Stress Can Be Your Friend Too

A faculty and licensed psychometrician from the University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV) said that viewing “stress” as a helpful part of life can lead to better health, sound emotional well-being, and improved work productivity.

In a stress management seminar organized by the Philippine Information Agency (PIA)-6 held recently, UPV psychology faculty Helen Grace Fernandez, who spoke to the PIA-6 staff, said that people can also view stress in a ‘positive light’ and treat it as a ‘friend’.

“A person’s explanatory style can either be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said.

Fernandez explained that people’s reaction is dependent on one’s explanatory style which focuses on differences in people’s explanations for the causes of events in their environment.

The optimistic explanatory style is a problem-focused coping strategy which tries to produce change in the world and solve problems externally, while the pessimistic explanatory style is an emotion-focused coping strategy which cuts quickly to emotion regulation strategies rather than spending valuable time and energy on active coping attempts.

Previous studies have shown that a pessimistic explanatory style is a risk factor for illness particularly for young adults.

She said that people can make stress as a friend through “thought substitution” and interpersonal techniques.

“In place of the stressful thought, make up some positive, assertive statements that are appropriate in the target situation,” she said.

She also said that stress can make individuals ‘social’ and helping others creates stress resilience.

“People who spent time caring for others showed no stress related increase (risk) in dying and caring or helping others created resilience,” she emphasized.

It is important to recognize one’s stress responses, Fernandez said, for it provides a signal that one’s body is doing something to help it. (JCM/LTP/PIA-Iloilo).