Benefits of Social Support and Avoiding Unhealthy Coping Strategies

1. Chapter 88.4 Seek and maintain social support8.5 Avoid unhealthy coping strategies

2. Social support • Social support has been described as “support accessible to an individual through social ties to other individuals, groups, and the larger community.” (Lin, Simeone, Ensel, & Kao, 1979) • The National Cancer Institute’s Dictionary of Cancer Terms defines social support as “a network of family, friends, neighbors, and community members that is available in times of need to give psychological, physical, and financial help” (www.cancer.gov).

3. Advantages of social support • Numerous studies indicate social support is essential for maintaining physical and psychological health. • The harmful consequences of poor social support and the protective effects of good social support in mental illness have been well documented. • Social support may moderate genetic and environmental vulnerabilities and confer resilience to stress, possibly viaits effects on the hypothalamic pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) system, the noradrenergic system, and centraloxytocin pathways. (Ozbay, Johnson, Dimoulas, Morgan, Charney, & Southwick, 2007)

4. Advantages of social support • Social buffers soften the inevitable bumps and bruises of life. • Studies show that social ties—at least those that represent positive relationships—significantly protect health and well-being. • In Sweden, researchers following more than 17,000 men and women for six years found that the group that reported the most isolation and loneliness had almost four times the risk of an early death as those with good social networks. • California researchers who tracked roughly 7,000 Alameda County residents for nine years found that a lack of strong community and social bonds multiplied the likelihood of dying by nearly two to three times. (Harvard Health Publication, 2011)

5. Unhealthy coping strategies • If you tend to deal with stress in less-than-healthy ways, you are compounding the negative impacts of stress on your health by exacerbating the stress levels and creating new problems in your life and health. • Some common unhealthy ways of coping with stress, along with some of the negative effects of each, and ideas on how to curb or change the bad habit itself or lessen its impact. (Scott, 2016)

6. Bad Habit #1: Consuming too much Caffeine: • Multitudes of people enjoy a daily caffeine intake. • Occasional coffee isn’t going to do you great harm, it’s important to remember that caffeine is, in fact, a drug, and it’s possible to have a full-blown caffeine addiction. • More likely and common, however, is caffeine dependence, where people use caffeine to jump-start their energy in the morning, use it throughout the day to stave off a ‘caffeine crash’, and then find their sleep disturbed by caffeine, causing them to wake up tired and need the caffeine jolt to get going again the next day. As the cycle continues, caffeine affects stress levels as well. (Scott, 2016)

7. Bad Habit #2 - Smoking: • For smokers, a cigarette can feel like a good stress reliever. • In fact, during times of stress, a cigarette feels almost necessary, and quitting the habit can seem virtually impossible. (Due in part to physical addiction and in part to habit and other social and lifestyle factors, it’s been said that quitting smoking is as difficult as quitting heroin!) • Unfortunately, we all know that cigarettes can be costly—financially speaking and especially health-wise—and because smoking creates much more stress than it alleviates, it’s more than worth it to kick the habit. (Scott, 2016)

8. Bad Habit #3 - Drinking In Excess • Many people find that a glass of wine can be a good way to unwind at the end of a stressful day, and most physicians and researchers agree, citing studies that show that red wine has benefits for heart health. • However, drinking can be a slippery slope as excessive drinking can cause problems in virtually every area of a person’s life, causing much more stress in the long run. • If you are one who has trouble limiting alcohol consumption to one or two drinks, and even if you can drink very moderately but find that this is your only regular stress management practice, it would likely be in your best interest to pursue other forms of stress relief.  (Scott, 2016)

9. Bad Habit #4 - Compulsive Spending • People have many ways of relieving stress or of filling a void inside themselves. • While buying yourself a nice gift once in a while can be a nice pick-me-up, and an effective self-care strategy, compulsively buying things to relieve stress or feel good about yourself, spending money you don’t have on things you don’t need, can only cause more financial stress in the long run, and cause feelings of shame, a cluttered home, and add to the stress you were trying to alleviate. (Scott, 2016)

10. Bad Habit #5 - Emotional Eating • Most of us reduce stress with ice cream on occasion, but if eating the wrong things becomes the main coping mechanism for stress, it can lead to compromised health, excessive weight, and additional stress stemming from these effects. • A poor diet can cause additional stress also by leading to blood sugar imbalances that make stressful situations seem more overwhelming. • Additional unhealthy responses and bad habits include self-sabotage and lashing out at others, working to the point that you live an imbalanced lifestyle, and other things. (Scott, 2016)