For over a decade, Dr. Jeremy Jamieson has studied how we can better optimize stress to prompt resilience. His work aims to understand how our experiences of stress can impact our decisions, emotions and performance. Specializing in stress regulation across multiple contexts, including academic achievement, dyadic interactions (two-person interactions), and athletic performance, his research looks at physiological responses, with a key focus on cardiovascular and neuroendocrine (hormone) measures.
Stress and adversity are inevitable on the road toward improvement. We asked Dr. Jamieson some questions to break down his research and share insight that anyone on a similar path can benefit from.
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Why are you dedicated to this field of work and why do you think it is important?
Stress is ubiquitous in our lives. There are a myriad of stressful experiences and stress responses – both good and bad. Even though popular culture mostly presents stress as “bad” or something to be avoided, I’m interested in how we can leverage advances in psychological science to help people move away from the one-sided “stress is always bad” perspective and toward a healthier approach toward stress. I personally became interested in stress and stress regulation from a background in athletics.
Sometimes we can’t choose to get knocked out of homeostasis, but we can choose how we’re going to address that. Stress responses don’t just happen to us, we help shape the responses we have. That is, our psychological processes work to construct the stress responses we have. So, we’re not necessarily victims of what’s happening to us, we do have some agency in how we appraise the stressors in our lives. In fact, some degree of adversity is necessary to build resilience and to help us grow as people. Without it we don’t have those experiences to lean on and draw from in the future.
How would you recommend handling real time stress situations (a game, test, interview)?
One key to thriving in the face of stress in real time is properly preparing for stressors, including unanticipated stressors. Our stress responses are driven by how our brains appraise (or assess) what’s going on. The skills, knowledge, social connections, familiarities, that we’ve acquired throughout our lives can serve as resources that we can apply to address the demands of stressors. If our resources are perceived as outweighing, or being able to handle the stressors presented to us, we experience “challenge-type” stress responses. These are generally healthier, and more helpful for optimizing performance. Compared to “threat-type” stress responses, which manifest if we don’t think our resources are sufficient to meet demands.
We should try to “lean into” the stressful responses. A racing heart or sweaty palms aren’t signs that you’re about to fail - those are physical indications that your body is helping deliver resources where they are needed. A racing heart can help increase oxygen delivery to our brain and major muscle groups, and some stress provide anabolic properties (building up of hormones). Increases in both oxygen and anabolic hormones are very helpful for performance.
So, spending time or energy trying to “turn off” the physical stress responses can actually be counterintuitive toward performance. Instead, we can learn to use stress responses as fuel and reframe it as the body giving us the resources to do the best it can.
What are some specific examples in sport and competition?
We see this manifest a lot in sports like golf, tennis, basketball (free throws), baseball. For example, consider a baseball hitter who’s performed at a high level for many years. They may perceive themselves to be well-equipped to hit against a pitcher they’re facing because of the years of training, skill acquisition and experience around that “challenge-type” response (a typically good response).
However, if that same batter is going through a slump, they might start to question whether their resources are, in fact, sufficient to address the demands of the game. If they then perceive that maybe their swing isn’t great or that the pitcher’s skills exceed theirs, they are likely to fall into the “threat-type” response (a typically bad response). This leads to more questioning, a negative feedback loop, and ultimately, worse outcomes.
The key is to get into “challenge-type” states when we need them. These are helpful in stressful situations that require active responding. The challenge/threat distinction part of this stems from the appraisal pattern that we either do (challenge) or do not (threat) perceive that we possess sufficient resources to address demands in a given context.
How would you recommend handling stress that naturally accumulates from balancing work, life, family responsibilities?
When people report accumulations of individual stressors – the "too much on my plate" kinds of stress – one approach that can help is to engage with and respond to each stressor as it presents itself, or in a compartmentalized manner. Staying mindful and in the moment to address one stressor at a time can guard against the “stress about being stressed,” or worries tied to thinking about all the different sources of stress we need to address.
Compartmentalizing these stressors and our approach to them helps to focus the appraisal (assessment) process more precisely, allowing us to better utilize our resources to address the present task at hand. When we start worrying or ruminating on future stressors, that can snowball into anxiety because we perceived all the demands rolled into a single, insurmountable whole, rather than a set of individual demands that require different resources to address.
How have we evolved to handle stress? What do you think the common response toward stress is, what should it be?
Evolutionary changes at the genetic level cannot keep pace with the rapid progress of human civilization and increasing technical advances in recent centuries. Our stress systems evolved to address physical stressors, such as being harmed, while most stressors in modern society are social in nature.
