Stress: Only the Enemy if You Say it is...

I am so excited about this post.

Psychological research and foundations have consistently discovered and promoted the knowledge that our minds are far, far, far, far, far more powerful than we realize. Psychotherapy is often targeted towards identifying thought patterns that aren't helpful or correct, and adjusting those patterns to positively impact your mood and actions.

This video knocks this line of thinking out of the park. This is a TED talk from a health psychologist and Stanford lecturer, Kelly McGonigle, PhD.

For a long time, I've believed that STRESS is toxic, awful, yucky, and just plain unpleasant. Tons of research points towards stress being a leading cause of many physical and mental health problems, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, fibromyaglia, depression, anxiety, and tons more.

However, I've also heard so many of my patients with both chronic and acute illnesses say, "I've just got to stay away from stress." While this sounds all well and good, what it in effect tends to mean is, "I've just got to avoid anyone/anything/everything that bothers/worries/scares/challenges me." This leads to people becoming isolated and worse, bored.

So, instead I encourage patients to be less worried about stress itself, and more concerned with adapting their reactions to stress. Instead of freaking out about the traffic, change how you react to that traffic. Prepare yourself for those freeway moments with extra music, podcasts, or ideas to mull over. Instead of avoiding that important person in your life who bothers you (parent, friend, significant others...), think about what you really want for that relationship and behave in a way that matches your values. Take care of your feelings along the way (don't stuff them, for the love of Pete), but don't retreat from life because it presents you a challenge and asks you to grow.

This video expands on these ideas further, to demonstrate research findings that suggest that stress is only harmful, toxic, awful for us IF WE THINK IT IS. If you are unconcerned about the global effects of stress on your body and your life, chances are you're going to be just fine. This is fantastic research and I will be talking about this more and more with my patients.

So, take some time to watch this video. It's only 15 minutes of your day. If you're really in a rush, you can watch it in fast-forward mode (you can still hear the words, don't worry) by going to this website to enable "HTML5".

(And if you're really in that much of a rush, chances are, this video is perfect for you.)

Instructions:

1. Click on this youtube link.
2. Click the blue box that says "Join the HTML5 trial".
3. Go to the original youtube.com video page and click on the little gear icon in the same toolbar as the "play" button.
4. Under "Speed" select 1.5x or 2.0x (whichever you want).

More important instructions:

1. Watch this video either fast or slow and start the transformation of what stress means in your life!

Feel more, do less.