We don’t have to put up with stress. Here’s how to take control of this unpleasant feeling.
- In France, the cost of stress at work was estimated in 2007 at between 2 and 3 billion euros (INRS study).
- It affects 4 out of 10 employees.
To reduce stress, nothing better than knowing that it can have positive impacts on our performance. This is what researchers have just demonstrated, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.
Better results
To reach this conclusion, the scientists tested students. Before taking an exam, they explained to a first group of young people that stress has a positive function within the human organism: it serves to identify a threat, which boosts biological and psychological performance. A second group passed the partial without knowing the positive role that stress can have.
Conclusion: compared to the control group, the good knowledge of the positive effects of stress led to “decreased anxiety related to math assessment, more responsive neuroendocrine responses, and better test scores,” write the researchers.
Fewer school dropouts
Following this experiment, the scientists extended their observations of the students over the long term. They then found that young people who were well informed about the positive impact of stress tended to procrastinate less than the rest of the class, to drop out of lessons less and to encounter fewer difficulties at school.
“This alleviation of the negative effects of stress in students could have important practical implications,” conclude the authors of the study.
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