entwined with our beliefs about stressful events. ... HOW DOES STRESS AFFECT ME? Psychological ... into situations that have caused you to feel stressed.
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The Wave, Lane4 Issue 2 – November 2011
Making the grass greener: using ‘psychological gardening’ to blossom under pressure ARTICLE BY Faye
F. Didymus & David Fletcher
The Wave, Lane4 Issue 2 – November 2011
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“As individuals with fast paced, demanding lifestyles where the emphasis on productivity at work is as prominent as ever, it is vital that we understand our thoughts about and reactions to stress.”
A
garden can be a beautiful place; a haven for peace and tranquillity. Yet it can quickly turn into a mass of weeds and brambles if it is not adequately looked after. The mind is very similar; ‘psychological gardening’ is an analogy used here, which views the mind as a garden that should be nourished, cropped, and harvested to support ultimate functioning. The focus of this article is on the ways in which we can prune ineffective thoughts to allow more effective ones to become entwined with our beliefs about stressful events. In today’s economic climate where financial instability and job uncertainty are rife, stress is becoming more abundant. Thus, stress in the workplace, or job stress as it is more commonly known amongst psychologists, is becoming an increasingly hot topic. It is generally agreed that job stress impacts on our well-being and social and personal lives, as well as on labour turnover, employee absence, and presenteeism1.
When we understand these wide reaching impacts of job stress, it is easy to appreciate why it is crucial that we understand how stress affects us and what we can do to blossom when we are under pressure. In order to wilt the negative impact that job stress has on our lives, we need to understand how we react to the events that cause us to feel stressed and begin to approach them in a more fertile way. The key to achieving this begins with understanding how stress affects us as individuals.
3) Learn the Consequences of the events that cause you to feel stressed. This boils down to knowing ourselves and beginning to recognise the negative thoughts that occur automatically, without conscious effort. What makes us Blossom and Why Do We Wilt?
Thought diaries are a powerful tool for unearthing how stress affects us2. These can be flexible in the form of a diary, a notepad, or a noteHow does Stress Affect Me? making application on your mobile phone; any means of recording Psychological gardening begins with your thoughts that works for you is spotting the weeds. Psychological suitable. Once you have your thought stress occurs when we believe that diary tool, the aim is to intentionally we cannot cope with some kind of increase your awareness by recording demand. In order to understand how events soon after they have grown job stress affects us, we should begin into situations that have caused you with three simple Cs: to feel stressed. Your thought diary 1) Identify the events that Cause can be as detailed or as brief as you your stressful reactions. like and may contain branches of notes around, amongst others, the 2) Get to know your Character following areas and questions: and how it affects your reactions to stressful events. (please see overleaf)
1 – Dewe, P. J., O’Driscoll, M. P., & Cooper, C. L. (2010). Coping with work stress: A review and critique. Chichester, UK: John Wiley 2 – Travers, C. (in press). Unveiling a reflective diary methodology for exploring the lived experiences of stress and coping. Journal of Vocational Behavior.
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The Wave, Lane4 Issue 2 – November 2011
The event that Caused my stressful reaction: - What happened? - When did it happen? - Who was involved?
My Character and what this event means to me:
2) By providing an opportunity to cultivate optimism through recognition of the situations where we have room for positive growth. Benefits of Optimism: - Increased psychological well-being - Less distress experienced after difficult situations - Decreased chance and severity of physical and mental illness
pressure. One way of doing this is by using a technique called cognitive restructuring. This technique challenges you to address and change the roots of your fruitless, negative thoughts and nurture a more positive outlook. If you effectively employ these psychological gardening techniques, you may train your mind to begin viewing stressful situations in a more positive light and begin to experience the notion that the grass really is greener on the other side! Notwithstanding the above, the plethora of factors that affect our experiences means that there may never be one quick fix solution to the question of how to reduce the negative outcomes of stress. Indeed, the practise of thought diaries is challenging and requires determination and dedication, particularly at first. However, they become increasingly natural as time passes and they provide a promising tool for the promotion of psychological well-being in every area of our lives. As individuals with fast paced, demanding lifestyles, where the emphasis on productivity at work is as prominent as ever, it is vital that we understand our thoughts about and reactions to stress. Fundamentally, we have a choice. We can choose to be stressed by the events that present themselves or we can decide not to be stressed and strive to live a calmer, healthier, and ultimately more productive life.
- Why is this event causing me to feel stressed? - What do I think about the event? 3) By increasing awareness, or what - How do I feel about the event? psychologists refer to as mindfulness, The Consequences: of negative thought patterns about stressful events. - How did I react to this event? - What impact will this event have Benefits of Mindfulness: on me and my performance? - Stress reduction My Patterns: - Elevation of positive emotions - Elevation of positive outcomes - Is this event similar or different to other events that have caused To elaborate briefly on mindfulness, me to feel stressed? it refers to the art of bringing your How Will I Benefit complete attention to the present From Maintaining a experience. The aim is to develop Thought Diary? a non-evaluative, non-judgemental awareness that allows thoughts, Thought diaries have been tried feelings, and experiences to be and tested in a variety of domains acknowledged and accepted for including psychology, geography, what they are. Once we are aware, or and medicine, and the benefits have mindful, of the events and thought 3 been well documented . They are a patterns that cause us to feel stressed useful tool that can aid psychological we are equipped with the knowledge gardening in a number of ways: to address them. 1) By allowing the identification of Our brains are wired to make stressful event patterns and thus, us behave in particular ways when highlighting the types of events responding to the events that we that cause us to feel stressed. encounter. If the behaviours we display are unhelpful, we are likely Example event patterns: to feel stressed by the situation and “Between stimulus and response is - The events I usually find stressful there is an increased chance that our greatest power – the freedom are those that are new to me we will become unproductive. to choose”4 - The events that I often find stressful By developing our mindfulness we are those that are imminent can learn about how our brains are - The events that I usually find wired to make us behave and then stressful are those that are begin to change this programming unpredictable and start to blossom when put under 3 – Pennebaker, J. W., & Segal, D. (1999). Forming a story: The health benefits of narrative. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 55(10), 1243–1254. 4 – Covey, S. (2004). The 7 habits of highly effective people. Bath, UK: Bath Press.
The Wave, Lane4 Issue 2 – November 2011
Top Tips for psychological gardening
The Three Cs 1) Get to know your Character and how it affects your reactions to stressful events 2) Identify the events that Cause your stressful reactions 3) Learn the Consequences of the events that cause you to feel stressed
Understand how stress affects you (e.g. by using thought diaries) and allow yourself to plant the seeds that will enable you to flourish
Take time over your thought diary to contemplate, reflect, and learn
Become mindful and optimistic by consciously challenging your thoughts if they describe an event in a pessimistic and unhelpful way
First become mindful (focus your awareness on the present moment), then cognitively restructure (learn to evaluate and respond to events in a more productive way)
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