WEBVTT

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A confession to make.

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But first,

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I want you to make a little 
confession to me.

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In the past year.

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I'm just raise your hand if you've 
experienced relatively little

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stress anyone.

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Hello.

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A moderate amount of stress.

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Whose experience in lot of stress.

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Yeah.

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Happens.

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Me too,

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but that is not my confession my 
confession is this I'm a health

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psychologist and my mission is 
the help people be happier and

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healthier.

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But I fear that something I've been 
teaching for the last 10 years

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is doing more harm than good.

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And it has to deal with stress.

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For years,

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I've been telling people 
stress makes you sick,

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it increases the risk of everything 
from the common cold to

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cardiovascular disease:

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basically I've turned stress 
into the economy.

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But I've changed my mind about stress 
and today I wanna change

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yours.

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Let me start with the study that made 
me rethink my whole approach

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to stress the study tracked 30,000 
adults in the United States for

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8 years and they started by asking 
people how much stress the

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experience in the last year.

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They also asked do you believe that 
stress is harmful for your

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help.

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And then they use public death 
records the find out who died.

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Some bad news first.

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People who experience,

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a lot of stress in the previous year 
had a 43% increased risk of

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dying.

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That was only true for the people 
who also believed that stress is

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harmful for your health.

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People who experience,

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a lot of stress,

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but did not view stress is harmful 
were no more likely to die.

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In fact they had the lowest risk 
of dying of anyone in the study,

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including people who have relatively 
little stress now.

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The researchers estimated that over 
the 8 years they were tracking

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deaths 182,000 Americans died 
prematurely not from stress,

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but from the belief that 
stress is bad for you.

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I don't have to.

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That is over 20,000 deaths a year.

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Now if that estimate is correct that 
would make believing stress

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is bad for you.

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The 15th largest cause of death 
in the United States last year,

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killing more people than skin 
cancer HIV-AIDS and homicide.

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You can see why the study 
freaked me out here,

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I've been spending so much 
energy telling people.

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Stress is bad for your health.

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So this though you got me wondering 
can changing how you think

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about stress make you healthier and 
here the science says yes when

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you change your mind about stress 
you can change your body's

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response to stress now to 
explain how this works.

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I want you all to pretend that you 
are participants in a study

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designed to stress you out.

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It's called the social stress test,

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you come into the laboratory and 
you're told you have to give a

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5-minute impromptu speech.

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On your personal weaknesses to a 
panel of expert evaluate sitting

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right in front of you know and to 
make sure you feel the pressure

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there are bright lights and 
a camera in your face.

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Kinda like this.

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The evaluated have been trained to 
give you discouraging nonverbal

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feed.

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Now that you're sufficiently demoralized 
time for part 2 a math

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tests and unbeknownst to you the 
experiment has been trained to

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harass you doing it now.

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We're gonna all do this together.

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It's going to be fun.

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I want you all to count backwards 
from 996 in increments of 7,

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you can do this out loud 
as fast as you can,

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starting with 9-96 go.

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That's Ripley's you're going too slow.

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The hot that's that's that 
that guy made a mistake.

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We're gonna have to start all over again.

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You're not very good at those are,

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you know.

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Okay,

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so you get the idea.

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Now you are actually in the study.

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You probably be a little stress out 
in fact might be pounding you

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might be breathing faster may be 
breaking out into a sweat and

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normally we interpret these physical 
changes as anxiety were signs

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that we are coping very 
well with the pressure.

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But what if you view them instead 
as signs that your body was

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energize was preparing new 
to meet this challenge.

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Now that is exactly what participants 
were told in a study

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conducted at Harvard University 
before they went through the

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social stress tests they were taught 
to rethink their stress

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responses helpful that pounding heart 
is preparing for action if

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you're breathing faster,

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it's no problem,

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it's getting more oxygen to your brain.

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And participants who learned to 
view the stress response as

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helpful for their performance.

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Well,

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they were less stressed out less 
anxious more confident.

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But the most fascinating finding 
to me was how their physical

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stress response changed.

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Now the typical stress response,

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your heart rate goes up and your blood 
vessels constrict like that

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. This is one of the reasons that 
chronic stress is sometimes

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associated with cardiovascular disease.

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It's not really healthy 
to be in the state,

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all the time.

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But in the study when participants 
viewed their stress responses

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helpful their blood vessel 
stayed relaxed like this.

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The heart was still pounding,

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but this is a much healthier 
cardiovascular profile.

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It actually looks a lot like what 
happens in moments of joy and

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courage.

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Over a lifetime of stressful experiences 
this one biological

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change could be the difference 
between a stress-induced heart

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attack at age 50 and living 
well into your'90s

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and this is really what the new science 
of stress reveals that how

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you think about stress matters.

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She.

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So my goal as a health psychologist 
has changed,

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I no longer want to get 
rid of your stress.

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I want to make you better at stress 
and we just did a little

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intervention if you raise 
your hand and said,

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you had a lot of stress in the last year,

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we could have saved her life because 
hopefully the next time your

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heart is pounding from stress,

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you're going to remember the stock 
and you're gonna think to

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yourself.

