Stress is something all college students can relate
to, but how do we handle stress? Some
people go for a run, lift weights, crack open a cold one, or even cry one to
sleep. Well a new study shows performing
a mundane task such as dishwashing can assist in relieving unnecessary stress
that is if one does it mindfully.
Mindfulness is defined as the ability to be completely aware of one’s
feelings and senses in the present moment while omitting negative thoughts or
distractions.
In their recently published article, Adam Hanley and colleagues proved that mindful dishwashing could be an effective stress reliever. As a doctoral candidate in the College of Education’s Counseling and School Psychology Program at Florida State University, Hanley enrolled 51 college students in the study and had them perform dishwashing tasks. Before doing so, half of the students (control group) were instructed to read a descriptive passage on how to wash dishes. The other half was given a mindful passage about dishwashing, which included instructions to focus on the smell of the soap, the feel of the dishes, and the warmth of the water. State of mindfulness was assessed after participants completed the dishwashing task.
In their recently published article, Adam Hanley and colleagues proved that mindful dishwashing could be an effective stress reliever. As a doctoral candidate in the College of Education’s Counseling and School Psychology Program at Florida State University, Hanley enrolled 51 college students in the study and had them perform dishwashing tasks. Before doing so, half of the students (control group) were instructed to read a descriptive passage on how to wash dishes. The other half was given a mindful passage about dishwashing, which included instructions to focus on the smell of the soap, the feel of the dishes, and the warmth of the water. State of mindfulness was assessed after participants completed the dishwashing task.
The experimental group, those who received the
mindful passage, experienced a 25% increase in mental inspiration and a 27%
decrease in nervousness. Thus, mindful
dishwashing can reduce anxiety and stress and can possibly improve sleep
quality and reduced risk for depression.
Sally,
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting find! I was unfortunately unable to view the entire article, even with use of the Regis library login. I'm curious as to the specific findings of the study. Does the reduced amount of stress result from lowered levels of cortisol release? I found an article (Hou, et al.) that finds decreased cortisol awakening response in patients undergoing mindfulness therapy. Interestingly, they found that cortisol levels depended on mindfulness both during and after stress...would students need to still complete the mindful dish washing (or similar task) even after their stres levels faded? Would stress return as soon as the mindful activity ceased? I'm curious as to if answers to these exist.
Also, it seems that the standard length of mindfulness activity, and its effects, are 8 weeks (Khory, et al.; Huang, et al.). Though I'm all for lowered levels of stress, my automatic dishwasher is probably going win the battle if I need to focus intensively on the washing task at hand in order for any effect of lowered stress to be noticed!
Thanks again for an interesting find!
(Hou, et al.) http://www.tandfonline.com.dml.regis.edu/doi/pdf/10.1080/08870446.2014.990389
(Khory, et al.) http://ac.els-cdn.com.dml.regis.edu/S002239991500080X/1-s2.0-S002239991500080X-main.pdf?_tid=7d746034-6fcd-11e5-a514-00000aab0f26&acdnat=1444536586_71ac8bcfd2d60d77e1083921889597f0
(Huang, et al.) http://web.a.ebscohost.com.dml.regis.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=89cf9e40-e4b9-43cd-aa68-b0449904e03a%40sessionmgr4001&vid=15&hid=4107
I have to say, I can definitely relate to this study's findings. I've found that at times, cleaning seems to help reduce my stress levels. I wonder if the mundane task was more important to reducing stress or if it was actually the mindfulness during the task that helped reduce stress. In my personal experience, I have found that very mundane tasks where you repeat a fairly simple action over and over can be comforting; however, when I was performing these tasks, I wasn't necessarily thinking about the task. I also wonder whether this is more beneficial for different personality types. I would think that type A personalities who like order and organization would find this more comforting.
ReplyDeleteThis article was a very interesting read and is awesome because I feel like everyone can relate to it. Everyone gets stressed at one point or another and we all look for ways to relieve the stress. It is very intriguing to see that a daily task as simple as doing dishes can help with stress. Normally I get stressed out because I see dishes stack up in the sink. Just seeing a mess stresses me out a little bit. So maybe something as simple as doing the dishes can help relieve stress by one keeping things clean and two taking our minds off of stressful situations like the article suggests. Being mindful in situations such as doing dishes can also help slow down breathing and heart rate if one is really focusing on the task at hand. Focusing and performing mindful activities can reduce stress by slowing down the heart rate which may reduce the release of stress activating hormones in the body. It could activate the PNS instead of the SNS. I wonder if the reason we can relieve stress by doing dishes relies on the focusing and slower heart rate resulting in changes in the PNS and SNS. Here are some articles that talk about it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.holistic-mindbody-healing.com/stress-reduction-exercises.html
http://www.dcoe.mil/content/Navigation/Documents/Mind-Body%20Skills%20for%20Regulating%20the%20Autonomic%20Nervous%20System.pdf
I also wonder how effective this type of stress relief is compared to exercise and other types of stress relief. I would think that exercise would be more beneficial unless it adds to the stress due to time constraints. Finding the best way to relieve stress is important because stress affects everyone's health.
This topic was super interesting!!
I think this article has a very interesting point about stress relieve. I believe mindfully washing can help with stress relief because when you're thinking about other things beside that stressful situation, you most likely will forget how stressed out you were, even though it's just temporary. We've learned that when we exercise, it releases hormones that helps us cope with stressful situation, but this method helps us by making focus on a simple task and realize the simplicity in it and relieves the stress we have. Theoretically, when we concentrate on a task, that task consumed us and our breathing slows down, which is activated by our parasympathetic system. What I found interesting was that this method of reducing stress seems rather obvious, yet no one really thought about it because we don't tend to do perfunctory tasks when trying to avoid stress or stuck in a stressful situations. This is a great alternative to exercise, because exercise is not for everyone and by using this method, we can relieve stress and get our daily chores done at the same time. It's a win win.
ReplyDelete