How to Make Stress Your Friend | Kelly McGonigal | TED — Transcript

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1. 0:12I have a confession to make.
2. 0:16But first, I want you to make a little confession to me.
3. 0:23In the past year, I want you to just raise your hand
4. 0:26if you've experienced relatively little stress.
5. 0:29Anyone?
6. 0:32How about a moderate amount of stress?
7. 0:35Who has experienced a lot of stress?
8. 0:38Yeah. Me too.
9. 0:40But that is not my confession.
10. 0:43My confession is this:
11. 0:44I am a health psychologist,
12. 0:46and my mission is to help people be happier and healthier.
13. 0:51But I fear that something I've been teaching
14. 0:54for the last 10 years is doing more harm than good,
15. 0:59and it has to do with stress.
16. 1:01For years I've been telling people, stress makes you sick.
17. 1:04It increases the risk of everything from the common cold
18. 1:07to cardiovascular disease.
19. 1:10Basically, I've turned stress into the enemy.
20. 1:14But I have changed my mind about stress,
21. 1:17and today, I want to change yours.
22. 1:21Let me start with the study that made me rethink
23. 1:23my whole approach to stress.
24. 1:26This study tracked 30,000 adults in the United States for eight years,
25. 1:30and they started by asking people,
26. 1:33"How much stress have you experienced in the last year?"
27. 1:37They also asked,
28. 1:38"Do you believe that stress is harmful for your health?"
29. 1:44And then they used public death records to find out who died.
30. 1:48(Laughter)
31. 1:49Okay.
32. 1:51Some bad news first.
33. 1:53People who experienced a lot of stress in the previous year
34. 1:56had a 43 percent increased risk of dying.
35. 2:00But that was only true for the people
36. 2:04who also believed that stress is harmful for your health.
37. 2:08(Laughter)
38. 2:10People who experienced a lot of stress
39. 2:13but did not view stress as harmful
40. 2:15were no more likely to die.
41. 2:16In fact, they had the lowest risk of dying
42. 2:20of anyone in the study,
43. 2:21including people who had relatively little stress.
44. 2:24Now the researchers estimated that over the eight years
45. 2:27they were tracking deaths,
46. 2:29182,000 Americans died prematurely,
47. 2:32not from stress,
48. 2:33but from the belief that stress is bad for you.
49. 2:37(Laughter)
50. 2:38That is over 20,000 deaths a year.
51. 2:41Now, if that estimate is correct,
52. 2:44that would make believing stress is bad for you
53. 2:47the 15th largest cause of death in the United States last year,
54. 2:51killing more people than skin cancer, HIV/AIDS and homicide.
55. 2:57(Laughter)
56. 2:59You can see why this study freaked me out.
57. 3:02Here I've been spending so much energy telling people
58. 3:06stress is bad for your health.
59. 3:09So this study got me wondering:
60. 3:10Can changing how you think about stress make you healthier?
61. 3:14And here the science says yes.
62. 3:16When you change your mind about stress,
63. 3:18you can change your body's response to stress.
64. 3:22Now to explain how this works,
65. 3:24I want you all to pretend that you are participants
66. 3:27in a study designed to stress you out.
67. 3:29It's called the social stress test.
68. 3:32You come into the laboratory,
69. 3:34and you're told you have to give
70. 3:36a five-minute impromptu speech on your personal weaknesses
71. 3:41to a panel of expert evaluators sitting right in front of you,
72. 3:44and to make sure you feel the pressure,
73. 3:46there are bright lights and a camera in your face,
74. 3:49kind of like this.
75. 3:51(Laughter)
76. 3:52And the evaluators have been trained
77. 3:55to give you discouraging, non-verbal feedback,
78. 3:59like this.
79. 4:05(Exhales)
80. 4:06(Laughter)
81. 4:09Now that you're sufficiently demoralized,
82. 4:11time for part two: a math test.
83. 4:14And unbeknownst to you,
84. 4:16the experimenter has been trained to harass you during it.
85. 4:20Now we're going to all do this together.
86. 4:22It's going to be fun.
87. 4:24For me.
88. 4:25Okay.
89. 4:26(Laughter)
90. 4:27I want you all to count backwards from 996
91. 4:31in increments of seven.
92. 4:33You're going to do this out loud,
93. 4:34as fast as you can,
94. 4:36starting with 996.
95. 4:38Go!
96. 4:39(Audience counting)
97. 4:41Go faster. Faster please.
98. 4:44You're going too slow.
99. 4:45(Audience counting)
100. 4:46Stop. Stop, stop, stop.
