It’s virtually impossible to scroll through a Twitter feed or read a newspaper without encountering the message that stress is bad for us. Nearly every day, it seems, new studies and articles come out warning that stress is making us sick and depressed, aging our brains, and even taking years off our lives. While it is true that stress has been linked to heart disease, depression, cancer, and other ailments, this is only part of the story. A significant but often under-discussed body of research indicates that stress can have positive psychological and physiological effects. Stress can heighten our focus and elevate performance, improve our body’s immune response and ability to heal itself, and in particularly stressful circumstances, even deepen our sense of resilience and meaning in life. 

So what determines whether stress harms or helps us? Our research suggests that one factor may be our mindsets, or implicit beliefs, about the nature of stress. People who hold a stress-is-enhancing mindset (i.e., who perceive stress as enhancing their health, well-being, and performance), show more adaptive cortisol reactivity (Crum, Salovey, & Achor, 2013), and greater increases in growth hormones (Crum, Akinola, Martin & Fath, 2017), under stressful conditions than those who hold a stress-is-debilitating mindset. In addition, the stress-is-enhancing mindsets is associated with reduced distress among adolescents experiencing adverse life events (Park, Yu, Metz, Crum, & Duckworth, 2018), improved training performance among Navy SEALS (Smith, Young, & Crum, 2020), and greater positive affect among college students studying for final exams (Goyer, Akinola, Grunberg, & Crum, 2021). 

Our lab has also developed and tested novel strategies for stress management, including integrating stress mindset and stress reappraisal approaches (Jamieson, Crum, Goyer, Marotta, & Akinola, 2018), and wearable technologies that provide real-time feedback on physiological stress (Smith, Santoro, Moraveji, Susi, & Crum, 2019). Currently, we are also exploring the potential of metacognitive interventions to change stress mindsets. 

Further Reading

*Goyer, J. P., Akinola, M., Grunberg, R., & Crum, A. J. (2021). Thriving Under Pressure: The Effects of Stress-Related Wise Interventions on Affect, Sleep, and Exam Performance for College Students from Disadvantaged Backgrounds. Emotion. (DOWNLOAD) | (VIEW ON PUBLISHER'S SITE)

*Leibowitz, K. A., & Crum, A. J. (2020, April 1). In stressful times, make stress work for you. The New York Times. (VIEW ON PUBLISHER'S SITE)

*Smith, E. N., Young, M. D., & Crum, A. J. (2020). Stress, mindsets, and success in Navy SEALs special warfare training. Frontiers in Psychology. (DOWNLOAD) | (VIEW ON PUBLISHER'S SITE)

Jamieson, J. P., Crum, A. J., *Goyer, J. P., Marotta, M. E., & Akinola, M. (2018). Optimizing stress responses with reappraisal and mindset interventions: An integrated model. Anxiety, Stress and Coping. (DOWNLOAD) | (VIEW ON PUBLISHER'S SITE)

Park, D., Yu, A., Metz, A., Tsukayama, E., Crum, A. J., & Duckworth, A. (2018). Beliefs about Stress Attenuate the Relation Among Adverse Life Events, Perceived Distress, and Self-Control. Child Development. (DOWNLOAD) | (VIEW ON PUBLISHER'S SITE)

Crum, A. J., Akinola, M., Martin, A., & Fath, S. (2017). The Role of Stress Mindset in Shaping Cognitive, Emotional, and Physiological Responses to Challenging and Threatening Stress. Anxiety, Stress and Coping. (DOWNLOAD) | (VIEW ON PUBLISHER'S SITE)

Crum, A. J., & Crum, T. (2015, September 3). Stress can be a good thing if you know how to use it. Harvard Business Review. (VIEW ON PUBLISHER'S SITE)

Crum, A. J., Salovey, P. & Achor, S. (2013). Rethinking Stress: The Role of Mindsets in Determining the Stress Response. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. (DOWNLOAD) | (VIEW ON PUBLISHER'S SITE)

Research Materials

Click here to check out the Rethink Stress Intervention and here to access the Stress Mindset Measure.