UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Stress gets a bad reputation. Information about the negative effects of stress — from physical health to mental and emotional wellbeing — and strategies for handling stress abound in self-help books, on social media and in podcasts. And stress, in general, is bad for a person’s health, according to prior research published by Penn State Distinguished Professor of Human Development and Family Studies David Almeida.
Yet, according to Almeida, not all stress is harmful. He has studied daily stress over the lifespan and how it affects physical health for more than 30 years and has published over 350 papers on the topic of stress and health.
In the Q&A below, Almeida explained how experiences of daily stress change with and how to learn to better handle stress.
Q: What is stress, and how do you measure it?
Almeida: When I think of stress, there are two basic components: the source of the stress and the response to it. The source of the stress — often called the stressor — is an event or experience that triggers stress, like an argument with a partner or a last-minute change to travel plans. The response is how we react to that stressor. Our responses can be emotional, like being grumpy, angry or agitated about the stressor; biological, like spikes in cortisol and blood pressure; or behavioral, like losing sleep, making unhealthy food choices or not exercising.
My work focuses on daily stressors, which are the small, mundane events that cause inconveniences in our lives. While they are not life-changing, they have an impact on our mental and emotional state in the moment.
A bad car accident might be a major life event, but being stuck in traffic would be a daily stressor. I’m interested in understanding the sheer frequency of these daily stressors and how they affect our health.
I measure stress by combining daily reports of people’s experiences, feelings and health behaviors with data from saliva samples, which contains information about how they responded biologically. Based on this information, we can connect the reports of a stressor directly to both emotional and biological stress reactions.
Q: How does stress affect our health and wellbeing?
Almeida: I first started this work wanting to test the hypothesis that exposure to stressors was the key to understanding health, but that’s not what I found. Instead, the key to understanding health is how we react to stressors.
We did a series of analyses examining participants who never reported experiencing stressors. We found that, on average, these people worked fewer hours and had less family stress, but they were less likely to report positive events in their lives. They were also less likely to engage in social and emotional support systems with others.
While negative emotional reactions to stress can contribute to a wide range of health problems — from high blood pressure and heart disease to poor sleep habits and weakened immunity — we have also found that exposure to stressors can be beneficial.
Daily stress often serves as a social magnet. When we are experiencing a stressor, we naturally want to connect with someone and seek support. Daily stress also presents opportunities for new experiences and problem-solving. Even small things, like repairing a leaky pipe or fixing phone issues, engage our brains and often force us to seek help from others.
Managing stress may be good for the brain and cognition, just like exercise is for the body. With an exercise regimen, the body becomes strong. Similarly, by managing our stress and developing productive stress responses, our cognitive and mental health can become stronger. In the analyses mentioned above, we found that the individuals who didn’t experience stressors also performed lower on tests of cognitive functioning, which to us, indicates there are some benefits to experiencing stress.
Q: How should people respond to daily stressors?
Almeida: There are a couple pieces of advice I would give to anyone, especially young people, about managing stress.
First, focus on the stressor and find a way to manage the problem. Effectively managing the problem will help you develop a sense of control over the situation and give you motivation to address it effectively.
For example, if you regularly get stuck in traffic, you could research alternative routes to not only avoid the traffic, but also to explore new local areas. Or you could find a new podcast to engage your mind to make better use of the extra time in the car.
Conversely, I would caution people against running away from their stressors. Stress can feel horrible in the moment, but certain daily stressors are a natural part of life. The best approach is to develop strategies to resolve these stressors so that the next time they happen, they won’t be as upsetting.
The second piece of advice I have for managing stress is to do what your body has naturally evolved to do when it is stressed: move. Your body responds to stress by mobilizing energy to deal with the stressor, so go for a walk, dance, breathe deeply. This is what our bodies ask us to do when we feel stressed.
Q: Does our relationship with stress change as we age?
Almeida: I direct the National Study of Daily Experiences at Penn State, one of the world’s longest-running studies of everyday stress and wellbeing. For more than three decades, my colleagues and I have followed the same group of Americans, asking them about the small stressors they encounter in their daily lives and how they respond. This long-term perspective allows us to see how daily stress accumulates and changes across adulthood. Much of recent research focuses on how people’s relationships with stress evolves as they age.
In general, older people report fewer stressors than younger people. We see this pattern both among different people across generations, as well as within the same person as they age. Our research has found that people in their 20s experience daily stressors on roughly 50% of their days. That percentage declines with age. Whereas people in their 70s experience stressors on roughly 15% to 20% of their days.
As people age, they tend to be exposed to fewer stressors. Retirement brings fewer work stressors; children are grown and having their own families, which removes daily parenting stress.
However, we also see that as people age, they have greater perceived control. Perceived control, or the belief that we can influence our own actions and emotions, is a great psychological resource. It gives us motivation to act and helps us feel like we can successfully take on challenges. After a lifetime of dealing with daily stressors, people learn to manage them, resolve them, and ultimately, feel more in control. Like anything else, gaining control over our stress takes practice, and the only way to become better at it is to do it more regularly.
Q: You were recently named distinguished professor of human development and family studies at Penn State. What does this recognition mean to you?
Almeida: I am very honored by the recognition. In many ways, it reflects the work of the many students, collaborators and study participants who have been part of this research over the years. Penn State has been a wonderful place to do this work because of its strong commitment to research and collaborative environment.
Studying stress for more than 30 years has also taught me that stress is not always a bad thing. The right kinds of challenges can motivate us, help us grow, foster wonderful relationships and push our work forward.