The most important lesson nobody

taught you:
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We’ve always been told that stress is bad.

It increases our risk of diseases including

cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Stress is enemy #1.

Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal

used to preach this very message, but
now she sings a different song.

Here's why:
McGonigal completed a study tracking
30k adults in the US for eight years.

It asked participants how much stress

they'd experienced in the last year.

It included a question, "Do you believe

that stress harms your health?"
They supplemented the study with
public death records to determine who
died.

They found that people who

experienced high stress had a 43%
increased risk of dying.

But, and it's a big "but,"

this was only true for people who

believed that stress was harmful to
their health.
Stress was not associated with higher
mortality rates among people who did
not think it was harmful.

Moreover, they had the lowest death

rate of anyone in the study.

This suggested that people weren’t

dying from stress.

They were dying from the belief that

stress was bad.
This made McGonigal ask the question,

"Can changing how you think about

stress make you healthier?"

Science says yes!

When you change your mind about

stress, you can change your body's
response to stress.

Let's look at how this works practically:

When we get stressed, our bodies have
certain physical responses:

We start to sweat
Our heart rate picks up
We begin to breathe heavy

Normally we interpret these physical

changes as anxiety or a poor ability to
cope with the pressure.
A Harvard study asked participants to
interpret these signs as their bodies
preparing them for action.

They were taught to rethink their stress

response as helpful and positive instead
of negative and limiting.

The people who were able to do this had

a surprising response.
They were:

Less anxious
Less stressed
More confident
And performed better

But the benefits weren't just in those

areas.

Their physical stress response changed.

In a normal stress response, your heart

rate goes up, and your blood vessels
constrict.
Here, their heart rates went up, but their
blood vessels didn't constrict.

That response is similar to how the

body responds to joy and courage, not
stress.

That one change can be the difference

between a stress-induced heart attack
in your 50s versus living into your 90s.
According to McGonigal, recent
research on stress reveals this:

The way you think about stress matters

more than the amount of stress you
experience.

This understanding changes everything.

Instead of trying to avoid stress, your

goal is to think about stress differently.
Whenever you experience a stress
response, consider it a positive.

Breathing heavy? More oxygen to your

brain.

Heart pounding? More blood to your

muscles.

Starting to sweat? The body is cooling

for efficient work.

Your body is preparing for action, not

stress.
That's a wrap!

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