In “How to Make Stress your Friend” Kelly McGonigal explains the ways we can change how our body responds to stress. She uses a few studies as examples of how you can change your view of stress making it a positive biological reaction. She also touches on the body’s natural need to be social and how that helps how our body reacts to stress. This TED Talk is meant to improve our views of stress in hopes of changing our physical and mental responses to stress.
The first study, she outlined looked at 30,000 adults in the United States for eight years. In this study, they asked for the amount of stress the participant had in the last year and if they viewed stress to be harmful to their health. Then they looked at the public death records to see who died. They found that those people who had a lot of stress were at a 43% increased risk of…show more content… During which most people would feel anxiety, except this group of participants were given different instructions on how to view stress. These participants were told to not view the stress as anxiety, but more of their bodies being energized and taking in more oxygen for their brains. They were told that the pounding of their hearts was preparing them for action. It was during this example, that she showed a diagram of a person’s heart and blood vessels. Here Kelly explained that during a typical stress response your blood vessels constrict and it causes blood flow to not have as much room to move, which can lead to a heart attack. But when the participants viewed their stress responses as helpful their blood vessels remained open. This response is also the same response seen during feelings of joy or courage. Similar to the feelings we have when we are near loved ones or sharing stories with
