Stress is often caused by a perceived lack of control.
When you’re in a stressful environment or situation, the mere act of increasing your agency/your sense of control over the stressors reduces your levels of stress, regardless of whether you actually take action to reduce the stressors or not.
Another factor that influences your levels of stress is social support.
[…] just knowing you have the option to reduce stress is enough to make something less stressful—even if you’re not actually controlling the stressors at all.