THE UPSIDE OF STRESS

INTRODUCTION

THE STRESS RESPONSE

When you perceive something to be dangerous, difficult, or painful, your body automatically begins a stress response. For example, if you are walking by your neighbors’ house and their dog suddenly starts barking, you might feel startled and your heart might start racing. The sudden, loud noise is a stressor that that affects you automatically, without any thought.

The body’s response to stress is largely involuntary, or automatic. It involves both your nervous system and your endocrine, or hormonal, system. The physical stress response is the same regardless of the type of stressor. It involves three stages:

• Alarm Your mind and body go on high alert. This reaction is sometimes called the "fight-or-flight response" because it prepares your body either to defend itself or to flee from a threat.

• Resistance If your exposure to the stressor continues, your body adapts and reacts to the stressor. You may perform at a higher level and with more endurance for a short period.

• Fatigue If exposure to stress is prolonged, your body loses its ability to adapt. You begin to tire and lose the ability to manage other stressors effectively.

The Alarm stage of the stress response, or “fight or flight”  is the emergency reaction system of the body. It is there to keep you safe in emergencies. The stress response includes physical and thought responses to your perception of various situations. When the stress response is turned on, your body may release hormones like adrenaline and cortisol that increase your heart rate, blood, pressure and breathing rate.  All in an attempt to help you either "fight" or "fly" away from the challenging or threatening situation.  The bad part of this is that the stress response can work against you. You can turn it on when you don’t really need it and, as a result, perceive something as an emergency when it’s really not. It can turn on when you are listening to the evening news, weather forecasts, the war in Ukraine, other crimes, and just thinking about past or future events. 

THE NEWS CAN MAKE YOU ANXIOUS

Have you noticed that when you watch the news reports that you feel your body respond to the images and tone of voice used by the reporter? Do you feel a little more anxious while watching it?  Feeling anxious is often how people describe the body sensations created by stress. News reports are engineered to hijack our stress response to get us to pay attention. Our attention = $. You can choose the amount of exposure you have to the news and in what format you obtain the news. I recommend that we all limit watching the news on TV and online, and opt to read it rather than listening to it. This will help you to take charge of your experience, and decrease your overall stress level or "allostatic load". 

MAKE STRESS YOUR FRIEND!

Watch the TED TALK

Embracing stress/adversity is more important than reducing stress/adversity. To get good at stress/adversity, When we view the stress response as helpful we create a biology of courage! 

Three ways to be better at stress and thus more resilient: 

• Find the MEANING of stress and its UTILITY in the immediate experience. Chase what gives you meaning  - it's better for your health than avoiding discomfort.

• Adopt a GROWTH MINDSET - how you think about stress matters! Trust yourself to handle  life's challenges, and trust that resources are available to help.

• Seek HUMAN CONNECTION/support,  help someone else and be of service to others.  Caring creates resilience.

RESILIENCE & POSITIVE SELF TALK

Resilience is the ability to adapt and cope in the face of adversity, trauma,  or significant sources of stress (like COVID-19). To be resilient means to bounce back from a difficult situation. Being resilient does not mean that you do not experience distress, it simply means that you manage it well. There are many ways to boost your resiliency: showing compassion to yourself and others, practicing keystone habits, movement, green exercise, breathing exercises, flow states, and self-talk are a few that we have explored in this class. 

Remember what Kelly McGonigal said in the TED Talk - You can get good at stress ( aka manage it) by choosing your thoughts about a stressful event.  When you change your thoughts you change your experience. You can change your thoughts by improving self talk.  So if you want to feel a sense of agency - self control - get serious about your self talk. Self talk is what we say to ourselves, our inner voice. Self- talk often occurs unconsciously, and can act as a subtle running commentary of your life occurring in the background of your mind.  

POSITIVE SELF TALK

• Consciously listen to what you are saying to yourself, and monitor whether it is good or bad.

• Try to counter your negative thoughts will positive ones. Instead of thinking 'I'll never be able to do this', think 'If I practice and work hard, I will be able to do this'. Tell yourself that you have the ability to overcome difficult problems.

• Avoid speaking in finite language e.g. 'I will NEVER be able to do this', rather say to yourself, " I can't do this, yet", and "I will be able to do this with a little help from the teacher".

 Take a another movement break.

REFERENCES & ENRICHMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Huberman, Andrew.  (2020) Huberman Lab of Neuroscience.  Breathwork, Good Mental Health, & Tools For The Brain 

McGonigal, K. (2015). The upside of stress: Why stress is good for you, and how to get good at it. Books by Kelly.

Health Education online Text. McGraw-Hill. Chapters 3 & 4.