakfast with your partner. The important thing is that they are small moments of pleasure that can be added into your day and that you take the time to enjoy them!!
Stress Reduction
Barbara Fredrickson is a psychologist who has pioneered a branch of study which found that positive emotions such as joy or contentment can bring independent and lasting benefits. In her studies, she shows how the elevation of mood helps to change our perspective and behaviours whilst building up a ‘tool kit’ of lasting personal resources, including resilience, closer relationships, and mindfulness. Furthermore, mood elevation can even improve physical health as well as lower levels of depression and higher levels of life satisfaction.
This research has shown how happiness and stress relief are connected and how doing little things to lift your mood really can have a lasting effect on your resilience toward stress. So remember, every time you do something nice for yourself, you are actually taking a step towards feeling less stressed.
How lovely a thought that is!!!
Furthermore, we know that the spiral of upward emotions only increases or gathers speed as your skills or ‘tools in your resilience kit bag’ improves. We see an increase the frequent of good moods, increase health benefits, happiness, and life satisfaction…….and so the spiral of good vibes continues.
Stress Reduction
Barbara Fredrickson is a psychologist who has pioneered a branch of study which found that positive emotions such as joy or contentment can bring independent and lasting benefits. In her studies, she shows how the elevation of mood helps to change our perspective and behaviours whilst building up a ‘tool kit’ of lasting personal resources, including resilience, closer relationships, and mindfulness. Furthermore, mood elevation can even improve physical health as well as lower levels of depression and higher levels of life satisfaction.
This research has shown how happiness and stress relief are connected and how doing little things to lift your mood really can have a lasting effect on your resilience toward stress. So remember, every time you do something nice for yourself, you are actually taking a step towards feeling less stressed.
How lovely a thought that is!!!
Furthermore, we know that the spiral of upward emotions only increases or gathers more speed as your skills or ‘tools in your kit resilience bag’ improves. We see more frequent good moods, increase health benefits, happiness, and life satisfaction. And so the spiral of good vibes continues.
Find Your Happiness
So, take small steps, and look for the joy in the smallest of experiences knowing that each time you do, you are helping to kick off a positive upward motion away from your default stress response that may be dominating your world. Consider each bust of joy a reduction in stress‘s power and a slow eviction from your life.
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