In the aftermath of a tumultuous election season, political division, wildfires, and a general sense of uncertainty for the future, it’s easy to think we are all simply living in a united state of stress with little good to come from it. However, the science of emotional intelligence tells us that using the term stress is more complicated than it might seem.
By definition, “stressed” is a feeling of mental or emotional strain caused by too many demands and not enough resources (from parents and caregivers to educators and students; we know how familiar this must sound). Often, people correctly use the word “stressed” this way. But we’ve noticed a blind spot in our collective emotional vocabulary. Many of us use the word “stressed” as a no-good, very-bad catch-all state of being when, in reality, not all stress is created equal.
What’s missing is emotional granularity, or the ability to identify our emotions with specificity and accurac — and this matters. When we can identify and differentiate emotions — rather than blanketing them as “stressed” — we are better equipped to understand, regulate, and communicate how they feel, benefiting our goals and relationships.
But what does this look like? How do you “get granular” with feelings? As researchers and practitioners of emotional intelligence, we have some answers for our stressed society.
Stress Is Subjective
First, it’s important to recognize that stress — like any emotion — is a subjective experience. Whether it’s at work, school, home, or anywhere in between, the same event may be perceived as stressful by one person but not another. A deadline at the office can feel overwhelming to someone who just started the job, while someone else might see it as the motivating pressure they need to get the task done. Or, in the wake of an election, one individual may be optimistic about the outcome, whereas another is worried about their future.
Although a singular event or circumstance may exist objectively, how you experience it emotionally is entirely personal. Without granularity, however, we may label subjective experiences as “stressed” simply because we lack any better words to describe them.
The science of emotions reminds us that how we feel is information. Emotions are signals about what is going on in our minds and around us. Frustration tells us that we encountered a bump in the road. Anxiety points to uncertainty about something. Disappointment reveals that our expectations were not met. Identifying a specific feeling (rather than the very general “stressed”) can give us hints about what to do about the feeling to better manage it.
Get Granular
Say, for instance, you’re stuck in traffic and running late to a meeting, or about to give an important presentation, or responsible for hosting a large event. The first step in developing emotional granularity is pausing to check what you are feeling and making this a routine practice. Maybe stressed is just the first word that comes to mind in high-stakes situations. Let’s take a moment to dive deeper.
This process can involve taking a mindful moment or using tools like the How We Feel app, a free handheld journal for tracking emotions. We developed this resource to help people get granular, identify their precise emotions, and learn strategies for regulating them.
If you are running late to a meeting, take a moment to slow down. In doing so, you may realize you’re feeling anxious about the outcome of a meeting as you prepare to give an important presentation. If you’re scrambling to put on a large event, what you’re calling stressed is really being challenged or pushed to reach a higher goal.
Each of these emotions conveys different information and gives us more clues than the generic “stress,” even if they share similar intensity or unpleasantness. This information, in turn, provides directions about how to best manage the emotion. For example, feeling challenged may mean you need more hands on deck to support you in a high-stakes situation (like sharing tasks with others to help you pull off an event). Feeling anxious may mean you should prepare for a series of possible outcomes (like planning for what might happen after you give an important presentation).
Permission To Feel More Than Stress
Part of the reason why we reach for the word stress when experiencing a host of activated and unpleasant feelings is that our culture deems it socially acceptable. People nod in understanding when we share being stressed and busy. Being stressed has even become a status symbol, a sign that you are doing what society values. If you are stressed and busy, the reasoning goes, you are pushing yourself to achieve — you are a go-getter. So, saying we are stressed might be a way of social signaling, even if not intentional.
While you may gain some social status by professing stress, by becoming more granular in thinking and talking about what you are feeling, you build skills to better navigate your experiences. You gain the self-awareness to recognize the nuanced nature of emotions beyond that of stress, which sets you up to respond to specific emotions more effectively. You gain permission to feel all shades of the emotional spectrum.
How To Help
The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence (YCEI) is a community and school-based program within the Yale School of Medicine. Its mission is to conduct research and offer training that supports people of all ages in developing emotional intelligence skills. The YECI relies entirely on financial support from grants, training revenue, and philanthropy.
Visit the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence website to learn more about this organization and ways to donate to their essential work.
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Robin Stern, PhD, is the co-founder and senior adviser to the director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, a psychoanalyst in private practice, the author of “The Gaslight Effect Recovery Guide” and the host of “The Gaslight Effect” podcast.
Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, PhD, is a senior research scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and the author of the upcoming “The Creativity Choice”.
Marc Brackett, PhD, is the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, a professor in the Child Study Center at Yale, lead developer of RULER, an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning, and the author of “Permission to Feel.”
Krista Smith, MAT, MSW, is a Master of Nonprofit Leadership student at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice. She has worked at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence as a Postgraduate Associate.
