A confession to make.
But first,
I want you to make a little confession to me.
In the past year.
I'm just raise your hand if you've experienced relatively little
stress anyone.
Hello.
A moderate amount of stress.
Whose experience in lot of stress.
Yeah.
Happens.
Me too,
but that is not my confession my confession is this I'm a health
psychologist and my mission is the help people be happier and
healthier.
But I fear that something I've been teaching for the last 10 years
is doing more harm than good.
And it has to deal with stress.
For years,
I've been telling people stress makes you sick,
it increases the risk of everything from the common cold to
cardiovascular disease:
basically I've turned stress into the economy.
But I've changed my mind about stress and today I wanna change
yours.
Let me start with the study that made me rethink my whole approach
to stress the study tracked 30,000 adults in the United States for
8 years and they started by asking people how much stress the
experience in the last year.
They also asked do you believe that stress is harmful for your
help.
And then they use public death records the find out who died.
Some bad news first.
People who experience,
a lot of stress in the previous year had a 43% increased risk of
dying.
That was only true for the people who also believed that stress is
harmful for your health.
People who experience,
a lot of stress,
but did not view stress is harmful were no more likely to die.
In fact they had the lowest risk of dying of anyone in the study,
including people who have relatively little stress now.
The researchers estimated that over the 8 years they were tracking
deaths 182,000 Americans died prematurely not from stress,
but from the belief that stress is bad for you.
I don't have to.
That is over 20,000 deaths a year.
Now if that estimate is correct that would make believing stress
is bad for you.
The 15th largest cause of death in the United States last year,
killing more people than skin cancer HIV-AIDS and homicide.
You can see why the study freaked me out here,
I've been spending so much energy telling people.
Stress is bad for your health.
So this though you got me wondering can changing how you think
about stress make you healthier and here the science says yes when
you change your mind about stress you can change your body's
response to stress now to explain how this works.
I want you all to pretend that you are participants in a study
designed to stress you out.
It's called the social stress test,
you come into the laboratory and you're told you have to give a
5-minute impromptu speech.
On your personal weaknesses to a panel of expert evaluate sitting
right in front of you know and to make sure you feel the pressure
there are bright lights and a camera in your face.
Kinda like this.
The evaluated have been trained to give you discouraging nonverbal
feed.
Now that you're sufficiently demoralized time for part 2 a math
tests and unbeknownst to you the experiment has been trained to
harass you doing it now.
We're gonna all do this together.
It's going to be fun.
I want you all to count backwards from 996 in increments of 7,
you can do this out loud as fast as you can,
starting with 9-96 go.
That's Ripley's you're going too slow.
The hot that's that's that that guy made a mistake.
We're gonna have to start all over again.
You're not very good at those are,
you know.
Okay,
so you get the idea.
Now you are actually in the study.
You probably be a little stress out in fact might be pounding you
might be breathing faster may be breaking out into a sweat and
normally we interpret these physical changes as anxiety were signs
that we are coping very well with the pressure.
But what if you view them instead as signs that your body was
energize was preparing new to meet this challenge.
Now that is exactly what participants were told in a study
conducted at Harvard University before they went through the
social stress tests they were taught to rethink their stress
responses helpful that pounding heart is preparing for action if
you're breathing faster,
it's no problem,
it's getting more oxygen to your brain.
And participants who learned to view the stress response as
helpful for their performance.
Well,
they were less stressed out less anxious more confident.
But the most fascinating finding to me was how their physical
stress response changed.
Now the typical stress response,
your heart rate goes up and your blood vessels constrict like that
. This is one of the reasons that chronic stress is sometimes
associated with cardiovascular disease.
It's not really healthy to be in the state,
all the time.
But in the study when participants viewed their stress responses
helpful their blood vessel stayed relaxed like this.
The heart was still pounding,
but this is a much healthier cardiovascular profile.
It actually looks a lot like what happens in moments of joy and
courage.
Over a lifetime of stressful experiences this one biological
change could be the difference between a stress-induced heart
attack at age 50 and living well into your'90s
and this is really what the new science of stress reveals that how
you think about stress matters.
She.
So my goal as a health psychologist has changed,
I no longer want to get rid of your stress.
I want to make you better at stress and we just did a little
intervention if you raise your hand and said,
you had a lot of stress in the last year,
we could have saved her life because hopefully the next time your
heart is pounding from stress,
you're going to remember the stock and you're gonna think to
yourself.
