Is your response to stress inherited?
Do “stressed out” parents produce stressed out kids? According to psychiatrists there is a link. Parental stress places the child at a great risk of becoming stressed as well.
Besides the genetic risk of becoming stressed, children of stressed parents also learn the tendency to get stressed out in reaction to life’s challenges and this is copied directly from our parents.
Doctors at the Mayo Clinics, USA, believe that situations that create stress are as unique as you are. Your personality, genes and experiences influence how you deal with stressors.
British medical research has gone even further suggesting a link with the state of mind of the mother whilst the baby is in the womb - the blood flow to the placenta is reduced where the mother is stressed. According to research recently published in the British Medical Journal this in itself may be sufficient to make it more likely that the child will suffer a poor reaction to stress later in life.
Our genes also control the three endorphin groups, which make up our stress hormones. Hence, our reactions to physical and emotional stress could also be “genetic.” In other words, how our parents or great-grandparents responded to stressful situations may in part determine how we handle ourselves today!
So, if you’re the child of stressed out parents, you are less likely to be able to handle stressful situations positively in your own life - partly through the genes you inherited and partly through watching your parents react to stress badly in their own lives.
On the other hand - if you’re the stressed parent of a young child - watch how you behave. You may not be able to do much about genes but your reaction to stress will influence your child’s own ability to manage stress later in life.
Learning to manage stress more positively could do wonders for your own health and be beneficial for your children.
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Filed under Managing Stress
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