In 1936, Hans Selye claimed that “it’s not stress that kills us; it is our reaction to it.” Unsurprisingly, he is also the one who developed the term “stress”; describing it as a response from the body as a demand for change in the environment. Yet today, stress is a term that is connected to any sort of strained or tense situation a person endures, not only that, but almost every person can relate to it now: children feel it, teens feel it and most of all, adult lives are driven by it. Now more than ever people feel as though they have too many responsibilities and not enough time in the day, and as corresponding generations have developed, stress levels and stressors continue to change according to the environment around them. Certain developments
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It may sound ludicrous but Psychologist Kelly McGonigal had supported the idea that stress was dangerous, but now it’s she reveals that stress can only hurt you if you allow it to. An eight year study wrote, “182,000 Americans died prematurely, not from stress, but the belief that stress is bad for you;” the phenomenal part is that the people who also experienced a lot of stress but didn’t view it as harmful “were no more likely to die” in fact, they had “the lowest risk of dying of anyone in the study.” This is remarkable. The way a person views a situation can change the way that that it affects them. McGonigal also says that in turn, those who looked at stress as a positive response viewed it as a “sign that [the] body was energized, preparing [them] to meet this challenge” and it changed the body’s response to stress! Her basic concept throughout the talk was to inform her audience that when you change your mind about stress, you can literally change your body’s response to it. There was also another study taken where multiple people were taken and put under a “stress test” and in the end, those who learned to view the “stress response as helpful to their performance...were less stressed out, less anxious, [and] more confident.” Clearly stress has its benefits, but it only benefits those who view it optimistically, those who look at stress and say, “I can do this!” These are the people that are successful in managing and using their stress to their advantage rather than disadvantage.
It may sound ludicrous but Psychologist Kelly McGonigal had supported the idea that stress was dangerous, but now it’s she reveals that stress can only hurt you if you allow it to. An eight year study wrote, “182,000 Americans died prematurely, not from stress, but the belief that stress is bad for you;” the phenomenal part is that the people who also experienced a lot of stress but didn’t view it as harmful “were no more likely to die” in fact, they had “the lowest risk of dying of anyone in the study.” This is remarkable. The way a person views a situation can change the way that that it affects them. McGonigal also says that in turn, those who looked at stress as a positive response viewed it as a “sign that [the] body was energized, preparing [them] to meet this challenge” and it changed the body’s response to stress! Her basic concept throughout the talk was to inform her audience that when you change your mind about stress, you can literally change your body’s response to it. There was also another study taken where multiple people were taken and put under a “stress test” and in the end, those who learned to view the “stress response as helpful to their performance...were less stressed out, less anxious, [and] more confident.” Clearly stress has its benefits, but it only benefits those who view it optimistically, those who look at stress and say, “I can do this!” These are the people that are successful in managing and using their stress to their advantage rather than disadvantage.