Sometimes our good intentions end up making the situation worse.
In our new series In Your Feelings with Samantha Boardman, MD, she’s helping you better understand your emotions. This article originally appeared in her substack The Dose, which you can subscribe to here.
“In a relationship, each person should support the other; they should lift each other up,” says the ever-enlightened Taylor Swift. Of course, elevating and supporting each other is an essential ingredient of any healthy relationship. But sometimes, our good intentions end up making the situation worse.
Former Wake Forest University communications professor Jennifer Priem, Ph.D., conducted research that focused on the connection between supportive actions and physiological signs of stress reduction. Her work shed light on the specific behaviors that provide high-quality comfort. When a person is stressed and in fight-or-flight mode, the stress hormone cortisol floods the system. Using saliva samples, Dr. Priem determined changes in stress by measuring the rise and fall of cortisol levels that follow an interaction with a loved one.
According to her findings, here are three features of communication to employ if you want to comfort someone you care about:
How to comfort someone
Validate their experience
Even if — actually, especially if — you think they’re making a mountain out of a molehill, the person still needs to feel supported. Telling them that the situation is “no big deal” will likely be interpreted as indifference, not reassurance. Acknowledge that they’re having a tough time. While well intended, telling the person to “chill out” or “not to worry” minimizes their experiences and definitely won’t dial down cortisol levels.
Provide “felt love”
Non-verbal forms of communication speak volumes. Give the person your full attention: Put your phone away, make eye contact, and give them a hug. These little gestures are powerful cortisol reducers. As best-selling writer and psychologist Andrew Solomon, Ph.D., observed, “Most of the people who get out of depression are the ones who know they are loved.”
Listen deeply
Before offering any words of wisdom, hear them out. Resist the urge to interrupt, cheer them up, or tell them they are overreacting (see above). Hold off on giving advice unless they specifically ask for it. Instead of assuming you know what’s best or have all the answers, follow their lead.
Alas, wanting to be supportive doesn’t always translate into good support. Good support is only good if the person on the receiving end perceives it to be good. Try not to take anything too personally in these moments — when people are stressed, they may not be at their best. So be flexible and forgiving.
Poet David Whyte explains what it really means to show up for another: “But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”
While it’s nice to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud, bearing witness and letting them know they aren’t alone are the essence of high-quality comforting.
Dr. Samantha Boardman is a New York-based positive psychiatrist committed to fixing what’s wrong and building what’s strong. Based on 15 years of experience, she helps clients cultivate vitality and boost resilience. Visit her website, follow her on Instagram, or read her newsletter, The Dose.
