Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend
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0:10 - 0:13(Applause)
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0:13 - 0:17I have a confession to make,
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0:17 - 0:23But first, I want you to make
a little confession to me. -
0:23 - 0:27In the past year,
I want you to just raise your hand -
0:27 - 0:33if you've experienced relatively
little stress. Anyone? -
0:33 - 0:36How about a moderate amount of stress?
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0:36 - 0:41Who has experienced a lot of stress?
Yeah. Me too. -
0:41 - 0:43But that is not my confession.
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0:43 - 0:47My confession is this:
I am a health psychologist, -
0:47 - 0:52and my mission is to help people
be happier and healthier. -
0:52 - 0:57But I fear that something
I've been teaching for the last 10 years -
0:57 - 1:02is doing more harm than good,
and it has to do with stress. -
1:02 - 1:05For years I've been telling people,
stress makes you sick. -
1:05 - 1:10It increases the risk of everything from
the common cold to cardiovascular disease. -
1:10 - 1:15Basically, I've turned stress
into the enemy. -
1:15 - 1:19But I have changed my mind about stress,
and today, -
1:19 - 1:22I want to change yours.
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1:22 - 1:26Let me start with the study that made me
rethink my whole approach to stress. -
1:26 - 1:31This study tracked 30,000 adults
in the United States for eight years, -
1:31 - 1:34and they started by asking people,
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1:34 - 1:37"How much stress have you
experienced in the last year?" -
1:37 - 1:40They also asked,
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1:40 - 1:43"Do you believe that stress
is harmful for your health?" -
1:43 - 1:48And then they used public death records
to find out who died. -
1:48 - 1:50(Laughter)
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1:50 - 1:53Okay. Some bad news first.
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1:53 - 1:57People who experienced
a lot of stress in the previous year -
1:57 - 2:00had a 43 percent increased risk of dying.
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2:00 - 2:05But that was only true for the people
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2:05 - 2:08who also believed that stress
is harmful for your health. -
2:08 - 2:12(Laughter)
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2:12 - 2:16People who experienced a lot of stress
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2:16 - 2:17but did not view stress as harmful
were no more likely to die. -
2:17 - 2:22In fact, they had the lowest risk
of dying of anyone in the study, -
2:22 - 2:25including people who had
relatively little stress. -
2:25 - 2:29Now the researchers estimated that over
the eight years they were tracking deaths, -
2:29 - 2:37182,000 Americans died prematurely,
not from stress, -
2:37 - 2:40but from the belief that stress
is bad for you. -
2:40 - 2:41(Laughter)
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2:41 - 2:44That is over 20,000 deaths a year.
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2:44 - 2:48Now, if that estimate is correct,
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2:48 - 2:50that would make believing stress is bad
for you the 15th largest cause of death -
2:50 - 2:51in the United States last year,
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2:51 - 2:55killing more people than skin cancer,
HIV/AIDS and homicide. -
2:55 - 3:00(Laughter)
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3:00 - 3:03You can see why this study freaked me out.
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3:03 - 3:08Here I've been spending so much energy
telling people stress is bad -
3:08 - 3:09for your health.
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3:09 - 3:11So this study got me wondering:
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3:11 - 3:15Can changing how you think about stress
make you healthier? -
3:15 - 3:17And here the science says yes.
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3:17 - 3:22When you change your mind about stress,
you can change -
3:22 - 3:23your body's response to stress.
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3:23 - 3:24Now to explain how this works,
I want you all to pretend -
3:24 - 3:30that you are participants
in a study designed to stress you out. -
3:30 - 3:33It's called the social stress test.
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3:33 - 3:36You come into the laboratory,
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3:36 - 3:39and you're told you have to give
a five-minute impromptu speech -
3:39 - 3:45on your personal weaknesses
to a panel of expert evaluators -
3:45 - 3:48sitting right in front of you,
and to make sure you feel the pressure, -
3:48 - 3:50there are bright lights and
a camera in your face, kind of like this. -
3:50 - 4:07And the evaluators have been trained
to give you discouraging, -
4:07 - 4:10non-verbal feedback like this.
(Laughter) -
4:10 - 4:13Now that you're sufficiently demoralized, time for part two:
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4:13 - 4:20a math test. And unbeknownst to you, the experimenter has been trained to harass you during it.
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4:20 - 4:26Now we're going to all do this together. It's going to be fun. For me.
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4:26 - 4:33Okay. I want you all to count backwards from 996 in increments of seven.
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4:33 - 4:40You're going to do this out loud as fast as you can, starting with 996. Go!
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4:40 - 4:43Audience: (Counting)
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4:43 - 4:48Go faster. Faster please. You're going too slow. Stop. Stop, stop, stop.