101. 4:48That guy made a mistake.
102. 4:49We are going to have to start all over again.
103. 4:51(Laughter)
104. 4:52You're not very good at this, are you?
105. 4:55Okay, so you get the idea.
106. 4:56If you were actually in this study,
107. 4:58you'd probably be a little stressed out.
108. 5:00Your heart might be pounding,
109. 5:01you might be breathing faster, maybe breaking out into a sweat.
110. 5:05And normally, we interpret these physical changes as anxiety
111. 5:09or signs that we aren't coping very well with the pressure.
112. 5:13But what if you viewed them instead
113. 5:15as signs that your body was energized,
114. 5:17was preparing you to meet this challenge?
115. 5:21Now that is exactly what participants were told
116. 5:23in a study conducted at Harvard University.
117. 5:26Before they went through the social stress test,
118. 5:29they were taught to rethink their stress response as helpful.
119. 5:32That pounding heart is preparing you for action.
120. 5:36If you're breathing faster, it's no problem.
121. 5:38It's getting more oxygen to your brain.
122. 5:41And participants who learned to view the stress response
123. 5:44as helpful for their performance,
124. 5:46well, they were less stressed out, less anxious, more confident,
125. 5:50but the most fascinating finding to me
126. 5:52was how their physical stress response changed.
127. 5:55Now, in a typical stress response,
128. 5:57your heart rate goes up,
129. 5:59and your blood vessels constrict like this.
130. 6:04And this is one of the reasons that chronic stress
131. 6:06is sometimes associated with cardiovascular disease.
132. 6:09It's not really healthy to be in this state all the time.
133. 6:13But in the study,
134. 6:14when participants viewed their stress response as helpful,
135. 6:17their blood vessels stayed relaxed like this.
136. 6:21Their heart was still pounding,
137. 6:22but this is a much healthier cardiovascular profile.
138. 6:25It actually looks a lot like what happens
139. 6:28in moments of joy and courage.
140. 6:33Over a lifetime of stressful experiences,
141. 6:35this one biological change
142. 6:39could be the difference
143. 6:40between a stress-induced heart attack at age 50
144. 6:43and living well into your 90s.
145. 6:46And this is really what the new science of stress reveals,
146. 6:49that how you think about stress matters.
147. 6:53So my goal as a health psychologist has changed.
148. 6:56I no longer want to get rid of your stress.
149. 6:58I want to make you better at stress.
150. 7:01And we just did a little intervention.
151. 7:03If you raised your hand and said
152. 7:05you'd had a lot of stress in the last year,
153. 7:07we could have saved your life,
154. 7:09because hopefully the next time your heart is pounding from stress,
155. 7:12you're going to remember this talk
156. 7:14and you're going to think to yourself,
157. 7:16this is my body helping me rise to this challenge.
158. 7:22And when you view stress in that way,
159. 7:24your body believes you,
160. 7:26and your stress response becomes healthier.
161. 7:30Now I said I have over a decade of demonizing stress
162. 7:34to redeem myself from,
163. 7:36so we are going to do one more intervention.
164. 7:38I want to tell you
165. 7:40about one of the most under-appreciated aspects of the stress response,
166. 7:43and the idea is this:
167. 7:45Stress makes you social.
168. 7:49To understand this side of stress,
169. 7:51we need to talk about a hormone, oxytocin,
170. 7:53and I know oxytocin has already gotten as much hype as a hormone can get.
171. 7:58It even has its own cute nickname, the cuddle hormone,
172. 8:02because it's released when you hug someone.
173. 8:04But this is a very small part of what oxytocin is involved in.
174. 8:09Oxytocin is a neuro-hormone.
175. 8:11It fine-tunes your brain's social instincts.
176. 8:15It primes you to do things
177. 8:17that strengthen close relationships.
178. 8:21Oxytocin makes you crave physical contact with your friends and family.
179. 8:26It enhances your empathy.
180. 8:27It even makes you more willing to help and support
181. 8:30the people you care about.
182. 8:33Some people have even suggested we should snort oxytocin...
183. 8:39to become more compassionate and caring.
184. 8:43But here's what most people don't understand about oxytocin.
185. 8:48It's a stress hormone.
186. 8:51Your pituitary gland pumps this stuff out
187. 8:54as part of the stress response.
188. 8:55It's as much a part of your stress response
189. 8:58as the adrenaline that makes your heart pound.
190. 9:02And when oxytocin is released in the stress response,
191. 9:04it is motivating you to seek support.
192. 9:08Your biological stress response
193. 9:10is nudging you to tell someone how you feel,
194. 9:13instead of bottling it up.
