Original subtitles

i have a confession to make

but first

i want you

to make a little confession to me

in the past year wouldn't you just raise

your hand if you've experienced

relatively little stress anyone

how about a moderate amount of stress

who's experienced a lot of stress yeah

me too

but that is not my confession

my confession is this

i'm a health psychologist and my mission

is to 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 do 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

enemy

but i've changed my mind about stress

and today

i want to change yours

let me start with the study that made me

rethink my whole approach to stress this

study tracked 30 000 adults in the

united states for eight years and they

started by asking people

how much stress have you experienced in

the last year

they also asked

do you believe that stress is harmful

for your health

and then they use public death records

to find out who died

okay

some bad news first

people who experience a lot of stress in

the previous year had a 43

increased risk of dying

but

that was only true for the people who

also believed that stress is harmful for

your health

people who experienced a lot of stress

but did not view stress as harmful were

no more likely to die in fact they had

the lowest risk of dying of anyone in

the study including people who had

relatively little stress

now the researchers estimated that over

the eight years they were tracking

deaths

182 000 americans died prematurely not

from stress but from the belief that

stress is bad for you

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 study 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 five-minute

impromptu speech

on your personal weaknesses

to a panel of expert evaluators sitting

right in front of you and to make sure

you feel the pressure there are bright

lights and a camera in your face kind of

like this

and

the evaluators have been trained to give

you discouraging non-verbal feedback

like this

now that you're sufficiently demoralized

time for part two a math test and

unbeknownst to you the experimenter has

been trained to harass you during it

now we're gonna all do this together

it's gonna be fun

for me

okay

i want you all to count backwards from

996 in increments of seven you're going

to do this out loud as fast as you can

starting with 996. go

go faster

faster please you're going too slow

stop stop stop stop that guy made a

mistake we're gonna have to start all

over again

you're not very good at this are you

okay so you get the idea now if you were

actually in this study you'd probably be

a little stressed out your heart might

be pounding you might be breathing

faster maybe breaking out into a sweat

and normally we interpret these physical

changes as anxiety or signs that we

aren't coping very well with the

pressure

but what if you viewed them instead as

signs that your body was energized was

preparing you 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 you 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 in a typical stress response your

heart rate goes up and your blood

vessels constrict like this

and this is one of the reasons that

chronic stress is sometimes associated

with cardiovascular disease it's not

really healthy to be in this state all

the time

but in the study when participants

viewed their stress response as helpful

their blood vessels stayed relaxed like

this

their 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

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

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 raised your hand and said you'd

had a lot of stress in the last year we

could have saved your life

because hopefully the next time your

heart is pounding from stress you're

going to remember this talk and you're

going to think to yourself

this is my body helping me rise to this

challenge

and when you view stress in that way

your body believes you

and your stress response becomes

healthier

now i said i have over a decade of

demonizing stress to redeem myself from

so we are going to 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 side of stress we need

to talk about a hormone oxytocin and i

know

oxytocin has already gotten as much hype

as a hormone can get it even has its own

cute nickname the cuddle hormone because

it's released when you hug someone

but this is a very small part of what

oxytocin is involved in

oxytocin is a neurohormone it fine-tunes

your brain's 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 snort oxytocin

to become more compassionate and caring

but here's what most people don't

understand about oxytocin

it's a stress hormone

your pituitary gland pumps this 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

pound

and when 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 up

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

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

hormone

and oxytocin helps heart cells

regenerate and heal from any

stress-induced damage

this stress hormone

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

i find this amazing

that your stress response has a built-in

mechanism

for stress resilience

and that mechanism is human connection

i want to finish by telling you about

one more study and listen up because

this study could also save a life

this study tracked about a thousand

adults in the united states and they

ranged in age from 34 to 93.

and they started the study by asking

how much stress have 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 five 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 increased the risk of dying by 30

percent

but

and i hope you are expecting a butt by

now

but that wasn't true for everyone

people who spent time caring for others

showed absolutely no stress-related

increase in dying zero

caring created 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 create the biology of courage

and when you choose to connect with

others under stress

you can create resilience

now

i wouldn't necessarily ask for more

stressful experiences in my life

but

this science has given me a whole new

appreciation for stress

stress gives us access to our hearts

the compassionate heart

that finds joy and meaning in connecting

with others

and yes your 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

you're actually making a pretty profound

statement

you're saying that you can trust

yourself

to handle life's challenges

and

you're remembering that you don't have

to face them alone

thank you

[Applause]

thank you

[Applause]

i mean this is um this is kind of

amazing what you're telling us it's just

it seems amazing to me that a belief

about stress can make so much difference

to

someone's life expectancy

how would that extend to advice like if

someone's making a lifestyle choice

between say a stressful job

and a non-stressful job is it does it

matter that which way they go that it's

it's equally wise to go for the

stressful job so long as you believe

that you can handle it in some sense

yeah and one thing we know for certain

is that chasing meaning is better for

your health than trying to avoid

discomfort and so i would say that's

really the best way to make decisions is

go after what it is that creates meaning

in your life and then trust yourself to

handle the stress that follows

thank you so much

[Applause]

[Music]