Stoically keeping a British stiff upper lip? It may cause you psychological problems Regulating emotions in some stressful situations may exacerbate problems Researchers say findings may change the way we treat stress The British stiff upper lip, as exemplified by Admiral Lord Nelson, may not be good for you in stressful situations, according to scientists Maintaining the traditional British stiff upper lip may be bad your health, warns a new study. Researchers found keeping emotions in check - especially during a crisis - may not always benefit a person's psychological health. They said being able to regulate your emotions is important for well-being, but their new research suggests that a common emotion regulation strategy called 'cognitive reappraisal' may actually be harmful in very stressful situations such as the serious illness of a close relative. Psychological scientist and lead researcher Doctor Allison Troy, of Franklin and Marshall College in the United States, said: 'Context is important. Our research is among the first to suggest that cognitive reappraisal may actually have negative effects on psychological health in certain contexts. Previous research has shown that cognitive reappraisal - a strategy that involves reframing one's thoughts about a given situation in order to change its emotional impact - is especially beneficial for the psychological health of people who are highly stressed. However, as Dr Troy and her colleagues discovered, the controllability of a given situation seems to be the key in determining whether cognitive reappraisal helps or hurts. She said: 'For someone facing a stressful situation in which they have little control, such as a loved one's illness, the ability to use reappraisal should be extremely helpful - changing emotions may be one of the only things that he or she can exert some control over to try to cope. But for someone experiencing trouble at work because of poor performance, for example, reappraisal might not be so adaptive. Reframing the situation to make it seem less negative may make that person less inclined to attempt to change the situation. For their study, the researchers recruited a community sample of people who had recently experienced a stressful life event. The participants took an online survey aimed to measure their levels of depression and life stress. About one week later, they came to the lab to take part in a challenge designed to measure their cognitive reappraisal ability. Stoicism: Attempting to regulate your emotions may be harmful in certain situations The participants first watched a neutral film clip intended to induce a neutral emotional baseline, and then watched three sad film clips. During the clips, they were randomly assigned to use cognitive reappraisal strategies to think about the situation they were watching 'in a more positive light'. The results, published in the journal Psychological Science, showed that the ability to regulate sadness was associated with fewer reported symptoms of depression, but only for participants whose stress was uncontrollable - those with an ailing spouse, for instance. For participants with more controllable stress, being better at reappraisal was actually associated with more depressive symptoms. Dr Troy said: 'When stressors are controllable, it seems that cognitive reappraisal ability isn't just less beneficial, it may be harmful. These results suggest that no emotion regulation strategy is always adaptive. Adaptive emotion regulation likely involves the ability to use a wide variety of strategies in different contexts, rather than relying on just one strategy in all contexts. She said the findings have implications for public health, given that stress and impairments in the ability to cope with it are important predictors of psychological health problems.