It’s close to the end of school and there are finals and projects due. Seniors especially getting ready for college. With all these things to do and get done, prepare for in these last two weeks we can assume our stress levels have risen, but what if we can make our stress, our stress buddy? Here’s how:
Kelly McGonigal a health psychologist did a Ted Talk last year in June of 2013 about this very topic. Showing us how we can turn our stress into our friend.
“This is what the new science of stress reveals that how you think about stress matters,” said McGonigal, “Stress makes you social. To understand this side of stress we need to understand a hormone, called oxytocin. Oxytocin is a neurohormone that defines our social instincts. But here is what people don’t understand about oxytocin, it’s a stress hormone,” said McGonigal.
McGonigal also says that when this hormone is pumped out by our pituitary gland as part of our stress response and in our stress response we crave to connect with people close to us. Motivates us to seek support and tell someone how we feel then bottling it up. We notice people who are struggling and in need of encouragement.
“Oxytocin not only affects your brain, but on the body and all these physical benefits of oxytocin are enhanced by social contact and support. Your stress response has a built in mechanism that mechanism is human connection,” said McGonigal.
By now you are wondering ‘okay, what does all this mean? Eww, this is taking me back to science class.’ But wait, McGonigal showed a study that said people who were caring for others by helping neighbors and friends just by caring created a resilience.
“When you choose to view your stress response you create the biology of courage. Stress gives us access to our hearts. The compassionate heart that finds joy and meaning in connecting with others and when you choose to view stress this 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 remembering that you don’t have t face them alone,” said McGonigal.
Oh! Did I forget to mention that if view stress in this positive way that it can increase your life expectancy? Yup, it’s true!
