Stress. We all have it, and we’re all trying to get rid of it. It gives us wrinkles, bad nail-biting habits, and premature death (or so the experts say). Well, psychologist Kelly McGonigal is here to give you a stress intervention (and no, she will not tell you to take deep breaths or do more yoga). In her talk, “How to make stress your friend,” McGongical drops a pretty unbelievable statistic: a study estimated that 20,000 people a year die prematurely from the belief that stress is bad for you. Let me repeat: people die from stressing about stress. How stressful is that?
But fear not. McGonigal uses physiological and psychological evidence to show that simply changing the way you think about stress can make you healthier and happier, and I must warn you, she will turn everything you ever believed about stress and stress management completely upside down. Proving that the presence of stress actually motivates us to be more social, more connective, more empathetic, and more physically healthy. McGonigal argues:
“When you choose to view your stress response as helpful, you create the biology of courage. And when you choose to connect with others under stress, you create resilience… Stress gives us access to our hearts.”
So whether you’re stressed out by school, a job, or an epic fundraising campaign, use that pounding heart and pumping adrenaline to reach out, support, and connect with those around you: it will make you and others happier and ironically enough, it will ease the stress.
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