Chapter 5. Your Outlook On Life

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Your outlook on life, which is reflected in your explanatory style, influences your ability to cope effectively with stress. The Life Orientation Test was developed to measure individual differences in pessimism and optimism (Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994).

Indicate your level of agreement with each of the statements that follow using the radio buttons, where 0 = strongly disagree, 1 = disagree, 2 = neutral, 3 = agree, and 4 = strongly agree. Please be as honest and accurate as you can throughout. Try not to let your response to one statement influence your responses to other statements. There are no correct or incorrect answers. Answer according to your own feelings, rather than how you think most people would answer.

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If your score on the Life Orientation Test was very low, you probably have a pessimistic viewpoint. And such pessimism can leave you more vulnerable to the physical and emotional effects of stress, which in turn increase stress. Pessimists’ self-defeating interpretation of stressful life events is often the result of automatic thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes. For example, if you get caught in a traffic jam, you might think: "Why me?" "Why now?" or "This is going to be an awful day!" These responses often appear before you’ve taken a moment to rationally evaluate your situation.

When you become aware of your thought processes, you can modify them through various techniques. You can utilize the following four-step approach for reducing stress developed by Herbert Benson and Eileen Stuart and explained in Dr. Benson’s book (1996).

1. Stop: Whenever you encounter a stressful situation, STOP, before your thinking jumps to the worst possible conclusion about what will happen. Doing so will interrupt the negative stress cycle before it gets underway.
2. Breathe: Breathing deeply will release physical tension and help trigger relaxation. Deep breathing will also further divert your attention from the stressor.
3. Reflect: When you break the automatic tendency to magnify every stressful event, you can focus your energy on the cause of the problem at hand. This process of reflection will help you identify the source of the stress, appraise/reappraise the situation, and understand why you are reacting as you are. Ask yourself these questions: "What’s going on here? Why am I feeling stressed? Are things really as bad as they seem? Is there another way to look at this situation? Can I handle this?"
4. Choose: After you have stopped your automatic thinking, taken a deep breath to promote relaxation, and reflected on the cause of your stress, you can choose the best strategy for dealing with it. Here are four possible copings strategies:
   • Problem Solving, Think Twice, Act Once. This doesn’t mean procrastinate. Sometimes, temporarily putting off a problem until it can be dealt with more effectively is the best strategy. Listing the pros and cons of possible solutions to a problem can help you take a new perspective. It can also reduce stress by demonstrating that you do have some options.
   • Reappraise. Reappraisal, or reframing, is the ability to interpret an event from a different perspective. The classic example is how you "see" a glass that is filled to its middle: Is it half empty or half full? In thinking about her failure to get a part in the school play, a student who had originally been very stressed by "failure" reframed the experience with the old saying: "I’m not a failure if I don’t succeed; I’m a success because I tried".
   • Don’t Ruminate. Some people dwell too long on a problem before taking action, playing it over and over again (ruminating) in their minds for fear of taking the wrong step. Rather than becoming paralyzed into a state of inaction, sometimes the best thing to do is to act immediately (and directly) to solve a problem. Worried about a festering situation with a friend, for example, a student may simply decide to confront the problem head-on. The friend is likely to appreciate her honest concern for their relationship, which makes a good starting point for working out the problem.
   • Seek Social Support. Seeking others for support should always be considered an option in coping with a stressful event or situation. Friends, relatives, coworkers, and professionals can be sources of instrumental and emotional support during times of stress.

Stress is a fact of life, but it is a fact you can learn to manage in ways that do not compromise your physical or psychological well-being. Each time you encounter a stressful situation, make a conscious effort to apply the four-step model.

Benson, H. (1996). Timeless healing: The power and biology of belief. New York, NY: Scribner.

Scheier, M. F., Carver, C. S., & Bridges, M. W. (1994). Distinguishing optimism from neuroticism (and trait anxiety, self-mastery, and self-esteem): A re-evaluation of the Life Orientation Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(4), 1063–1078.