It is not always easy to cope with our stress problems alone, although we would prefer to do it that way. Sometimes we all need to seek the help of others to resolve our problems. For many this is a major barrier. Our tough-minded culture does not allow us to talk to other people easily, particularly to our colleagues or supervisors, and sometimes even to our friends and relatives, for fear of being seen as weak or as inadequate. So unfortunately we keep struggling with our problems until we are physically ill, when we feel it is legitimate to go to the doctor. It is important to realize that a lot of unnecessary distress can be avoided and illnesses prevented by enlisting simple help, perhaps just by talking things over with someone, as in social support.

Social support depends on the number of strength and number of supportive social relationships we have. It is increasingly being recognized as helpful with reducing stress, creating better health, and enhancing the quality of life. But what is social support? There are many working definitions of what social support means but it can easily be broken down into four basic components:

Emotional Support: Provides empathy, care, love, trust, or concern. According to researchers, this component is the most important one. Any way in which you let the person know that you sincerely care for them and their experience is what counts here.

Instrumental Support: Involves anything in which directly helps the person who is in need. This could be by way of gifts, products, services, or anything that can help alleviate the person's life in any way. For example, you may offer to have somebody take care of the person's garden or hire a maid service to tidy up their home.

Informational Support: Provides the person in need of help with any information that can help aid their problems. Unlike instrumental support, informational support does not help the person directly, but rather helps them to help themselves by increasing their resources about their personals stress issues. For example, you may offer to give the person information on a local stress-help group that they can attend.

Appraisal support: Offers positive self-evaluation to the person in need of help by way of giving verbal feedback. For example, work supervisor's telling us that we are doing a good job puts us, in our own eyes, above the average. By approving our actions or recognizing them by appropriate means, people can increase our self-esteem and self-worth, which is most important to our sense of well-being.


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