It's Sickening...Literally!!!!!

Hey there!

It is stress awareness day.

Cue the band, right?

Let me guess, you are already out celebrating.

I’m kind of torn here, obsessed as I am with seeing 2 sides to everything.

I want to chat with you briefly about stress because it is an important topic, but…. I don’t want to stress you out by doing so.

Since I am a psychologist specializing in helping people with family and relationships (that may be how we got to know each other) and family and relationships are two of the five factors most often cited as a source of stress, I believe it is important I share something helpful.

Pertinent fact:

The way we experience stress impacts whether stress will help us or hurt us.

A massive study found that when people were feeling they were stressed out + also believed that feeling stressed out would be harmful to their health, they had a 43% increase in the risk of premature death.

But get this:

Those who experienced high stress but didn’t believe it to be harmful were at the lowest risk of dying – even lower than people who didn’t experience a lot of stress.

Crazy right?

 A few facts and then watch out for the dollop of good news I will be throwing your way.

Stress.

It's sickening — literally

People under stress – especially those prone to chronic stress — are more susceptible to an entire list of things that don’t feel good at all, like headaches, insomnia, high blood pressure and heart disease.

Where is all this coming from?

A survey by the APA found that the 5 factors most often cited as a source of stress are:

• relationships,
• family,
• work,
• money, and
• economic outlook.

Stress can help — sometimes.

According to the NIMH, "stress can motivate people to prepare or perform and is even life-saving in some situations."

So what’s the deal?

A few possibilities for why the perception of stress influences the effects of stress.

• Previous research found that glass ½ empty people (folks with a pessimistic expectation of life) have poorer mental and physical health and display more negative health symptoms. Negative expectations may give rise to a self-fulfilling prophecy!
• People who have experienced moderate amounts of stress before and made it through those stressful times may be more resilient to stress in the future. When faced with something super stressful, they have experience telling them “Kid, you got this. No problem for you here, my friend.”
• Research has shown that people who believe that control of their health lies outside of themselves are more likely to experience difficulties than those who believe their health is within their control. Those who believe that there is nothing they can do about their stress may be more likely to believe that stress is attributable to circumstances outside of their control.
• Being ‘stressed about the stress’ may snowball the experience of stress and it’s physiological effects.  

The Dollop of Good News!                                                                 

When you look at stress as energy or in some other positive way, as something that is there to help you, YOUR BODY BELIEVES YOU and your physiological response to stress becomes much healthier. 

Viewing stress as something positive keeps your blood vessels relaxed, similar to how they are when you experience joy and courage. That is good for your heart.

To give the thought of stress more positive vibes:

1. Frame stress as a challenge that can provide opportunities.
2. Don’t label stress the enemy. Think of it as an energizer (it's ok to picture an ecstatic rabbit here)  getting your mind and body ready to perform at its top notch best!

That runaway train pounding in your chest, is getting oxygen to your brain so you can do what you need to do to shine.

And shine is what you do!

Shine on,

Jodi