How to live longer with stress as your friend

In a study of 30,000 people over eight years, researchers found that people who experienced very high levels of stress in the previous year had a 43% increased chance of dying.  But only if they believed stress was bad for them. 

People that had high levels of stress, but also believed it wasn’t bad for them had the lowest risk of dying of anyone. Including those people who reported low levels of stress.

Kelly McGonigal shared this interesting and counter intuitive result in her TEDx talk.  Extrapolating the results, it would make believing stress is bad the #15th highest cause of death in the US, behind diabetes and cancer.

Changing how you think about stress can change how your body responds to it.

If you believe that stress is just your body preparing you to something that you care about, it is helpful not harmful.

And this can dramatically reduce the impact stress has on the body. It makes your blood vessels stay relaxed, just like in moments of joy and courage.

Over a lifetime of stress events, thinking this way helps your heart stay healthy. And that helps you live longer.

In another study of 200,000 people results revealed health outcomes were also better when people were less pessimistic. When you expect the worst, you feel stress and think the worst will happen and you put your heart and nervous system under more pressure. And over a long period of time doing this can be harmful

Nobel Prize scientist Elizabeth Blackburn and health psychologist Elissa Epel found that destructive thoughts can damage our telomeres—the protective tips that reside at the end of chromosomes. One of 5 types of toxic thought patterns that have contribute to a shortened life span, is pessimism. They found it creates shorter telomeres which is an indicator of a truncated life span.

A simple solution may be the best way to turn around our thinking on stress.

Lisa Feldman Barrett is a psychologist and neuroscientist at Northeastern University and Harvard Medical School and specialises in how emotions are constructed in the brain and experienced in the body. 

She uses a simple strategy of telling herself her emotions are just electrical currents in the brain. This line of thinking helps her recognise that stress and negative thoughts are just temporary and often helpful indicators to pay attention to.

When she experiences intense feeling like stress, she remains curious as to what they are telling her. Feelings of stress to Lisa is just her body helpfully getting ready to do something she cares about.

So, next time you need to give a presentation or take an exam and your heart starts pounding, perhaps think of the stress you feel as just an electrical current running through your mind that’s helpfully preparing you to do something you care about. 

And that’s a good thing.

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