The phrase "a stifling effect" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a situation or condition that restricts or suppresses something, such as creativity, freedom, or growth.
Example: "The new regulations had a stifling effect on innovation within the industry."
Alternatives: "a suffocating impact" or "a constraining influence."
Such restrictions have had a stifling effect on the cultural scene, artists say.
After his death this influence was sometimes held to have had a stifling effect.
Yet the idolatry has had a stifling effect on subsequent generations of composers, who must compete on a playing field that was designed to prolong Beethoven's glory.
Chris Berg, a research fellow with the Institute of Public Affairs think-tank, warned it could have "a stifling effect on political debate".
This bias, often unnoticed because it is assumed to be a self-evident sane view of the world — rather like believing that the sun rises in the east — can have something of a stifling effect on the dimensions of academic dialogue.
Akshat Verma thinks that has a stifling effect.
Rabbi Mark Dratch, who operates the Jewish Institute Supporting an Abuse-Free Environment, a nonprofit organization in New York, said, "Social pressure in the community had a real stifling effect, a silencing effect, not to cooperate with the investigation".
The terrain is so familiar that it has a slightly stifling effect, even in Mr. Plympton's demented hands.
In the United States, the security mantra and litigiousness and edicts in the name of health (any American should be able to buy a sugary sodas of any size if that is his or her wish) are having a similar stifling effect.
This is much greater than the impact of a currency crisis (see left-hand chart).What accounts for this stifling effect?
It is this aspect of Murder that most recalls The Killing, which dwelt so painfully on the stifling effect of grief on the dead girl's family.