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4:48 - 4:51That guy made a mistake. We are going to have to start all over again.
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4:51 - 4:53(Laughter)
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4:53 - 4:56You're not very good at this, are you? Okay, so you get the idea.
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4:56 - 5:01Now, if you were actually in this study, you'd probably be a little stressed out.
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5:01 - 5:04Your heart might be pounding, you might be breathing faster,
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5:04 - 5:05maybe breaking out into a sweat.
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5:05 - 5:06And normally,
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5:06 - 5:12we interpret these physical changes as anxiety or signs that we aren't coping very well with the pressure.
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5:12 - 5:18But what if you viewed them instead as signs that your body was energized,
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5:18 - 5:21was preparing you to meet this challenge?
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5:21 - 5:27Now that is exactly what participants were told in a study conducted at Harvard University.
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5:27 - 5:32Before they went through the social stress test, they were taught to rethink their stress response as helpful.
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5:32 - 5:36That pounding heart is preparing you for action. If you're breathing faster, it's no problem.
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5:36 - 5:42It's getting more oxygen to your brain.
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5:42 - 5:47And participants who learned to view the stress response as helpful for their performance, well,
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5:47 - 5:50they were less stressed out, less anxious, more confident,
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5:50 - 5:55but the most fascinating finding to me was how their physical stress response changed.
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5:55 - 6:05Now, in a typical stress response, your heart rate goes up, and your blood vessels constrict like this.
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6:05 - 6:10And this is one of the reasons that chronic stress is sometimes associated with cardiovascular disease.
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6:10 - 6:14It's not really healthy to be in this state all the time.
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6:14 - 6:18But in the study, when participants viewed their stress response as helpful,
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6:18 - 6:20their blood vessels stayed relaxed like this. Their heart was still pounding,
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6:20 - 6:26but this is a much healthier cardiovascular profile.
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6:26 - 6:34It actually looks a lot like what happens in moments of joy and courage.
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6:34 - 6:37Over a lifetime of stressful experiences,
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6:37 - 6:43this one biological change could be the difference between a stress-induced heart attack at age 50
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6:43 - 6:46and living well into your 90s.
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6:46 - 6:53And this is really what the new science of stress reveals, that how you think about stress matters.
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6:53 - 6:58So my goal as a health psychologist has changed. I no longer want to get rid of your stress.
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6:58 - 7:04I want to make you better at stress. And we just did a little intervention.
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7:04 - 7:09If you raised your hand and said you'd had a lot of stress in the last year, we could have saved your life,
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7:09 - 7:13because hopefully the next time your heart is pounding from stress,
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7:13 - 7:17you're going to remember this talk and you're going to think to yourself,
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7:17 - 7:25this is my body helping me rise to this challenge. And when you view stress in that way,
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7:25 - 7:30your body believes you, and your stress response becomes healthier.
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7:30 - 7:36Now I said I have over a decade of demonizing stress to redeem myself from,
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7:36 - 7:39so we are going to do one more intervention.
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7:39 - 7:44I want to tell you about one of the most under-appreciated aspects of the stress response,
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7:44 - 7:50and the idea is this: Stress makes you social.
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7:50 - 7:54To understand this side of stress, we need to talk about a hormone, oxytocin,
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7:54 - 7:59and I know oxytocin has already gotten as much hype as a hormone can get.
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7:59 - 8:05It even has its own cute nickname, the cuddle hormone, because it's released when you hug someone.
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8:05 - 8:12But this is a very small part of what oxytocin is involved in. Oxytocin is a neuro-hormone.
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8:12 - 8:21It fine-tunes your brain's social instincts. It primes you to do things that strengthen close relationships.
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8:21 - 8:28Oxytocin makes you crave physical contact with your friends and family. It enhances your empathy.
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8:28 - 8:33It even makes you more willing to help and support the people you care about.
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8:33 - 8:41Some people have even suggested we should snort oxytocin to become more compassionate and caring.
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8:41 - 8:51But here's what most people don't understand about oxytocin. It's a stress hormone.
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8:51 - 8:56Your pituitary gland pumps this stuff out as part of the stress response.
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8:56 - 9:02It's as much a part of your stress response as the adrenaline that makes your heart pound.
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9:02 - 9:08And when oxytocin is released in the stress response, it is motivating you to seek support.
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9:08 - 9:16Your biological stress response is nudging you to tell someone how you feel instead of bottling it up.
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9:16 - 9:23Your stress response wants to make sure you notice when someone else in your life is struggling
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9:23 - 9:27so that you can support each other. When life is difficult,
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9:27 - 9:34your stress response wants you to be surrounded by people who care about you.
