A New Strategy to Cope with Emotional Stress

How do healthcare workers, emergency responders, and anyone in high-stress environments sustain wellbeing for the long-run? A new study from MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research may have an answer. "How you think can improve how you feel," says John Gabrieli, an MIT brain and cognitive sciences professor and senior author of the paper. In the study, MIT researchers showed a series of images (ranging from neutral, such as fruit, to highly aversive content, such as bodily injury) to two cohorts of adults. Participants were aware of the kinds of images they'd be exposed to and could opt out of the study at any point. Upon seeing distressing images, participants were asked to practice an emotional regulation strategy -- either distancing (coping with a negative event by "imagining it as happening far away, a long time ago, or from a third-person perspective) or social good ("viewing a negative situation as an opportunity to help others or prevent further harm"). Participants of the study reported feeling better when they used either the distancing or social good strategy compared to when they did not, indicating "that the social good approach may be a potent strategy to combat the immense emotional demands of certain professions," Gabrieli states.

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