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I posted this in a reply but I think it deserves it's own title.
"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. "
Do you believe that stress is harmful for your health? This is only true if you believe it's harmful for your health. It's not stress, it's the belief that stress is bad for you that's harmful.
When you change your mind about stress, you can change your bodies response to stress.
I think the author Kelly Mcgonigal is full of it. She just sounds like she wants to sell books and self help programs
I couldn't find any literature in my extensive 2 minute Google research that supported her argument. Also I didn't like her patronizing tone "gee I have all the answers". It sounded more like informercial material than academic research
I think the author Kelly Mcgonigal is full of it. She just sounds like she wants to sell books and self help programs
I couldn't find any literature in my extensive 2 minute Google research that supported her argument. Also I didn't like her patronizing tone "gee I have all the answers". It sounded more like informercial material than academic research
I subscribe to the view that there are 2 types of stress: Eustress and Distress.
Eustress causes discomfort that incentives yourself to improve. Examples: approaching an attractive member of the opposite sex in a bar, the jitters before a job interview, the anxiety upon landing in a country you've never been to, the frustration endured in learning a new skill, etc.
Distress causes discomfort and does not substantially improve your life. Examples: being stung by a bee, getting stuck in traffic, getting mugged on the street, having cancer, etc.
I subscribe to the view that there are 2 types of stress: Eustress and Distress.
Eustress causes discomfort that incentives yourself to improve. Examples: approaching an attractive member of the opposite sex in a bar, the jitters before a job interview, the anxiety upon landing in a country you've never been to, the frustration endured in learning a new skill, etc.
Distress causes discomfort and does not substantially improve your life. Examples: being stung by a bee, getting stuck in traffic, getting mugged on the street, having cancer, etc.
Stress and anxiety does present itself to a variety of situations. Mild situations to some as with public speaking, job seeking can be debilitating to those who catastrophize it. It depends on the person and how they think about the situation.
Someone with cancer can use their stress in their ability to fight it, become stronger and become cancer free, which has proven results. People raped for instance often recover better when they take the offense and educate others, or help them through recovery. They benefit, and avoid the after effects of the event.
I agree that during a mugging it's hard be level headed but I believe the chronic anxiety that follows can be viewed differently, helping recovery and avoiding the backlash of anxiety that occurs after.
A lot of people suffer from anxiety, it's usually treated with drugs and cong. therapy. The mind is a powerful organ and a lot of people are studying it. One begs the question of what comes first, the physical or the mental. We got use to thinking that chronic stress kills people, this study noticed that thinking it will kill you - predicting your ill effect has a lot more to do with it than just being anxiety prone.
Some people are more pumped up than others naturally, if you tell them it harms them then they dig their own grave so to speak. Studies have also show this with medical diagnosis. People die just about when their told by their doctors they are going to.
You hear people say, grandma just waiting to die until - that might be truer than we know. It's interesting.
I've seen the minds view give chronic headaches, lump in throat, swallowing disorders, IBS(spastic colon), spastic bladder, vision, joint, muscle pain, all chronic, all from thinking they were real issues. Changing the way you think can resolve these, so this new finding makes a lot of sense to me. I am pretty sure if we dug deeper we'd find a lot of our conditions would fair better from a psychologist than an MD. Less pain med addicts, that I'm certain of.
Anyways back to the topic, I disagree. I think stress is harmful to your health based on the things that I learned from from watching this documentary.
During the beginning of the recession, my mother became the breadwinner. She was working 6 days a week/12 hours a day. She kept going and going. She didn't spend time on herself. Once things got better, she had several health problems come all at once. We came to the conclusion that she was so busy that her body put the health issues aside so that it could survive. Her days were literally --> come home, eat, shower, sleep, wake-up, eat, work 12 hours.
She has a twin sister Jane Mcgonigal who I thought was full of it with her very poor argument IMO in her book about "gamification." So for a minute I was about to dismiss Kelly, because I thought she was Jane...
Anyway I agree with Ragnarkar. I personally have experienced good and bad "stress." And I have tied it to my eating habits.
If I eat a lot, that means I'm suffering from bad "everyday" stress; using food to make me happy/counteract the bad stress.
If I don't eat that means I'm focused on a problem that needs solving. This is usually due to me "forgetting" to eat.
However if there is a life changing event or what I would call, non-everyday bad stress, then I will not eat either. But I do not forget to eat, but rather the sight of food is unappetizing. As my mind tries to find ways to solve the problem; find a course of action etc... these fortunately for me are pretty rare.
So if you tie it to diet then stress will definitely have a more direct impact on your health.
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However I'm always iffy when people promise a magic bullet about these "changes" in attitude.
I think that stress is more about control...or the lack of it.
My solution is about gaining more control (of a situation) when you can, but also knowing when to not care.
All of my stress is dealt with that way. And I think a major part of being able to make that distinction is by living well, eating well and doing some form of exercise. Also a large part of stress is external and knowing your self. Don't get in a position where you have to make speeches, if that stresses you out.
[url=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22201278]Does the perception that stress affects healt... [Health Psychol. 2012] - PubMed - NCBI[/url]
The British Medical society also quote the study
[url=http://www.calmersolutionsforliving.com/blog/2013/09/stress-beliefs/]Can Changing How You Think About Stress Make You Healthier? - Calmer Solutions for Living[/url]
[url=http://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work.html]Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work | Video on TED.com[/url]
you can skip to 8:25, he mentions this as well, but his talk is great and hopefully you listen to it all.
If you want to think stress is killing you, then by all means, carry on. I like the new approach myself.
Hey poppysead I 100% agree with Mcgonigal and your observations on this! I actually came to my own conclusions about this subject way before this ever came out. Some may not believe it or may not want to but I have made it work in my life.
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What ever works to improve your quality of life is a good thing, IMO.
