Values and stress
How you view stress matters. It will impact your thinking and your actions. Where stress is perceived as harmful common responses include avoidance or reduction/numbing e.g., alcohol/substances or some other form of distraction. It isn’t a constructive response. Where stress is perceived as positive there is greater life satisfaction, less depression, increased productivity, greater levels of happiness and so forth. People who adopt this type of mindset elect to view stress as more of a challenge. In making this choice, one’s attention shifts to what is within one’s control and can be addressed e.g., problem solving. Situations outside of one’s control are then opportunities for acceptance, to change one’s attitude to them and for growth. What is your personal mindset around stress? How is it showing up in your life?
Are stress and meaning connected? Research says yes. Stress has been shown to be an inevitable consequence of pursuing goals or engaging in roles that build a sense of purpose. It has also been shown to be instrumental in happiness: busy people are happier and tend to exhibit less depression. So, perceiving meaning and adopting a stress is challenge mindset, when not in full fight or flight, will determine how skilfully we navigate daily hassles and intrusions.
Kelly McGonigal in her book “The Upside of Stress” referred to a 1990s study of Stanford students who were asked to keep a journal over their 3 week winter break. They were divided into two groups:
Group 1 – wrote about their most important values and how they interacted with daily activities.
Group 2 – Wrote about the good things that happened to them.
Group 1 experienced fewer health and illness issues. They were more confident in their ability to manage stress and saw greater meaning in their lives.
McGonigal says “…writing about personal values makes people feel more powerful, in control, proud, and strong. It also makes them feel more loving, connected, and empathic towards others. It increases pain tolerance, enhances self-control, and reduces unhelpful rumination after a stressful experience.” The rationale behind this is that people who are connected to their values have a perception that they can improve their circumstances via their own efforts and with the positive support of others. They also tend to view what faces them as temporary and move to address rather than to avoid or numb themselves. They see meaning in their difficulties.
So what are values? They are NOT GOALS which are about what you want to get, have or complete. Values are feely chosen and loosely held. They are described as “desired global qualities of ongoing action”. What does this mean?:
Desired: references statements about how you want/elect to behave or act, what matters to you and what’s important to you.
Ongoing action refers to how you want to act or behave on an ongoing basis. E.g., these may include acting courageously, being warm, open, caring, loving, giving, sharing and contributing, being responsible, being helpful, being mindful, being a good friend, being open and honest and so forth.
Global qualities refer to a quality that “unites” many different patterns of action e.g., if your value is “being supportive” then there are many different actions that you might take with the quality of “supportiveness” and these actions are available to you at any moment. So key questions to ask yourself are “what personal qualities/strengths do you want to model? “How do you want to behave in your relationships?”
In brief then, values can be likened to a compass. A compass identifies direction and keeps you on track whilst you are travelling. Hence values are a way of choosing the direction in which we want to go and can help to keep us on track when needed as we travel. Goals are things you want to achieve on your journey i.e., sights you want to see whilst travelling – they have a potential completion about them whilst a value is ongoing. So for example, take the difference between “getting married” and “being loving”. Getting married is a goal and not a form of ongoing action. It may be capable of achievement and can be crossed off the list if achieved. Being loving, however, is a value. It is ongoing and the idea is to behave that way for life – there is no endpoint to that way of behaving unless the value is neglected. Values are always available to us whereas goals may not necessarily be achieved.
So, when encountering a stressful situation a mindset shift might be required. Even if something is outside of your control, you can choose how to respond. Reflecting on your values and asking yourself how they can help you in the stressful situation can not only inform your response but may also help you cope.
References: “The Upside of Stress” by Kelly McGonigal, PhD and “ACT made simple” by Russ Harris