Senia Maymin is the founder and editor-in-chief of PositivePsychologyNews.com. She was the series editor for the Positive Psychology News book series that recently published the first book, Resilience: How to Navigate Life's Curves. (Bio, Articles)
A New Bread Line?
“I see doom around the bend when the money runs dry.” ~ JSJ
“In my own work I have been wrestling with how to find the silver lining and communicate it optimistically in the midst of all this doom and gloom…” ~ JM
“Paradoxically, the more I strain, the more success may elude me. Yet, without some strain, success will also elude me.” ~ S
This month’s topic is stress and resilience.
Our optional monthly theme for authors is a way of focusing some of the content while keeping other content surprising. If you have suggestions for future optional themes you would like to see, please include these thoughts in the discussion section below.
Please let up know below in the discussion section what questions you specifically have about stress or resilience, and we will gather research and, as translators, will translate that research into applicable summaries to address your thoughts!
Image:: A new Depression? courtesy of futureatlas.com
3 comments
The question I have is about the effects that regular consumption of the 24/7 news cycle has on one’s stress and resilience. I.E. does reducing consumption reduce stress and strengthen resilience?
My perception is that there is too much emphasis on catastrophe and what is going wrong in the world with the majority of news reporting, both print and audio/visual. For example, in my country Australia, the media reports on the “swine flu” were extremely overblown in comparison to the number of deaths that occur each due to “regular” strains of the flu. I have been growing increasingly disenchanted with news reporting during the past couple of years. My intentions are to drastically reduce my news consumption and see what effects it has on me.
I’ll be keenly awaiting any research that is uncovered on news consumption and stress and resilience.
Many thanks,
Ben
I concur with Ben. If there is any research relating to the consumption of negative news on the development of stress or depression, I’d be very interested.
I have personally found that having periodical news “sabbaticals” is very beneficial for my overall sense of wellbeing. During these, I find that if there’s something really big happening, people will mention it in conversation. Otherwise getting the essentials from credible online news services like the ABC (here in Australia) is sufficient to stay informed without getting dragged down by the hyperbole of commercial stations.
I’d also be interested to know if there has been any research done specifically relating to the impact of the supervisor on employee stress and resilience. I’ve heard many statistics quoted from surveys about how the majority of people leave jobs because of their boss, but I wonder if there has been any specific research on the topic.
Adele
Ben and Adele,
Thank you both. I think one of the authors will be addressing this topic of negative news and stress this month. Thank you both! Senia