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Do anti‑stress toys (including pop-ites and simple dimples) really help relieve stress? Are there any scientifically proven benefits from them?
Anonymous
There are more and more different devices on sale, which are called anti-stress. Do they really help to fight stress? We'll find out now. But first you need to understand the definitions.
Emotional stress is the body's reaction to an unfavorable situation, such as violence or a threat to life, in which the autonomic nervous system is activated and endocrine processes are triggered (the release of adrenaline and other hormones). And during a real psychological stress, anti‑stress toys will obviously be useless.
But in an unscientific sense, the word "stress" is often used as a synonym for unpleasant feelings and emotions: anxiety, fear or irritation. And it often happens that these states are caused not by an event that happened (you did not pass the exam), but by thinking about this situation. For example, when the exam is still a whole month away, and you are restless because of anxiety.
In this case, we can say that the above emotions are caused by thoughts that are called automatic. And it is very difficult for us to stop them. Moreover, most of our experiences are not related to real situations, but to our perception of what is happening, the expectation of trouble, threats.
It is logical that if there are fewer such thoughts, then the intensity of unpleasant emotions will decrease. And there are a number of practices for switching attention from automatic thoughts to something that is in the real world.
It can be a bike ride, listening to an opera or watching a movie. And including a game with pop—ites and simple dimples. Why not.
But we cannot talk about the scientifically proven benefits of such toys: I have not yet met research on this topic.
