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Transcript

Mini: Stress Balls · Why We Do What We Do

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we Do what we do. Welcome
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to Why we do what we do Mini. I'm your
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: host Abraham and I'm Shane. We are a psychology podcast.
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  Speaker 1: We talk about all of the things that humans and
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  Speaker 1: up some merch telling a friend, and I'll talk a
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  Speaker 1: little bit more about that at the end of this
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  Speaker 1: discussion if I remember to do so. But if you
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  Speaker 1: are a returning person, then thank you. We're really happy
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  Speaker 1: to have you back. I hope that you continue to
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: enjoy the kind of stuff that we're producing. Or maybe
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: you're hate listening and that's okay too, I guess I hope.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, numbers is numbers is all I'm saying.
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  Speaker 1: What a what a CEO way of thinking about things.
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  Speaker 2: Listen, it's the state of the world right now.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fair, that's fair. So anyway, this is a
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  Speaker 1: short a short episode. We call them minis. These come
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  Speaker 1: out on Mondays and they're just a quick dive on
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  Speaker 1: a topic, and today's topic. Let me set the scene
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  Speaker 1: for we haven't. I have a little bit of an
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  Speaker 1: introduction here is that? Okay, let's do it all right,
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  Speaker 1: So if you attend any kind of professional or promotional event,
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  Speaker 1: there is a good chance you're walking out of that
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  Speaker 1: event with a free foamy gift that is intended for
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  Speaker 1: you to squeeze when life gets you down.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, we are talking about because we've all been in
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  Speaker 2: those spaces. We've all left with those chotchkes and goodies
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  Speaker 2: and freebies that we get from these conferences, and we
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  Speaker 2: are going to talk about stress balls. And really it's
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  Speaker 2: fun to think about because they're great promotional tools. Or
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  Speaker 2: let me not say great. They are promotional tools. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: but we have to ask the question of like do
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  Speaker 2: they work? They might work maybe, but let's unpack that
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  Speaker 2: a little bit because I feel like we spend a
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  Speaker 2: lot of money on stress balls.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, like what's what's the point of stress Well, obviously
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  Speaker 1: we know what the point is, but like where do
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  Speaker 1: they come from? Do they do the job their name
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  Speaker 1: suggests that they do, which is either to cause or
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  Speaker 1: to eliminate stress. Suggest to eliminate stress. I don't know
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  Speaker 1: why anyone would be selling a tool to cause stress,
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  Speaker 1: like we've got sure, we've got that in abundance without
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  Speaker 1: having for free.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we don't need anti stress balls.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, all right? So what are stress balls? In
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  Speaker 1: case you didn't know, or just to make sure that
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  Speaker 1: we have defined our terms, as is important for scientists
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  Speaker 1: to do. A stress ball is a toy like pliable object,
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  Speaker 1: usually small enough to fit into an average sized hand.
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  Speaker 1: The fact that it's pliable, that feature of it means
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  Speaker 1: that its shape can be significantly distorted or at least
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  Speaker 1: somewhat distorted, and it will then return to its original shape,
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  Speaker 1: usually pretty quickly and without any need for the user
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  Speaker 1: to like do that reparation, and you don't have to
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  Speaker 1: do anything, It'll just go back to its original shape.
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  Speaker 1: And as we suggest it, and as I'm sure that
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  Speaker 1: most of you know, the intention of this object is
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  Speaker 1: that you can squeeze it, and that in doing so
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  Speaker 1: this will relieve stress and possibly muscle tension and maybe
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  Speaker 1: even reduce pain. So that's the idea here.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, according to one very apocryphal sounding story, a
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  Speaker 2: then thirty year old man named Alex Carswell threw a
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  Speaker 2: pen out of frustration and broke the glass and a
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  Speaker 2: framed picture of his mother of a picture of his mother. Somehow,
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  Speaker 2: this gave him the idea for the stress to help
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  Speaker 2: manage stress, and in nineteen eighty eight he patented the
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  Speaker 2: first stress ball. It was a small blue polyurethine ball
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  Speaker 2: that emitted the sound effect of broken glass when thrown.
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  Speaker 2: That's interesting.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so a little different than what they turned into.
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  Speaker 1: And that's as much history as I care to go
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  Speaker 1: into for that patent now. Others suggest that the a
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  Speaker 1: version of stress balls can be traced, of course, back
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  Speaker 1: to ancient China, where all things originated, where people might
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  Speaker 1: rotate two to three small metallic balls in their hand
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  Speaker 1: called bouting balls. I've also heard these called ben wah balls.
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  Speaker 1: You know what I'm talking about?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, I do. I do. And typically kind of like
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  Speaker 2: move them in circles. Often, like if you're holding them
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  Speaker 2: both in your hand, you move them in circles.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of the pressure against one pushes the other,
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  Speaker 1: so they sort of become this They rotate together almost
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  Speaker 1: like David Bowie in The Labyrinth, he's doing that thing
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  Speaker 1: with the glass balls, although those are much much larger.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and also we're really focusing on the glass ball
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  Speaker 2: on the Labyrinth. Let's be real now. For those things
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  Speaker 2: we call stress balls today, they're typically designed to fit
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  Speaker 2: into the palm of your hand such that your fingers
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  Speaker 2: can wrap around it and squeeze it inward, presumably to
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  Speaker 2: a leave alleviate stress. My favorite thing that I learned
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  Speaker 2: more recently is my wife started working at like a
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  Speaker 2: funeral director place. Oh wow, and she's like getting she's
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  Speaker 2: doing school work towards that, and she they have coffin
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  Speaker 2: shaped ones as marketing tools for like for that world.
