Defeat Your Stress and Enhance Mental Health
How Social Support Can Help Defeat Your Stress and Enhance Mental Health
As recent years have seen a dramatic increase in stress, it is important for mental health professionals to respond to the psychological needs of people. As we know that stress may be a critical factor in decreasing our psychological well-being, it may decrease positive functioning and increase negative mental health outcomes including depression, anxiety, somatic symptoms, and insomnia. If you perceive a higher level of stress, you may show a lower level of positive well-being. For example, you may have lower self-acceptance, less positive relations with others, and a low level of freedom and autonomy. Further, you may indicate less environmental mastery, lack of purpose in life, and personal growth.
Social support from friends, family, and community is found to be determining factor that helps an individual to adjust to the environment. The direct positive effects of social support networks (friends, family, and community) on an individual’s well-being, in general, have been reported. Social resources (e.g. family, friends, and community) have important preventive effects on the experience of stressors and their subsequent harmful consequences. As the amount of perceived social support from family, friends, and community increases, it serves as an external resource and enhances emotional well-being or mental health.
It is acknowledged that the perception of help from family members and friends exerts a differential effect on an individual’s mental health. Social support is viewed as a significant predictor of both positive and negative mental health outcomes. People reporting higher level of social support enjoy positive well-being and those reporting lower social support show a higher degree of psychological distress. In addition, social and ethnic community support can shape our stress experiences and diminish the negative influence of stressors on our psychological well-being.
If you are experiencing homesickness and a lack of social support, we can help you to develop essential skills to mitigate the effects of stress and enhance your positive functioning.