Text: Dr. Kelly McGonigal - How to Make Stress Your Friend
In the lectures, we discussed the relationship between stress and the functioning of the heart. You watched a TED talk clip by Dr. Kelly McGonigal who discussed the results of an experimental study. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to receive an intervention to reframe their stress response as helpful, and the other half did not receive an intervention. Here is a quote from this TED Talk:
"This intervention appears to help change these participants' appraisal of their body's stress response as a preparation to meet a challenge."
This idea best relates to which health and well-being concept?
A. Daily hassles
B. Distress
C. Eustress
D. Placebo effect
"You're not very good at this, are you? Okay, so you get the idea. 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. If you're breathing faster, it's no problem. It's getting more oxygen to your brain.