Dealing with ‘microstress’ in daily life: three tips for more peace

Microstresses: these are small moments of stress that we encounter every day, which often go unnoticed, but generally rob us of our energy.

American authors Rob Cross, Karen Dillon and Kevin Mart examined various microstress factors and strategies to deal with them in a study among more than 10,000 participants.

In an article for the American ‘Harvard Business Review’ you describe how you can find out where or who the stress comes from and what you can do to reduce it, so that you have more energy for important things. They advise, among other things:

The best way to start is with small adjustments in your daily life. Each week, choose one micro-stressor that you specifically want to address. If you feel like you can’t fully trust your team at work, you can change that by having a nice conversation with colleagues about what’s going on with them during the week. This builds trust and makes you feel more secure.

According to the researchers, stressful or negative interactions with family members or friends were the top microstressor for most study participants. The key here is to understand that you should not question the relationships themselves, but the interactions you have within them.

For example, one study participant transformed a regular meeting with her parents that she found stressful: instead of spending two and a half hours at her parents’ house every weekend, she made a regular appointment for lunch with her mother. This way she could meet the mother and there was no stress due to lack of planning.

Whether it’s volunteering, taking up a new hobby or making new social connections, different activities can help you develop a sense of meaning in life and find a better way to deal with microstress.

The study found: The happiest subjects were better able to correctly classify microstresses in their lives. This could be because they were part of two or three groups (such as clubs) outside their professional and family lives, and were concerned with things that were important to them personally, the authors report.

This diversity in life allowed them to recognize and evaluate small things as such, making them more resistant to microstress. These subjects were also able to deal with matters beyond their control with more confidence.