[OurLadysTears]

http://www.livescience.com/14986-str...eel-worse.html

When encountering stressful events in daily life, venting to a friend about them may not always be helpful, a new study concludes.

The results showed that when people with some traits of perfectionism faced daily setbacks, venting to a friend often made them feel less satisfied about their circumstances than before they talked about it.

"Venting is not an effective strategy for anyone trying to cope with daily stress, whether they have perfectionistic tendencies or not," said social psychologist Brad J. Bushman, who teaches at Ohio State University and has researched aggression and coping, but was not involved in this study. "Research clearly shows that venting increases rather than decreases stress."
The study found, instead, three other strategies that were effective coping strategies for people dealing with setbacks: acceptance, humor and positive reframing, which means looking for something good in the otherwise stressful event.

"It's no use ruminating about small failures and setbacks and [dragging] yourself further down," said study author Dr. Joachim Stoeber, a psychologist at the University of Kent in England. "Instead, it is more helpful to try to accept what happened, look for positive aspects and — if it is a small thing —have a laugh about it."

Focus on perfectionism

The study included 149 Kent students with perfectionist traits. The participants completed daily diary reports for three to 14 days, noting the most bothersome failure they experienced each day, what strategies they used to cope with the failure and how satisfied they felt at the end of the day. Their coping strategies included using social support, self-distraction, denial, religion, venting, substance use, self-blame and withdrawing.

Of these, using social support, denial, venting, withdrawing, and self-blame made students feel worse instead of better, the researchers determined. The more the students used these strategies to cope, the less satisfied they felt at the end of the day.

In contrast, the more students used positive reframing, acceptance and humor, the better they felt at the end of the day, the study found.

Stoeber noted that the study's focus on people who have a perfectionist personality was significant, because they are generally less satisfied than others with daily setbacks.

"The finding that positive reframing was helpful for students high in perfectionistic concerns is particularly important because it suggests that even people high in perfectionistic concerns, who have a tendency to be dissatisfied no matter what they achieve, are able to experience high levels of satisfaction if they use positive reframing coping when dealing with perceived failures," he said.

The paper will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Anxiety, Stress & Coping.

Stoking the fire

The fact that venting is an unsuccessful way to cope with failure may seem counterintuitive to those who have been taught to share their negative feelings to try to "purge" them. But it actually creates more stress "because it keeps arousal levels high, aggressive thoughts active in memory, and angry feelings alive," Bushman said.

"People say that venting feels good, but the good feeling doesn't last, and it only reinforces aggressive impulses," Bushman told MyHealthNewsDaily.

He said that anger often precedes aggression, and venting is behaving aggressively (against people or inanimate objects). The reasons why we vent may simply be tied to evolutionary causes of aggression in humans.

Stoeber said that a helpful recommendation for anyone trying to cope with daily setbacks would be to try to find positive aspects and think of what happened in a more positive way; for example, by focusing on what has been achieved, rather than on what has not been achieved.

Pass it on: Venting to a friend may actually make you feel worse about a failure or setback.

[Irine]

i feel it strongly - still there is balance. I cannot say just from this post that venrying is "bad"!

[OurLadysTears]

I agree, ladymacbeth! I know venting can get my heart pumping, but overall, I think it helps. This article makes me believe that we are pushing people to withhold their problems more instead of seeking help. I don't like how society is slowly becoming more disconnected and it is hard to find people willing to help each other out.

[silverbells]

AGREED! I was shocked to see that this guy is writing this with authority, as if it's the truth! No one can say "venting isn't helpful". That's crazy.

[Open Eyes]

HMMM, I have to say that I had used the approach mentioned here about not venting and trying to divert my attention away from things that were bad that happened or bad experiences. I remained very productive and tryed to think about the things that I had learned.

While I see the theory that this may work I have to wonder. Even though I had pushed through many events that were bad experiences including abuse I thought I had worked my way through it. But to my surprise the anger somehow built up inside me. Then I had a really bad event and suddenly all the events seemed to draw together and we call that PTSD. But what I had was chronic and I was quite surprised to find how much my past all came together. I truely thought that I had coped and moved foward. I think that at times I did but I was truely amazed at how much I unconsciously storred.

One of the aspects about this concept I agree with is that I do not believe in constantly reliving an abuse and focusing on it every time one goes to therapy. I truely believe that the purpose of revisiting the past experience is to reason out the fear and anger that is presented and to make sure that the person with the experiences addresses it and works on recovery. Recovery meaning NOT RELIVING but acknowledging it, having it validated and learning how to put it in the past.

When I think about venting I think that there are ways to vent that release the anger that has been taken inward. Often times anger is surpressed by doing an activity that just distracts and ignores the anger. I really think that someone can unknowingly store anger. I do agree that venting can give anger power if it is not done properly. For an example venting to a friend that allows the friend to get angry as well and the anger is agreed and made stronger.

If too much frustration is present and anger flourishes within that frustration then there is no room for pleasant thoughts and experiences. It IS a very slippery slope but this article is moving to the right track of beginning to realize that the expression of anger and venting has to be done correctly. If anger is not released properly than any new occurance that mimics the original experience where anger was storred can be turned into what we now call a trigger. Often, depending on the anger, the one way that anger needs to be addressed is to be released with the experience to a compassionate listener and then the event or situation be morned and validated and recovery can begin.

It is very important that a person understand how they may unknowingly store anger. The worst thing someone can do is invalidate anger, that also increases the thrust for anger to remain internalized. Resolving anger is no easy task depending on the circumstances that lead to anger. Small circustances can be remedied by making it into a joke by the person who is angry. But anger that comes from failure or unwanted intrusion cannot be made into a joke.

Open Eyes

[silverbells]

WAIT! It IS true that venting makes a lot of people feel worse. It makes me feel FANTASTIC! But some of the very people I've been closest to in my life, my ex=husband, my best friend, pretty much always feel worse when they vent. And my daughter vents to me, and her friends vent to her and to me, but she NEVER vents to her friends. You'd think that people of similar-enough mindsets would react similarly. I think the article is quite accurate for certain types of people, and I think you need to vent to particular people who have whatever sort of - well, WHATEVER it is that makes you feel good. I know I help a lot of people, and don't seem to help others at all. And i can certainly think of people I've vented to and regretted it later!

[silverbells]

Yes, I agree Open Eyes. It has to be done correctly, or you can get lost in the anger or re-triggered and REALLY thrown back into a bad/helpless place.

[sara76]

I think that it is important for me to choose the right person to vent to.