Women's participation in stress management activities: Connections with self- versus other-focus, stress, and depression

Some authors and clinicians have observed anecdotally that women may have difficulty participating in relaxing or enjoyable activities in part because they are too busy taking care of others and do not believe that they deserve to spend time caring for themselves. Feminist theorists have argued that the centrality of interpersonal connections and caring for women can lead them to perceive conflict between care for the self and care for others and to fear that asserting their own needs may threaten relationships. Empirical research indicates that for many women, exposure to stressful life events can have adverse effects on mental and physical health. Although studies have demonstrated that a variety of stress management, relaxation, and leisure activities can be effective in reducing women's stress, some authors have claimed that a lack of entitlement to time for self-care or leisure can be a barrier to women's participation in such activities. Some research suggests that an extreme focus on others or a strong tendency to keep one's own needs silent in relationships may interfere with women's self-care activities. However, there is a lack of empirical studies evaluating whether a tendency to sacrifice one's own needs in order to meet other's needs interferes with participation in stress management activities. The main hypothesis of the current study was that the greater a woman's belief that she should focus on others to the exclusion of herself, the less likely she would be to participate in stress-reducing behaviors. Another hypothesis was that women who reported less participation in stress-reducing activities would experience higher stress levels. Based on a review of the literature, instruments were selected to evaluate the tendency to focus on others vs. one's self, beliefs in the need to silence oneself in relationships, levels of stress, and depressive symptoms. This author developed an instrument to evaluate the dependent variable, the extent of women's participation in a wide variety of potentially stress-reducing activities. Ninety-seven women, ranging in age from 25 to 63, completed a self-administered mail questionnaire. Results of a correlational analysis did not support study hypotheses that higher levels of self-silencing or extreme focus on others would be significantly related to decreased participation in stress management activities. However, results did support the hypothesis that there would be a significant negative correlation between activity participation and stress level. An additional finding was that there was a significant inverse correlation between activity participation and depression. The significance of these findings, the limitations of the current study, and recommendations regarding future research are discussed.