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9:34 - 9:38Okay, so how is knowing this side of stress going to make you healthier?
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9:38 - 9:42Well, oxytocin doesn't only act on your brain. It also acts on your body,
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9:42 - 9:50and one of its main roles in your body is to protect your cardiovascular system from the effects of stress.
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9:50 - 9:56It's a natural anti-inflammatory. It also helps your blood vessels stay relaxed during stress.
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9:56 - 10:00But my favorite effect on the body is actually on the heart.
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10:00 - 10:04Your heart has receptors for this hormone,
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10:04 - 10:18and oxytocin helps heart cells regenerate and heal from any stress-induced damage.
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10:18 - 10:20This stress hormone strengthens your heart,
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10:20 - 10:23and the cool thing is that all of these physical benefits of oxytocin are enhanced by social contact
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10:23 - 10:27and social support, so when you reach out to others under stress,
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10:27 - 10:32either to seek support or to help someone else, you release more of this hormone,
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10:32 - 10:37your stress response becomes healthier, and you actually recover faster from stress.
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10:37 - 10:46I find this amazing, that your stress response has a built-in mechanism for stress resilience,
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10:46 - 10:52and that mechanism is human connection.
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10:52 - 10:55I want to finish by telling you about one more study.
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10:55 - 10:58And listen up, because this study could also save a life.
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10:58 - 11:02This study tracked about 1,000 adults in the United States,
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11:02 - 11:08and they ranged in age from 34 to 93, and they started the study by asking,
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11:08 - 11:13"How much stress have you experienced in the last year?"
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11:13 - 11:23They also asked, "How much time have you spent helping out friends, neighbors, people in your community?"
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11:23 - 11:28And then they used public records for the next five years to find out who died.
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11:28 - 11:30Okay, so the bad news first:
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11:30 - 11:36For every major stressful life experience, like financial difficulties or family crisis,
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11:36 - 11:41that increased the risk of dying by 30 percent.
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11:41 - 11:47But -- and I hope you are expecting a but by now -- but that wasn't true for everyone.
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11:47 - 11:57People who spent time caring for others showed absolutely no stress-related increase in dying. Zero.
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11:57 - 12:01Caring created resilience.
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12:01 - 12:07And so we see once again that the harmful effects of stress on your health are not inevitable.
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12:07 - 12:13How you think and how you act can transform your experience of stress.
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12:13 - 12:20When you choose to view your stress response as helpful, you create the biology of courage.
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12:20 - 12:28And when you choose to connect with others under stress, you can create resilience.
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12:28 - 12:35Now I wouldn't necessarily ask for more stressful experiences in my life,
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12:35 - 12:42but this science has given me a whole new appreciation for stress.
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12:42 - 12:46Stress gives us access to our hearts.
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12:46 - 12:51The compassionate heart that finds joy and meaning in connecting with others,
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12:51 - 13:00and yes, your pounding physical heart, working so hard to give you strength and energy,
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13:00 - 13:06and when you choose to view stress in this way, you're not just getting better at stress,
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13:06 - 13:10you're actually making a pretty profound statement.
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13:10 - 13:16You're saying that you can trust yourself to handle life's challenges,
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13:16 - 13:22and you're remembering that you don't have to face them alone.
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13:22 - 13:24Thank you.
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13:24 - 13:33(Applause)
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13:33 - 13:37Chris Anderson: This is kind of amazing, what you're telling us.
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13:37 - 13:43It seems amazing to me that a belief about stress can make so much difference to someone's life expectancy.
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13:43 - 13:49How would that extend to advice, like, if someone is making a lifestyle choice between,
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13:49 - 13:55say, a stressful job and a non-stressful job, does it matter which way they go?
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13:55 - 14:00It's equally wise to go for the stressful job so long as you believe that you can handle it, in some sense?
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14:00 - 14:02Kelly McGonigal: Yeah,
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14:02 - 14:07and one thing we know for certain is that chasing meaning is better for your health than trying to avoid discomfort.
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14:07 - 14:10And so I would say that's really the best way to make decisions,
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14:10 - 14:15is go after what it is that creates meaning in your life and then trust yourself to handle the stress that follows.
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14:15 - 14:22Chris Anderson: Thank you so much, Kelly. It's pretty cool. KM: Thank you.
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14:22 - 14:24(Applause)
- Title:
- Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend
- Description:
-
Stress. It makes your heart pound, your breathing quicken and your forehead sweat. But while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case. Psychologist Kelly McGonigal urges us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction: reaching out to others.
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- Video Language:
- English
- Duration:
- 14:29
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