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  Speaker 1: Wow u huh all right, very nice. Yeah, okay, But
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  Speaker 1: as we said, like the question we're actually trying to
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  Speaker 1: ask here today is do do stress balls work? Does
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  Speaker 1: this thing that you're doing actually alleviate stress, pain, or
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  Speaker 1: any of those things. Fortunately, there is kind of a
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  Speaker 1: surprising amount of research on this. I wasn't expecting to
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  Speaker 1: find as much as I did, but I've I found
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  Speaker 1: a wealth of information on this. I also found a
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  Speaker 1: wealth of ads.
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  Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about this. The research
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  Speaker 2: on this idea of using stress balls and whether they work. So.
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  Speaker 2: A twenty fifteen thesis set out to measure physiological indicators
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  Speaker 2: of stress, heart rate, galvanic stress, a skin response, and
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  Speaker 2: blood pressure during testing with thirty college students. Surprise, one
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  Speaker 2: group of students was instructed to manipulate a stress ball
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  Speaker 2: after a test. The other group was asked to sit quietly.
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  Speaker 2: The results showed no significant differences in physiological stress responses
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  Speaker 2: across both the groups.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so this one I think we can rule out
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  Speaker 1: as a no. A twenty twenty study with forty five
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  Speaker 1: patients undergoing hemodialysis also measured physiological stress responses, but they
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  Speaker 1: added in another thing, which was a subjective self report
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  Speaker 1: measure of their stress, and similar to the last study,
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  Speaker 1: while there was no difference in the physiological markers of
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  Speaker 1: stress or reports of comfort, there was a statistically significant
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  Speaker 1: improvement in the subjective rating of stress by the participants.
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  Speaker 2: Interesting now. A twenty twenty one study again used college
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  Speaker 2: students in testing, but this time only collected subjective self
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  Speaker 2: report on a close ended assessment tool developed by the
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  Speaker 2: researchers and thus not validated, which is a different question. Now,
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  Speaker 2: close ended means that the participants had to select from
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  Speaker 2: available answers and they could not provide their own. The
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  Speaker 2: results indicated significantly lower stress as reported by the participants
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  Speaker 2: in the questionnaire. Now, the concern here is that the
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  Speaker 2: tool that was used was not validated, which means that
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  Speaker 2: it could have easily biased towards people reporting lower stress
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  Speaker 2: because there was just no flexibility in the tool, or
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  Speaker 2: there's no way to note that the tool was measuring
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  Speaker 2: what it was supposed to measure.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly, it's yeah, we don't know if it's
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  Speaker 1: measuring what it's intended to. We don't know if there's bias.
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  Speaker 1: It does not give an opportunity to allow the participants
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  Speaker 1: to respet on and however they like, and then do
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  Speaker 1: analysis of those responses. So very difficult to interpret that
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  Speaker 1: and feel like we've walked away with meaningful data. But nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: that was a study that happened and its way to
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  Speaker 1: some publication outlet A twenty twenty two study again with
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  Speaker 1: hemodialysis patients. So this one, I do like these ones
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  Speaker 1: that are in real world settings. I think it helps
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  Speaker 1: to actually consider what the reality of this and actual practice. Right,
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  Speaker 1: So with these hemodialysis patients. This study similarly found that
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  Speaker 1: there's subjective reports of their experience of pain were significantly
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  Speaker 1: lower for the experimental group, the ones with the stress balls,
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  Speaker 1: compared to the control group, the ones without the stress balls.
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  Speaker 1: So this one seems to be some success for use
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  Speaker 1: of stress balls as what they call a non pharmaceutical intervention.
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  Speaker 2: Interesting, all right. Finally, a twenty twenty four randomized controlled
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  Speaker 2: trial examine the use of a stress ball sixty out
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  Speaker 2: of one hundred and twenty patients undergoing coordinary angiography angiography.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's angiography and giography is fine.
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  Speaker 2: It's a lot of letters, it's a lot of vowels
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  Speaker 2: in a word. This was done in Turkey. The experimental
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  Speaker 2: patients afterward reported significantly lower stress but even lower pain
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  Speaker 2: as compared to the control group.
