TED演讲如何让压力成为你的朋友

K

e

l

l

y

M

c

< br>G

o

n

i

g

a

l

:

H

o

w

t

o

m

a

k

e

s

t

r

e

s

s

y

< br>o

u

r

f

r

i

e

n

d

.

I have a confession to make,

But first, I want you to make a little confession to me.

In

the

past

year

,

I

want

you

to

just

raise

your

hand

if

you

’

ve

experienced

relatively

little stress.

Anyone

How about a moderate amount of stress

Who has experienced a lot of stress

Me too.

But that is not my confession.

My confession is this: I am a health psychologist and my mission is to help people

be happier and healthier.

But I fear that something I

’

ve been teaching for the last 10 years is doing more

harm than good, and it has to do with stress.

For years I

’

ve been teaching people, stress makes you sick.

It

increases

the

risk

of

everything

from

the

common

cold

to

cardiovasclar

disease.

Basically, I

’

ve turned stress into the enemy.

But I have changed my mind about stress, and today ,I want to change yours.

Let me start with the study that made me rethink my whole approach to stress .

This study tracked 30,000 adults in the United States for eight years, and they

started by asking people,

“

How much stress have you experienced in the last year

”

They also asked,

“

Do you believe that stress is harmful for your health

”

And then they used public death records to find out who died.

Okay!

Some bad news first

People

who

experienced

a

lot

of

stress

in

the

previous

year

had

a

43

percent

increased

risk of dying.

But that was only true for the people who also believed that stress is harmful for

your health.

People who experienced a lot of stress but did not view stress as harmful were no

more likely to die.

In fact, they had the lowest risk of dying of anyone in the study including people

who had relatively little stress.

Now the researchers estimated that over the eight years they were tracking deaths

182,000

Americans

died

prematurely

,not

from

stress,

but

from

the

belief

that

stress

is bad for you.

That is over 20,000 deaths a year.

Now , if that estimate is correct, that would make believing stress is bad for you

th

the 15

largest cause of death in the United States last year, killing more people

than skin cancer, HIV/AIDS and homicide.

You can see why this study freaked me out.

Here

I

’

ve

been

spending

so

much

energy

telling

people

stress

is

bad

for

your

health.

So this study got me wondering:

Can changing how you think about stress make you healthier

And here the science says yes.

When you change your mind about stress, you can change your body

’

s response to

stress.

Now to explain how this works,

I want you all to pretend that you are participants in a study designed to stress

you out.

It

’

s called the social stress test.

You come into the laboratory, and you

’

re told you have to give a five-minute

impromptu

speech

on

your

personal

weaknesses

to

a

panel

of

expert

evaluators

sitting

right

in

front

of

you,

and

to

make

sure

you

feel

the

pressure,

there

are

bright

lights

and a camera in your face, kind of like this.

And

the

evaluators

have

been

trained

to

give

you

discouraging,

non-verbal

feedback

like this.

Now that you

’

re sufficiently demoralized, time for part two a math test.

And unbeknownst

to you,

the experimenter has

been trained to

harass you

during

it.

Now we

’

re going to all do this together.

It

’

s going to be fun.

For me.

Okay.

I want you all to count backwards from 996 in increments of seven.

You

’

re going to do this out loud as fast as you can, starting with 996.

Go !

Go faster.

Faster please.

You

’

re going too slow.

Stop, stop, stop, stop.

That guy made a mistake.

We are going to have to start all over again.

You

’

re not very good at this, are you

Okay, so you get the idea.

Now, if you were actually in this study, you

’

d probably be a little stressed out.

Your

heart

might

be

pounding,

you

might

be

breathing

faster,

maybe

breaking

out

into

a sweat.

And

normally,

we

interpret

these

physical

changes

as

anxiety

or

signs

that

we

aren

’

t

coping very well with the pressure.

But what if you viewed them instead as signs that your body was energized was

preparing you to meet this challenge

Now that is exactly what participants were told in a study conducted at Harvard

University.

Before

they

went

through the social stress test, they were taught

to rethink their

stress response as helpful.

That pounding heart is preparing you for action.