The Farmer Stress Management Toolbox Part 3

Mastering Your Emotional Response to Stress

This article is the third and final article in The Stress Management Toolbox, a series of publications related to stress management on the farm. This series of three articles will help you understand the impacts of stress on your health, work environment, and daily life. It will provide you with strategies and tools that help you manage stress and reduce its impact on your daily life. The two previous articles in the Stress Management Toolbox can be found using the links under the article description. The first article in the series defined the concept of stress and its different dimensions. The second article provided information to help you identify the symptoms of stress. This article will describe strategies to cope with stress.

Agriculture is one of the most hazardous occupations. Farmers and farmworkers are injured four times more than the average worker (Elkind, 2005). Experiencing a consistently high level of stress negatively affects our health and work performance. Chronic exposure to stressful life events has been associated with various psychiatric syndromes, including major depression and anxiety disorders (Gold et al., 1988; Tafet & Bernardini, 2003). For example, having several days of stress related to the agricultural commodity market fluctuation or late harvest due to many rainy days may negatively impact farmers' energy level, sleep pattern, and farm business performance. The Center of Farm Health and Safety at Eastern Washington University conducted a study addressing the question: "If a farmer knows that a practice is unsafe or unhealthy, why does he or she still perform these unsafe practices". The focus groups among individuals involved in agribusiness showed that occupational stress prevents farmers from taking appropriate safety precautions even when they are aware of the dangers of the practices (Elkind, 2005).

Stress reduction techniques can play a positive role in reducing stress and increasing the health and safety of farm operators (Elhind et al., 2005). Below, we summarized the following four stress reduction practices that can help to master your emotional stress response: 

Practice Deep Breathing

Deep breathing techniques are one of the fastest ways to reduce stress. Deep breathing can induce an improvement in mood and reduced stress levels in both self-reported evaluations and objective parameters, such as heart rate and salivary cortisol levels (Perciavalle et al., 2017). Deep breathing exercises help control stressful situations, including anxiety and panic. Additionally, a regular practice of this technique helps to deal with depression symptomatology and emotional responses.

Many Apps are available to help practice deep breathing, one of them is Calm.

See deep breathing instruction: 

Practice Gratitude

Cultivate gratitude for simple things. Practicing gratitude will make you more resilient. Think about the fact that many people do not have a lot of things that you have. Learn how to view life failures as an opportunity to learn and grow. Napoleon Hill said that" Every failure will teach you a lesson that you need to learn if you will keep your eye and ears open and be willing to be taught. Every adversity is usually a blessing in disguise. Without reverses and temporary defeat, you would never know the sort of metal of which you are made." p.469.

• Start your day with gratitude. Think of three to four people in your life for whom you are grateful.
• Keep a gratitude journal: Write one thing you are thankful for at the end of each day. Try to rewrite your negative life experience with a positive thought and lesson learned.
• Make gratitude a habit. In his book, The Mayo Clinic: Guide to Stress-Free Living, Dr. Amid Stood wrote: "Plant the tree of gratitude in the garden of your life. It will produce the fruits of peace, happiness, and contentment for you, your parents, children, friends, and the world" p. 120.

Create A Positive State of Mind

One way is to build a "resilience plan" in which you proactively engage in activities that create positive emotions and then deliberately use these positive moods to fuel your thoughts about stressors. Hobbies, volunteer activities, or sports can give you a sense of accomplishment. Different types of activities have the power to create new mood stages. Pick two to four activities that might work for you, and then plan to fit these activities in your schedule regularly. As soon as you finish your chosen activity, take 20-30 minutes to reflect on how to deal with your stressors. Notice how creative solutions come to your mind.

For example, create interest through exploring and trying new things that help you integrate new information and expand your horizons. Similarly, create relaxation through sports or entertainment, which helps you slow down and find a new perspective, or create amusement through humor that helps you find a new way of thinking, get some distance from your problems, and attain objectivity.

AgrAbility for Pennsylvanians Project is supported under USDA/NIFA Special Projects 2021-41590-34811 in collaboration with Penn State Extension. Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences research and extension programs are funded in part by Pennsylvania counties, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and USDA.

Photo Credits: Canva, prepared by Carolyn Henzi

References

American Psychologic Association (2019) Manage stress: Strengthen your support network.

Blom, M., Georgiades, A., Janszky, I., Alinaghizadeh, H., Lindvall, B., & Ahnve, S. (2009). Daily stress and social support among women with CAD: results from a 1-year randomized controlled stress management intervention study. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 16(3), 227-235.

Carnegie A.M & Elkind P.D (2005). Stress and Strains: An Anthropology of Social Research on Farm Safety. Eastern Washington University

Greenberg, M. (2016). The stress-proof brain: Master your emotional response to stress using mindfulness and neuroplasticity. New Harbinger Publications.

Glynn, L. M., Christenfeld, N., & Gerin, W. (1999). Gender, social support, and cardiovascular responses to stress. Psychosomatic medicine, 61(2), 234-242.

Gold, P. W., Goodwin, F. K., & Chrousos, G. P. (1988). Clinical and biochemical manifestations of depression. New England Journal of Medicine, 319(7), 413-420.

Elkin, A. (2013). Stress management for dummies. John Wiley & Sons.

Kumar, K., & Chaturvedi, R. (2018). An empirical study of social support, stress and life satisfaction among engineering graduates: mediating role of perceived work/study life balance. International Journal of Happiness and Development, 4(1), 25-39.

Perciavalle, V., Blandini, M., Fecarotta, P., Buscemi, A., Di Corrado, D., Bertolo, L., ... & Coco, M. (2017). The role of deep breathing on stress. Neurological Sciences, 38(3), 451-458.

Tafet, G. E., & Bernardini, R. (2003). Psychoneuroendocrinological links between chronic stress and depression. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 27(6), 893-903.

Steptoe, A., Wardle, J., Pollard, T. M., Canaan, L., & Davies, G. J. (1996). Stress, social support, and health-related behavior: a study of smoking, alcohol consumption and physical exercise. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 41(2), 171-180.

Uvnas-Moberg K, Petersson M (2005). Oxytocin, a mediator of anti-stress, well-being, social interaction, growth and healing. Zeitschrift fur Psychosomatische Medizin und Psychotherapie. 51(1):57-80. DOI: 10.13109/zptm.2005.51.1.57. PMID: 15834840

Happy farming. Manage Farm Stress Using Mindfulness.

Managing Stress on the Farm. National Centre for Farmer Health