How can we make stress our friend
Stress is the only enemy that may will be atrue friend. let me talk about this cute enemy and tell you about what if you lose it,,,
what if someone told you that stress increase the risk of everything
from the common cold to cardiovascular disease,what if someone
told you that stress is your enemy, what will you do?
That what I thought but I've changed my mind about it 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 8 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 records to find out who died!!!
some bad news first; People Who Experienced a
lot of stress in the previous year had a 43% increased risk of dying but 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 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 had
relatively little stress.
Now researchers
estimated that over 8 years they were tracking deaths and look what they found;
182000 Americans died prematurely not from
strass but from the belief that stress is bad for you.That is over 20000 deaths
a year. Now, if that estimate is correct, that would make “ stress is bad for you
“ was the 15th largest cause of death in United States in 2012.
killing more people than skin cancer, HIV virus and Homicide.
Let me ask, can changing
how you think about stress make you healthier ?!!!
Here the science says yes, when you change your mind about stress you can change your body's response to stress.
when you probably be a
little stressed out, your heart might be pounding, you might be breathing
faster, and maybe breaking out into a sweat.
Normally we interpret
these physical changes as anxiety or signs that we are not coping very well
with the pressure.
But WHAT if you view 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 test.
They were taught to rethink their stress
response as helpful, that pounding heart is preparing you for action, if your
breathing faster it's no problem it's getting more oxygen to your brain.
Participants who learned
to view the stress response as helpful for their performance, they were less
stressed out, less anxious and more confident.
But the most fascinating finding was how their
physical stress response changed.
The Typical stress respond is your heart rate
goes up and your blood vessels constrict, 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 vessel stayed relax, 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.
this is really what the
new science of stress reveals that how you think about stress matters.
key wards;
nervousness, anxiety, تجربتي مع علاج القلق,
anxiety علاج القلق النفسي بدون أدوية, معنى,
Thanks, Dr Kelly
McGonigal