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This is my body helping me 
rise to this challenge.

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And when you view stressing in that way,

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your body believes you and your stress 
response becomes healthier

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. Now,

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I said I had over a decade of demonizing 
stressed to redeem myself

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from.

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So we are gonna do one more intervention.

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I want to tell you about one of the 
most underappreciated aspects

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of the stress response and the 
idea is this stress makes you

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social.

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To understand the sight of stress,

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we need to talk about the hormone 
oxytocin and I know now oxytocin

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has already gotten as much 
hype as a hormone can get.

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He even has its own cute nickname 
the cuddle hormone because its

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release when you had someone,

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but this is a very small part of 
what oxytocin is involved in.

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Oxytocin is a neuro hormone it 
fine-tunes your brains social

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instincts it primes you to do 
things that strengthen close

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relationships oxytocin makes you 
crave physical contact with your

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friends and family.

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It enhances your empathy it even 
makes you more willing to help

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and support the people you care about.

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Some people have even suggested 
we should ignore oxytocin there

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to become more compassionate and caring.

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But here's what most people don't 
understand about Nixzmary.

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It's a stress hormone.

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Your pituitary gland the stuff out 
as part of the stress response

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, it's as much a part of your stress 
response as the adrenaline

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that makes your heart Pat and oxytocin 
is released in the stress

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response,

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it is motivating you to seek support 
your biological stress

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response is nudging you to tell 
someone how you feel instead of

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bottling it.

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Your stress response wants to make sure,

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you notice when someone else in 
your life is struggling so that

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you can support each other.

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When life is difficult your stress 
response wants you to be

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surrounded by people who 
care about you know.

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Okay,

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so how is knowing this side of stress 
going to make you healthier

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well oxytocin doesn't only 
act on your brain.

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It also acts on your body and one 
of its main roles in your body,

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is to protect your cardiovascular 
system from the effects of

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stress,

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it's a natural anti-inflammatory.

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It also helps your blood vessels 
stay relaxed during stress,

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but my favorite effect on the body 
is actually on the heart.

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Your heart has receptors for this forum.

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And oxytocin helps heart cells regenerate 
and heal from any stress

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induced damage this draft pheromone 
strengthens your heart.

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And the cool thing is,

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is that all of these physical benefits 
of oxytocin are enhanced by

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social contact and social support.

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So when you reach out to 
others under stress,

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either to seek support or to help 
someone else you release more of

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this hormone your stress response 
becomes healthier and you

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actually recover faster from stress.

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Machine.

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I find his amazing that your stress 
response has a built-in

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mechanism for stress resilience 
and that mechanism is human

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connection.

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And one offended by telling you about 
one more study and listen up

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because the study could also save a life.

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The study tracked about 1,000 adults 
in the United States and they

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ranged in age from 34 to 93.

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And they started the study by 
asking how much stress you

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experienced in the last year.

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They also asked how much time have 
you spent helping out friends,

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neighbors people in your community.

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And then they use public records 
for the next 5 years to find out

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who died.

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Okay.

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So the bad news first for every 
major stressful life experience

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like financial difficulties or family 
crisis that increase the

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risk of dying by 30%.

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And I hope you are expecting about Bono,

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but that wasn't true for everyone.

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People who spent time caring for 
others showed absolutely no

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stress related increase in dying zero.

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Carrion created a resilience.

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And so we see once again that the 
harmful effects of stress on

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your health are not inevitable,

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how you think and how you act can 
transform your experience of

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stress.

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When you choose to view your 
stress response as helpful.

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You created the biology of courage.

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And when you choose to connect 
with other is under stress.

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You can create resilience.

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I wouldn't necessarily ask for more 
stressful experiences in my

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life,

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but the science has given me a whole 
new appreciation for stress.

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Stress gives us access to our heart.

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The compassionate heart that finds 
joy and meaning in connecting

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with others and yes you're pounding 
physical heart working so hard

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to give you strength and energy.

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And when you choose to view 
stress in this way,

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you're not just getting better at 
stress actually making a pretty

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profound statement.

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You're saying that you can trust 
yourself to handle life's

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challenges.

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You're remembering that you don't 
have to face them along.

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This is kind of amazing we you're 
telling us is just it seems

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amazing to me that a belief about 
stress can make so much

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difference to someone's life 
expectancy but how,

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how would that extend to advice 
I could someone's making a

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lifestyle choice between say a stressful 
job and non-stressful job

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is it doesn't matter that 
which way they go there,

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it's,

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it's equally wise to go for the 
stressful job so long as you

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believe that you can handle it and some.

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Yeah and.

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And one thing we know for certain 
is that chasing meaning is

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better for your health and trying 
to avoid discomfort.

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And so I would say,

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that's really the best way to make 
decisions is go after what it

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is a creates meaning in your life 
and then trust yourself to

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handle the stress that follows.

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Thank you so much.