This is my body helping me rise to this challenge.
And when you view stressing in that way,
your body believes you and your stress response becomes healthier
. Now,
I said I had over a decade of demonizing stressed to redeem myself
from.
So we are gonna do one more intervention.
I want to tell you about one of the most underappreciated aspects
of the stress response and the idea is this stress makes you
social.
To understand the sight of stress,
we need to talk about the hormone oxytocin and I know now oxytocin
has already gotten as much hype as a hormone can get.
He even has its own cute nickname the cuddle hormone because its
release when you had someone,
but this is a very small part of what oxytocin is involved in.
Oxytocin is a neuro hormone it fine-tunes your brains social
instincts it primes you to do things that strengthen close
relationships oxytocin makes you crave physical contact with your
friends and family.
It enhances your empathy it even makes you more willing to help
and support the people you care about.
Some people have even suggested we should ignore oxytocin there
to become more compassionate and caring.
But here's what most people don't understand about Nixzmary.
It's a stress hormone.
Your pituitary gland the stuff out as part of the stress response
, it's as much a part of your stress response as the adrenaline
that makes your heart Pat and oxytocin is released in the stress
response,
it is motivating you to seek support your biological stress
response is nudging you to tell someone how you feel instead of
bottling it.
Your stress response wants to make sure,
you notice when someone else in your life is struggling so that
you can support each other.
When life is difficult your stress response wants you to be
surrounded by people who care about you know.
Okay,
so how is knowing this side of stress going to make you healthier
well oxytocin doesn't only act on your brain.
It also acts on your body and one of its main roles in your body,
is to protect your cardiovascular system from the effects of
stress,
it's a natural anti-inflammatory.
It also helps your blood vessels stay relaxed during stress,
but my favorite effect on the body is actually on the heart.
Your heart has receptors for this forum.
And oxytocin helps heart cells regenerate and heal from any stress
induced damage this draft pheromone strengthens your heart.
And the cool thing is,
is that all of these physical benefits of oxytocin are enhanced by
social contact and social support.
So when you reach out to others under stress,
either to seek support or to help someone else you release more of
this hormone your stress response becomes healthier and you
actually recover faster from stress.
Machine.
I find his amazing that your stress response has a built-in
mechanism for stress resilience and that mechanism is human
connection.
And one offended by telling you about one more study and listen up
because the study could also save a life.
The study tracked about 1,000 adults in the United States and they
ranged in age from 34 to 93.
And they started the study by asking how much stress you
experienced in the last year.
They also asked how much time have you spent helping out friends,
neighbors people in your community.
And then they use public records for the next 5 years to find out
who died.
Okay.
So the bad news first for every major stressful life experience
like financial difficulties or family crisis that increase the
risk of dying by 30%.
And I hope you are expecting about Bono,
but that wasn't true for everyone.
People who spent time caring for others showed absolutely no
stress related increase in dying zero.
Carrion created a resilience.
And so we see once again that the harmful effects of stress on
your health are not inevitable,
how you think and how you act can transform your experience of
stress.
When you choose to view your stress response as helpful.
You created the biology of courage.
And when you choose to connect with other is under stress.
You can create resilience.
I wouldn't necessarily ask for more stressful experiences in my
life,
but the science has given me a whole new appreciation for stress.
Stress gives us access to our heart.
The compassionate heart that finds joy and meaning in connecting
with others and yes you're pounding physical heart working so hard
to give you strength and energy.
And when you choose to view stress in this way,
you're not just getting better at stress actually making a pretty
profound statement.
You're saying that you can trust yourself to handle life's
challenges.
You're remembering that you don't have to face them along.
This is kind of amazing we you're telling us is just it seems
amazing to me that a belief about stress can make so much
difference to someone's life expectancy but how,
how would that extend to advice I could someone's making a
lifestyle choice between say a stressful job and non-stressful job
is it doesn't matter that which way they go there,
it's,
it's equally wise to go for the stressful job so long as you
believe that you can handle it and some.
Yeah and.
And one thing we know for certain is that chasing meaning is
better for your health and trying to avoid discomfort.
And so I would say,
that's really the best way to make decisions is go after what it
is a creates meaning in your life and then trust yourself to
handle the stress that follows.
Thank you so much.