4 Studies that will transform your view about stress
#3 Stress is a predictor that you are having a meaningful life
Few years ago, I would think of stress as an illusionary concept. My younger self would have not even considered to write on this topic. It was hard for me to understand — how stress can cause chaos in people’s lives?
I wonder how with time my perspective has changed and now I understand how stress can make life miserable.
I hate when I am stressed because it diminishes my ability to think clear. I feel nervous, lose my focus and my confidence level goes down. In one word its awful.
Stress has become synonymous to modern lifestyle. We face stress in all squares of life. Today we thrive to improve the quality of life and to do so we face stress which reduces the quality of life. It’s a classical paradox.
There is ton of information available on internet on this subject and you may find this as repetitive. But I still feel there is value in putting it up as it has helped me to change my viewpoint about stress.
What if I tell you that stress is not your enemy?
Yes, that’s right. To gain benefits from stress you need to make stress your friend.
According to health psychologist Kelly McGonigal how you view stress can make a great difference. She is on a mission to help people to live healthier and happier life. For years she believed that stress makes you sick and she kept helping people by avoiding stress.
Here are group of studies that changed her outlook to stress and can help you to change yours.
Study 1
A study tracked 30,000 adults for eight years and researchers asked people following questions:
· How much stress you experienced in last year?
· Do you believe stress is harmful for your health?
Then they used public records to find who died. In general, people who experienced lot of stress last year had increased risk of dying but that was only true for the people who believed that stress was harmful for their health.
People who experienced lot of stress but didn’t view stress as harmful were less likely to die. In fact, they had low rate of dying including anyone who has experienced low level of stress.
Researchers estimated over the eight year 182,000 people died prematurely not from stress but from the belief that stress is bad.
Belief that stress is bad is more catastrophic than stress itself.
Study 2
Another supporting study was conducted at Harvard university, called social stress test and during the study participants were induced to stressful situations.
However, before study, participants were taught to rethink their stress response as helpful. For example, they were told to think that pounding heart is preparing their body for action and breathing faster is getting more oxygen to their brain.
The participants who learnt to view stress response as helpful. They were less stressed out, less anxious, and more confident.
But the most interesting finding was how their physical stress response changed. In typical stress situation heart rate goes up and blood vessel constrict. This is why chronic stress is related to cardiovascular disease. It’s not healthy to be in this state all the time.
During the study the participants who viewed the stress response as helpful, their blood vessels stayed relaxed. Although, their heart was still pounding but this is much healthier cardiovascular profile. It actually looks a lot like what happens in the moment of joy and courage.
Stress response is not a sign of weakness rather it is sign that your body is helping you to rise against the challenge.
Study 3
Researchers conducted study on group of people and asked below question
· If they consider their life as meaningful?
Participants were given set of surveys to figure out the best predictor of having meaning in the life. It turns out to be that one of the best predictors of it is stress.
Perhaps, people who experience higher level of stress in their life are more likely to find meaning in their life. The amount of time you spend worrying about future also predicts greater sense of meaning in life.
In fact, researcher’s key conclusion was that people who have meaningful life worry more and experience much more stress than people with less meaningful life.
Stress is a predictor that you are having a meaningful life.
Study 4
This study tracked about 1000 adults between age range 34–93 and researchers asked following questions to the participants.
· How much stress you have experienced in last year?
· How much time have you spent helping out friends, neighbors, people in your community?
Again, they used the public records for the next five year to find out who died. People who spent time caring for other showed absolutely no stress related increase in dying. Caring creates resilience and when you choose to connect with others under stress you build strength to overcome it and live longer.
Human connection helps to create resilience to overcome stress.
Nutshell
These studies provide an interesting view on how stress can be used to your advantage. Stress is not necessarily an evil. How you think and how you act can transform your experience about stress. Changing your outlook towards stress can improve your health and wellbeing.