195. 9:16Your stress response wants to make sure you notice
196. 9:19when someone else in your life is struggling
197. 9:21so that you can support each other.
198. 9:24When life is difficult,
199. 9:25your stress response wants you to be surrounded
200. 9:30by people who care about you.
201. 9:33Okay, so how is knowing this side of stress going to make you healthier?
202. 9:37Well, oxytocin doesn't only act on your brain.
203. 9:40It also acts on your body,
204. 9:42and one of its main roles in your body
205. 9:44is to protect your cardiovascular system from the effects of stress.
206. 9:49It's a natural anti-inflammatory.
207. 9:52It also helps your blood vessels stay relaxed during stress.
208. 9:55But my favorite effect on the body is actually on the heart.
209. 9:59Your heart has receptors for this hormone,
210. 10:03and oxytocin helps heart cells regenerate
211. 10:06and heal from any stress-induced damage.
212. 10:10This stress hormone strengthens your heart.
213. 10:15And the cool thing is that all of these physical benefits
214. 10:18of oxytocin are enhanced by social contact and social support.
215. 10:23So when you reach out to others under stress,
216. 10:26either to seek support or to help someone else,
217. 10:30you release more of this hormone,
218. 10:32your stress response becomes healthier,
219. 10:34and you actually recover faster from stress.
220. 10:37I find this amazing,
221. 10:39that your stress response has a built-in mechanism
222. 10:43for stress resilience,
223. 10:46and that mechanism is human connection.
224. 10:51I want to finish by telling you about one more study.
225. 10:54And listen up, because this study could also save a life.
226. 10:58This study tracked about 1,000 adults in the United States,
227. 11:01and they ranged in age from 34 to 93,
228. 11:06and they started the study by asking,
229. 11:08"How much stress have you experienced in the last year?"
230. 11:12They also asked,
231. 11:14"How much time have you spent helping out friends, neighbors,
232. 11:18people in your community?"
233. 11:22And then they used public records for the next five years
234. 11:24to find out who died.
235. 11:27Okay, so the bad news first:
236. 11:30For every major stressful life experience,
237. 11:33like financial difficulties or family crisis,
238. 11:36that increased the risk of dying by 30 percent.
239. 11:40But -- and I hope you are expecting a "but" by now --
240. 11:44but that wasn't true for everyone.
241. 11:46People who spent time caring for others
242. 11:50showed absolutely no stress-related increase in dying.
243. 11:55Zero.
244. 11:56Caring created resilience.
245. 12:00And so we see once again
246. 12:01that the harmful effects of stress on your health
247. 12:04are not inevitable.
248. 12:06How you think and how you act
249. 12:09can transform your experience of stress.
250. 12:13When you choose to view your stress response as helpful,
251. 12:17you create the biology of courage.
252. 12:22And when you choose to connect with others under stress,
253. 12:25you can create resilience.
254. 12:29Now I wouldn't necessarily ask for more stressful experiences in my life,
255. 12:35but this science has given me a whole new appreciation for stress.
256. 12:41Stress gives us access to our hearts.
257. 12:45The compassionate heart that finds joy and meaning
258. 12:49in connecting with others,
259. 12:51and yes, your pounding physical heart,
260. 12:54working so hard to give you strength and energy.
261. 12:59And when you choose to view stress in this way,
262. 13:03you're not just getting better at stress,
263. 13:05you're actually making a pretty profound statement.
264. 13:09You're saying that you can trust yourself to handle life's challenges.
265. 13:15And you're remembering that you don't have to face them alone.
266. 13:21Thank you.
267. 13:22(Applause)
268. 13:32Chris Anderson: This is kind of amazing, what you're telling us.
269. 13:35It seems amazing to me that a belief about stress
270. 13:39can make so much difference to someone's life expectancy.
271. 13:43How would that extend to advice,
272. 13:45like, if someone is making a lifestyle choice
273. 13:47between, say, a stressful job and a non-stressful job,
274. 13:51does it matter which way they go?
275. 13:54It's equally wise to go for the stressful job
276. 13:56so long as you believe that you can handle it, in some sense?
277. 13:59KM: Yeah, and one thing we know for certain
278. 14:02is that chasing meaning is better for your health
279. 14:04than trying to avoid discomfort.
280. 14:06And so I would say that's really the best way to make decisions,
281. 14:09is go after what it is that creates meaning in your life
282. 14:12and then trust yourself to handle the stress that follows.
283. 14:15CA: Thank you so much, Kelly. It's pretty cool.
284. 14:18(Applause)