Science: Benefits of Turning Toward Discomfort and How It Relates to Reputation
Maybe courageously, curiously and intelligently walking through high stress can protect us now and make us stronger in the process
Extreme discomfort is not attractive to most of us. Add some anxiety or fear to the mix and it becomes more challenging to address what needs addressing to solve our bigger and biggest challenges.
Yet what if we decided to immerse ourselves in it? What then?
In “The Science Says: There Can Be Benefits in Turning Toward Discomfort or Negative Emotions, With Acceptance,” J. David Cresswell, writing at Scientific American magazine, talks about the opportunities for us to triumph over our perceptions, emotions and psychology and earn helpful or desirable outcomes.
I will discuss later how that connects to the emotional distress which accompanies reputation adversity but first, let’s see what the research revealed and writer details.
Creswell is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University and leads the Health and Human Performance Laboratory, which studies wellness, resilience under stress and the science of mindfulness meditation training. He is also the chief of science at Equa Health.
"What may sound like a punishing choice, to directly confront hurt or distress, may in some instances be beneficial,” he writes. “A stream of scientific articles suggests that there are benefits in turning toward discomfort or negative emotions with acceptance. All of us can gain from finding ways to cope with stress and suffering — particularly when larger circumstances are beyond our control."
Let’s talk about this for a moment if we may before getting to Creswell’s analysis.
Confronting what may most tax us emotionally and psychologically can certainly feel like, or be punishing. Why would anyone want to subject themselves then to turning towards those feelings, taking the next steps to working through them and tackling the tasks at hand to solve some level of pain we want to avoid?
Well, as Creswell wrote, the research indicates that there are rewards to be had for choosing to accept what has happened, is happening or may occur.
That’s really difficult yet possible and usually the way through and out of the pain of the moment and the stress or fear of the future.
“It’s important to first define the idea of turning toward discomfort,” Creswell writes. “I’m not advocating for people to put themselves in dangerous or excruciating positions. But when we push ourselves into challenging or discomfiting situations, much like trainers who push athletes just past their comfort zone to make gains, learning often happens.
“Indeed, a 2022 study with more than 2,000 people demonstrated that those participants who were explicitly encouraged to push themselves into awkward, uncomfortable situations across multiple domains… later reported the greatest degree of personal growth.”
Now maybe the phrase “personal growth” means nothing to you or you find it annoying — I personally know people who would roll their eyes at it — but there is more than growth at stake, I contend: There are improved, less stressful, less anxious, happier outcomes possible, turning the odds in your favor.
“Another study, published this year,” Cresswell writes, “found that people who can face their negative emotions, such as sadness or anger, in a neutral way are more satisfied and less anxious and have fewer symptoms of depression than those who judge their negative feelings harshly.
“That study fits into a growing consensus in psychology that suggests we can learn powerful lessons about ourselves provided we can sit with our emotions and thoughts with an open, curious mind.”
Did you notice any “wow” in what Creswell reported? We can likely become much less anxious and have fewer symptoms of depression (and other strong, dangerous emotions) if we can work to “accept” our feelings as being a reflection of how we are doing but not a limit on how our lives may always be.
That does not mean in any sense that we have tolerate wrongdoing and not take moral and legal steps to remedy it. It means coming to grips with the reality of our reactions and responses to our experiences and seek to process it all in healthy ways to gain some level of peace that is sufficient or a significant relief.
In regards to reputation, we might be negatively impacted by our judgment and actions or by other people’s unsavory, immoral and-or illegal behavior. To solve such hurt and suffering, the way out is the way through and that, the science shows, is made possible and easier (but not easy) by intelligently moving towards discomfort.
Michael Toebe is a reputation consultant, advisor and communications specialist at Reputation Quality, assisting individuals and organizations with further building reputation as an asset or ethically protecting, restoring or reconstructing it.
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