Stress and relationships

"So at the end of the day, science matters  most to us when it can make our lives better. So, let's apply stress to something many of us care about. Our relationships.

 

As I alluded to earlier, one area of our lives that is often greatly injured by stress response is the world of social relationships. When you find yourself in the trenches, getting stressed with your close friend, a family member or a partner, you're at greater risk of doing something that you might later regret. The times in my life when I've said the most hurtful things to people that I love, are times when I was in, was in like a different state of mind. John Gottman of the Gottman institute, call this phenomenon, physiologic flooding.

Physiologic flooding is the stress response. The flooding of certain systems that, interestingly, when it comes to relationships, seems to be a bad thing. It turns out that some of our higher-order brain functions, tend not to work as well when we are stressed out. Something called cortical inhibition. Our most recently area involved, areas of the brain like the prefrontal cortex, help us navigate our complex social worlds, and tend to not function as well when we're under stress.

 

Gottman spent his entire career collecting data on couples in his lab. Observing times when they were connecting, and times when they were fighting. So one day he was doing a session in the lab with a couple, that was hopelessly stuck in a fight that just was not resolving. Both were aroused with high heart rates, animated. They were shouting, pointing and really being monsters to one another. And he was happy because he was getting some good conflict data. Until by accident, he had an issue with his computer and data collection. Embarrassed, he requested that the couple to please pause their conflict, so he could get the devices back online and working again. And that they just read a magazine, or do something else until he alerted them to continue. And by the time he got the machines working again, and the couple continued, the most miraculous thing had happened. They were no longer physiologically aroused. And they had transformed from the ugly monsters, into reasonable people who quickly, worked through their issue. Later work in the lab repeated the same finding. Discovering what he refers to again, physiologic flooding. When his subjects and conflict had heart rates that increase into the mid 90s. So the point at which sympathetic input begins, indicating the start of the stress response. Those people were less empathetic. They were less resourceful, and overall much crappier relationship partners. Now, when we asked them to pause long enough to reduce the flooding, they were much more able to create better relationship outcomes.

 

So now, you're able to make sense out of the poor choices you've made in the past when in a stressed out state. You may not have a heart rate monitor handy. But lucky for us, we can learn to know what it feels like in our body to become stressed. Now that you know about cortical inhibition and physiologic flooding. You know when that anxiety or fear starts creeping up, that you're body and brain may not be in the best place for making relationship choices. It's a good time to remove yourself from the situation. Employ yourself soothing technique. Do what you can to come back to neutral, before reengaging. We will learn some self soothing practices in the later modules. In the mean time, it seems that mom's old wisdom for counting to ten has some real scientific support."

 

Dal corso online "Your Body in the World: Adapting to Your Next Big Adventure"