While “threat- type” stress responses tend to impair performance and lead to worse outcomes, we needed these responses to survive by orienting our attention to sources of potential harm. Potential sources of harm in the evolutionary past were typically physical in nature (e.g., injury, fear of harm, etc.). So, concentrating blood in the core of the body, and preemptively releasing anti-inflammatory agents - these changes are functional to help an organism survive in the face of danger. If we were to be physically harmed, our extremities would be most at risk, so centering blood in the core would help prevent bleeding out. And releasing anti-inflammatory hormones is functional when one anticipates inflammation (like being physically harmed).
When people think about what stress is, they tend to equate it with this “bad” threat type stress and then strive to get rid of the natural feeling or response. Instead, by recognizing that stressors can be anything that present demands and that stress can actually be enhancing – can help each of us be more flexible in our regulatory efforts.
What role do our beliefs and mindsets play in the stress response/outcome?
Psychological processes like beliefs, or mindsets, play a vital role in how we respond to stressors. Think of appraisals (assessments) as tied to specific instances of stress – do I have the resources to address this particular stressor?
Beliefs are mostly situation general. They are like lenses that focus appraisals in specific situations. If someone endorses a mindset that stress can be beneficial, then a racing heartrate is more likely to be appraised as a resource that is helping them, by delivering oxygen throughout their body.
So, our mindset and beliefs have a huge impact on performance.
What are anchors? How can they help stress responses?
Anchors are like cognitive “starting points” or “defaults” we use when making decisions or forming beliefs. With stress, people anchor at cultural norms or the idea that “stress is bad.” We can then adjust or move from these anchors.
While classic work in judgement and decision making indicates that people tend to stay tethered to anchors, we can shift beliefs about stress using methods developed to help people understand and endorse ideas that stress can be enhancing for their lives and performance.
If the new, regulated way of thinking about stress is endorsed by the individual, then the anchor moves away from the negative pole, and can keep moving if successful regulation occurs.
What are some positive social emotions that can improve mental health and wellbeing, and how can these help us better respond to stress?
Positive social emotions including gratitude and compassion, play important roles in sustaining and improving our health and wellbeing. When difficult things happen – maintaining a sense of appreciation and gratitude tends to lead to better health outcomes. Stress isn’t always something we need to take on by ourselves. It helps to have someone, or something that is going to help support us and that we can draw strength from.
Examples include:
- Social support (people care about/love us and our belonging needs are met. Religious practices can provide this kind of support, too.)
- Cooperation/teamwork (we often rely on others when completing tasks)
- Growth opportunities (if other people [family members, teammates, coworkers, etc.] address some of our [often shared] demands, it frees us up to focus on/address other demands). This would be like a parent taking care of a child’s basic needs so s/he can focus on maximizing learning opportunities.
Forming bonds with and becoming closer to others provides us with a social network of people who can help us better respond to stress, and feelings of gratitude and compassion can strengthen those social bonds and provide a springboard for us to be responsive to others’ needs, too.
Why is it important to engage in stressful, difficult or adverse experiences- why should we challenge ourselves?
Learning anything new requires engaging with stressors. Pushing boundaries and seeking greater performance whether on the field, at work, or in the classroom, means stepping outside of our comfort zones to engage with difficult realities, and yes, stressors.
Innovation and achievement are rooted in persevering through adversity. Every new piece of knowledge we learn or skill we develop requires engaging with demands (stressors) and taking them on in order to expand those knowledge bases and skills. Learning to be “comfortable with being uncomfortable” can really help people master adversity and be more resilient, allowing them to break through their limits and thrive.
To do important things we need to go beyond our comfort zones. History has shown us this: innovations don’t happen out of thin air. It’s dangerous to think successful athletes, coaches, artists, musicians, that’s’ how they were born. That’s usually not how it works. You need a baseline level of skill and talent, but developing and growing those skills is vital. What we usually see in society is the end-product, not the hours of work that person has done before then.
How will optimizing our stress responses help enhance our growth?
There is a growing literature on stress optimization effects, so keep an eye out for emerging research in the coming years! Initial findings over the past decade-plus from our lab and others,’ and across many different types of stressful situations have observed improvements in cardiovascular functioning, better performance in the lab and the “real world,” mental health outcomes (reduction in internalizing symptoms), and positive self-regard, to name some.
It is important to note that this approach is not a panacea or “silver bullet” to improving stress outcomes in all situations. Rather, stress optimization is targeted towards helping people optimize their responses in situations where active or instrumental responding is needed, such as competing in a game, interviewing for a job, or completing a difficult assignment at school or work. Given the many different types of stressors we experience, it is important to remember to apply the “right tool for the right job.”
Jeremy Jamieson is a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. For more information on his research please visit:
http://socialstresslab.wixsite.com/urochester