Most of Us Think Stress is Bad
I recently listened to a TED Talk about stress by Kelly McGonical. She is a health psychologist who defines her mission as “to help people be happier and healthier.” For years she had been telling people that stress was bad. Sound familiar? It does to me. I think that we all think that stress is usually bad and work hard to be stress-free. As if life should be like a Corona commercial. Well, turns out, at least according to her research, stress itself is not necessarily bad. It is more about how we react to it. Makes sense. She goes on to explain stress hormones, in particular, oxytocin.
Oxytocin Is A Stress Hormone
Oxytocin is a hormone made by our pituitary gland. This is a little gland, that does a lot, sits at the base of the brain. The base of the brain, in this case, is just behind your nose. In other words, if you stuck something deep, deep into your nose, you might hit your pituitary gland. Ok, where the pituitary is is not so important. It does a lot of things for us and, without it, we would not be us. At one time, scientists thought oxytocin was only a hormone that came out at pregnancy to help with uterine contractions. Now we know that it does a lot more.
Oxytocin Makes Us Reach Out For Help
Oxytocin has been found to be released by hugging; it has been nicknamed the cuddle hormone. It has also been found to be released at times of stress, just like adrenaline. We all know what extreme stress feels like. Heart racing, short of breath, struggles to think clearly (for me anyway). That’s the adrenaline. Many of us don’t even feel this response so much anymore. We walk around like this every day. According to the research interpreted by McGonical, oxytocin release at stressful times may help cause us to want to reach out, to work with someone, be more social. It motivates us to seek support.
Stress Hormones Prepare You to Meet Challenges
Interesting. A stress hormone that can cause us to be more social, seek support and help. It seems that the way to realize this side of stress is to believe that what is happening physically is to help us to rise to the challenge of what is before us. Increased breathing is getting more oxygen to the brain to help us to think more clearly. The pounding heart, getting us ready to move. Once again, it all comes down to how we think. Think stress is bad and it is; think it is good and it is.
Stress Can Be Good If You Believe It
It seems that the main thing is to, first, acknowledge the stress. We all have stressors, but I think many of us deny that we are stressed and we walk around very stressed for a long time. The lack of acknowledgment, the lack of thinking about it and accepting it for what it is, is the dangerous part. We walk around with our hearts beating too fast, our blood vessels clamped down, our hearts working way too hard. We just stop noticing. Next thing we see is sickness, high blood pressure, heart disease. I know that both of these have also been associated with eating. Guess what, many of us eat to relieve our stress–and not vegetables.
What if we recognize our stress, acknowledged it, accepted it. Now realize that all of the physical responses are to help us to deal with it. Act on that feeling of wanting to talk about it, seek advice. Guess what, that person who is empathizing is getting their own oxytocin release.
How can this help with your next doctor visit? Well, if we all recognized our stress when we got it and dealt with it appropriately, we might not need a doctor visit. What would that do to the cost of health care?
Be healthy, it’s your responsibility.
