• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Lotus Business Resources

...your Virtual Business Support Specialists

  • Home
  • About
  • Testimonials
  • Blog
  • Contact

If You’re Using These Words, Then You’re Showing Signs of Stress

3:41 pm by Karen Leave a Comment

MAN SITTING ON FLOOR WITH HIS HEAD IN HIS HANDS WITH THE WORDS STRESS IN OPAQUE LETTERING ON THE LEFT OF HIM

There are many articles about signs of stress, however, did you realize that if you’re using these words, you can be showing signs of hidden stress?

While headaches and mood swings are often indicators of stress, turns out the way we speak is, too.

From mood swings to being unable to fall asleep at night — some things are clear symptoms of stress. However, it turns out stress manifests in many forms, like in the way we speak.

An article published by  The Reader’s Digest explained that when people are stressed, they overuse certain words, like “really,” “incredibly” and “very.” By analyzing over 22,000 voice recordings of 143 people who wore audio recorders for two days,  researchers looked at how stress might be reflected in people’s speech patterns.

A GRAPHIC WITH THE WORDS REALLY, INCREDIBLY, AND VERY inside ripped graph note paper

Transcribing the recordings and looking out for “function words,” such as adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns, the researchers found that people under stress tend to use more of these function words like “really” or “incredibly.” “By themselves, they don’t have any meaning, but they clarify what’s going on,” study author and University of Arizona psychologist Matthias Mehl told Nature.

Unlike “meaning words” such as nouns and verbs, which people use more consciously, function words “are produced more automatically, and they betray a bit more about what’s going on with the speaker.” Therefore, how people use function words changes when they are facing stressful situations, like a terrorist attack, social dilemmas, or personal crises.

And while people’s use of words like “really” and “incredibly” went up during stress, their use of third-person plural pronouns like “they” or “their” went down, which was likely because people tend to focus on themselves when tensions are high, researchers suggest.

A MAN TALKING INTO A MEGAPHONE WITH WORD BUBBLES STREAMING OUT

While the clinicians examined each participant’s self-reported stress and anxiety levels, they found that studying language’s connection to 50 genes that are known to be affected by stressful situations was a more accurate way to probe the language-stress relationship. Participants whose genes showed a disposition toward stress, not only used more function words like “really” and “very,” but they also talked less overall.

“Language reflects how people connect with their world, but who would ever have thought that gene expression would be related to language?” said University of Texas at Austin psychologist James Pennebaker to Nature. “It’s such an exciting new way of thinking.”

Here is another article on stress reduction and how to find your spiritual path.

If you are currently showing signs of stress over the amount of work you need to do in your business; and the time you are spending on your business is suffering, we are here to help!

Contact us TODAY for a no-obligation 30-minute Breakthrough call.

Click here for our easy online scheduler!

To a less stressful life!

Filed Under: STRESS Tagged With: signs of stress, Small Business Owners, Small Business Stress, STRESS SIGNS, words used when stressed

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

LET’S SCHEDULE SOME TIME TO TALK

ARE YOU ON BUSINESS OVERLOAD?

https://lotusbusinessresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/FIRST-AD-LUMEN5-VID-4-2-2018.mp4

FIND ME ON LINKEDIN!

Karen Kannegiesser

INTERNET MARKETING SPECIALIST

Purple Internet Marketing Certificate

CERTIFIED SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

Social Media Manager certification Free U

SEO CONTENT WRITING

DARK TEAL CERTIFICATE - SEO CONTENT WRITING

WEBSITE CONVERSION DESIGN

WEBSITE CONVERSION DESIGN

WORDPRESS FOUNDATIONS CERTIFIED

Wordpress Foundations Certification - Freelance University

GRAPHIC DESIGN PROVIDER

Graphic Design Foundations Certification - Freelance University

MEMBER – VA NETWORKING

Virtual Assistant Training

GET ADMINJA – GET ORGANIZED!

DO YOU NEED GREAT WEBHOSTING FOR YOUR WEBSITE? CLICK BELOW!

Web Hosting

WHAT KIND OF A BLOGGER ARE YOU? Are you on the right track?

ARE YOU AN EMAIL GURU? Take this test to find out!!

BUY A ROCKETBOOK – BE GREEN!

DEPOSITPHOTOS – GREAT DEALS ON AWESOME PHOTOS

Depositphotos

Recent Posts

  • 7 Ways to Get Past Mental Roadblocks and Train Your Brain to Get Your Creativity Back
  • The Art of Patience and How Mastering it Can Benefit Your Entire Body as You Travel Through Life
  • 5 Ways to Stay Self-motivated Everyday – Especially After a Big Setback
  • 5 Things to Ask When You’re Looking for a Fresh Start and Where to Begin to Change Your Life
  • 5 Tips to Help You Stay Motivated and Keep You on Track When You’re Losing Interest in That Important Project

  • Home
  • About
  • Testimonials
  • Blog
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service

Created with Love by Lotus Business Resources © 2016-2023 All Rights Reserved ~ Social Media Strategy, Website Maintenance, Business Automation, and Business Consulting for your heart-centered small business.

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Reject Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT