Contagious stress?

If any of you were watching the news recently you may have heard the story about stress being contagious. As if we didn't have enough ways to get stressed!

An ABC News blog reported that researchers at the University of St. Louis recently found that a stress response could be elicited watching someone else, even if you'd never met them, under stress. This isn't the first time researchers have found that those being stressed around us can cause our own stress levels to be higher. Researchers have found evidence of transmission of stress between spouses and parents and children (Engert, et. al., 2014 & Waters, West, & Mendes, 2014). Too much stress can have some very negative effects on us. These can include:

From the Mayo Clinic

How do we relieve stress? I recently had the opportunity to attend a YMCA Healthy Kids Day event in Oskaloosa, Iowa and at our table we asked families to share the ways they relieve stress. Children and adults of all ages participated and came up with some pretty good ideas. Some of them included:

• Deep breathing 
• Running and other types of exercise/sports 
• Praying 
• Massage 
• Meditation 
• Fishing 
• Drawing 
• Quilting 
• Woodworking 
• Spending time with friends 
• Playing games or with toys 
• Being Outside 
• Yoga 
• Taking a nap 
• Getting enough sleep 
• Watch a movie 
• Laugh 

These are all great stress relievers. Can you think of any other good ideas?

Engert, V., Plessow, F., Miller, R., Kirschbaum, C., & Singer, T. (2014). Cortisol Increase in Empathic Stress is modulated by Social Closeness and Observation Modality. Psychoneuroendocrinology.

Waters, S. F., West, T. V., & Mendes, W. B. (2014). Stress Contagion Physiological Covariation Between Mothers and Infants. Psychological Science.