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  Speaker 1: Now we should ask the question here if we're trying
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  Speaker 1: to understand and do some good analysis of what we
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  Speaker 1: could learn from these studies, we want to know, like
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  Speaker 1: we should be thinking about skeptically, what contributes to a
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  Speaker 1: participant's subjective rating on a scale of this nature, Because
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  Speaker 1: it's difficult to blind a procedure in which you clearly
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  Speaker 1: have something or you don't. And the nebulous nature of
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  Speaker 1: a stress ball means that a lot of things could
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  Speaker 1: function as a stress squeeze object of some sort, and
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  Speaker 1: it'd be like if we gave them a piece of
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  Speaker 1: wood to squeeze. Is that different enough from a stress
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  Speaker 1: ball to say that we've ruled out the relevant features
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  Speaker 1: of the stress ball? Possibly not, because some stress balls
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  Speaker 1: can be very firm. It might be the fact that
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  Speaker 1: they're just flexed in their hands. They weren't asking those questions,
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  Speaker 1: So it's it is possible, if not likely, that the
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  Speaker 1: participants knew about and attempted to record their responses and
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  Speaker 1: correspondence with what they thought the researchers wanted them to
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  Speaker 1: do or wanted them to say. And also, like stress
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  Speaker 1: balls are very common, like they're just out there in
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  Speaker 1: the zeitgeist, participants very likely had some predisposed thoughts and
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  Speaker 1: opinions and expectations about what kind of benefit the stress
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  Speaker 1: ball was likely to provide. So it seems like it's
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  Speaker 1: really difficult to rule out that their understanding of the
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  Speaker 1: situation as a contributing factor that could have pushed the
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  Speaker 1: rating just statistic into the like statistically significant realm of outcomes.
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  Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, when we look
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  Speaker 2: at the research itself, researchers did measure objective. When they
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  Speaker 2: did use those measures, there was no difference between people
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  Speaker 2: who had the stress ball and those who didn't. And
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  Speaker 2: what they kind of found was that some people like it,
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  Speaker 2: and it's unlikely to be harmful. Right, It's not really
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  Speaker 2: going to cause more problems. It might at most be
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  Speaker 2: a waste of time, but even then it's probably not bad.
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  Speaker 2: I guess it'd be problematic for people with arthritis, probably
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  Speaker 2: wouldn't be really great, that's true, you know, but like
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  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, like for the most part,
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  Speaker 2: it's a pretty benign intervention at best.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, And I think I wouldn't want someone who's
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  Speaker 1: like in serious pain to try and do this as
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  Speaker 1: opposed to receive actual pain medication. But if they wanted
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  Speaker 1: to supplement their treatment with this, if they felt like
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  Speaker 1: from their own experience they were feeling less stressed, then sure,
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  Speaker 1: like go for it. That's totally fine.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I could see this being used in like strength
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  Speaker 2: training too, for like maybe like physical therapy or recovery
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  Speaker 2: and stuff like that, but that would be you know,
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  Speaker 2: there's probably maybe better options for that, I would imagine.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And then you know, just considering some other
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  Speaker 1: questions that might arise in terms of what are the
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  Speaker 1: relevant features of a stress ball, like is it the
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  Speaker 1: exercise part? Has I didn't see any research directly comparing
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  Speaker 1: this to just any other form of exercise or squeezing
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  Speaker 1: anything else, Like is it manipulating things with your hands?
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  Speaker 1: That could be a relevant feature? I don't know, Like
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  Speaker 1: that seems like it could be part of what's going
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  Speaker 1: on here.
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  Speaker 2: Right, Could it be a distraction or or some type
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  Speaker 2: of supplemental stimulation, like kind of like fidgets when you
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  Speaker 2: hear about those why people use fidgets and kind of
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  Speaker 2: like manipulate objects. It's just a kind of a unique
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  Speaker 2: one of those.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like maybe fidgets and stress balls are exactly the
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  Speaker 1: same in terms of their effect, because it's just giving
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  Speaker 1: you something to do, right, And similarly, like, is it
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  Speaker 1: the fact that it's fun? Like you do you just
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  Speaker 1: are you have something that is more appealing and appetitive
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  Speaker 1: in that situation, And also like it could be a
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  Speaker 1: combination of any or all of the those things. Out
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  Speaker 1: of the reason that this works, now, the fact that
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  Speaker 1: the stress ball can check all those boxes, might mean
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  Speaker 1: this is a good non pharmaceutical tool to use in
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  Speaker 1: these spaces, but the research is just mixed, like we found,
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  Speaker 1: you know, in some of these studies people did report
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  Speaker 1: less pain or less stress or less anxiety, and some
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  Speaker 1: they didn't. And so it's really unclear the extent to
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  Speaker 1: which these are effective. But it does seem like if
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  Speaker 1: you want to and you think it's gonna help, and
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  Speaker 1: you're not excluding other effective treatments, then squeeze yourself out right,
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  Speaker 1: wait right, knock yourself out by squeezing the stress ball story.
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  Speaker 1: To wrap this up, I think.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. We're going to talk our way
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: out of that one.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: All right. I hope they you enjoyed what you were
• 13:46
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• 14:18
  Speaker 1: team of people without whom I could not make this show.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Is there anything that I missed or anything you'd like
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: to add before we escape my verbal blunder of this episode.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I think we're good, Okay, all right? Then this is
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Abraham and It's a shame. Why we do what we do?
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Mini is out.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Bye.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to Why We Do what We Do.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: going to wwdwwdpodcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and we
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: hope you have an awesome day.