Pennsylva [USA], Feb 29 : While stress can certainly lead to negative health outcomes, a new study by Penn State researchers suggests that stress also benefits people socially.
"Our findings suggest that just because we have a bad day, that does not mean it has to be completely unhealthy," said David Almeida, the lead researcher of the study.
"If stress can actually connect us with other people, which I think is absolutely vital to the human experience, I think that is a benefit. Stress could potentially help people deal with negative situations by driving them to be with other people," Almeida added.
Researchers further asserted that while the negative effects of stress -- such as heart disease, compromised immune function and depressive symptoms -- are well-documented, they were curious if there were potential benefits to stress, such as emotional support.
The team found that experiencing stress made people both more likely to give and receive emotional support from others. This was true on the day they experienced the stress as well as the following day.
"Looking at the current research, I realised that a lot of studies looked at how emotional support is beneficial to other health outcomes. But not many looked at the determinants of social support," said another researcher Hye Won Chai.
"We thought that stress could be a facilitator in these interpersonal exchanges," he added.
The study was published in the journal Stress and Health.
For the study, the researchers interviewed 1,622 participants every night for eight nights. They asked the participants about their stressors and whether they gave or received emotional support on that day. Stressors included arguments, stressful events at work or school, and stressful events at home.
The researchers found that on average, participants were more than twice as likely to either give or receive emotional support on days they experienced a stressor.Additionally, they were 26 per cent more likely to give or receive support the following day. The researchers said that while this effect, on average, was found across the participants, it differed slightly between men and women.
"Women tended to engage in more giving and receiving emotional support than men," Chai said.
"This supports previous findings that women tend to seek more emotional support from other people when they are stressed. In our study, men were also more likely to engage in emotional support on days they were stressed, but to a lesser extent than women," Chai added.
The researchers said they were surprised that stress was linked to people not just receiving emotional support, but giving it, as well.
Almeida said he initially thought that giving emotional support was the stressor itself. But, he reconsidered when they discovered the effect lasted through the next day.
"We saw that someone experiencing a stressor today actually predicted them giving emotional support the next day," he said.
"This made me think that it is actually possible that stress helps to drive you to other people and allows it to be ok to talk about problems -- your problems, my problems," Almeida added.
The lead researcher also said that the results could help practitioners enhance and design better interventions for targeting stress.
"The findings suggest that an intervention geared toward social interaction rather than an individual may be very beneficial. If we are naturally being drawn toward other people when we are stressed to get help, then interventions may benefit by incorporating the people around us," Almeida further said.
( With inputs from ANI )