How to make Stress your Friend | Kelly McGonigal
Listening to an amazing TED Talks by Dr. Kelly McGonigal titled “How to make stress your friend” — has changed by views about ‘stress’ — Thanks Dr. Kelly McGonigal — health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University.
Kelly shares that she no longer want us to get rid of our stress. She want to make us better at stress. Stress makes us more social. Stress releases Oxytocin — a stress neurohormone also nicknamed as cuddle-hormone. It fine-tunes our brain’s social instincts. It primes us to do things that strengthen close relationships. It fine-tunes your brain’s social instincts. Oxytocin makes us crave physical contact with our friends and family. It enhances our empathy. Oxytocin helps heart cells regenerate and heal from any stress-induced damage. 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.
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 our 90s. And this is really what the new science of stress reveals, that how we think about stress matters. And when we view stress in that way, our body believes us, and our stress response becomes healthier. So when we reach out to others under stress, either to seek support or to help someone else, we release more of this hormone (Oxytocin), our stress response becomes healthier, and we actually recover faster from stress.
The amazing fact is that our stress response has a built-in mechanism for stress resilience, and that mechanism is human connect. And when you choose to connect with others under stress, you can create resilience. Oxytocin helps heart cells regenerate and heal from any stress-induced damage.
People who spent time caring for others showed absolutely no stress-related increase in dying. Caring created resilience. Stress gives us access to our hearts. The compassionate heart that finds joy and meaning in connecting with others, and yes, our pounding physical heart, working so hard to give us strength and energy.
Kelly builds that when we choose to view stress in this way, we’re not just getting better at stress, we’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.
Kelly advises us to “Go after what it is that creates meaning in your life and then trust yourself to handle the stress that follows”.
I believe that it is possible to experience hope, joy, and meaning, even when things are difficult. And I believe that the best way to do this is to connect — with one another, and with something bigger than ourselves.
Caring for others triggers the biology of courage and creates hope.”
— Kelly McGonigal
About the Author:
Imran Jattala is Changing World 🌍 100 Startups 💡🚀 per Year. He is Co-Founder of Center for Global Innovators. He Co-Founded meraPaisa an Islamabad based Impact FinTech Startup and UrbanBazaar a Dubai based e-Commerce Startup. He can be reached at: @ImJattala
The views and opinions expressed in this article/post are author’s and do not reflect the views of the companies &/or organization he work for &/or advise.
