How to Stress Better: Lessons from the New Science of Stress (extended Version)
Whilst the thought of building wellbeing may present an optimistic and hopeful thought for some, it can also feel superficial and lacking perspective for others. With the pressures of juggling work, home, family and social lives, and the relationships that reside within, the thought of attempting to build wellbeing through momentary interventions can, for some, feel futile. However, building wellbeing isn't only about looking on the bright side and leveraging possibilities; it is understanding the limitations of our circumstances and knowing how to ride life's waves - rough waters, storms and leaking ships included.
When exploring wellbeing, we shouldn't leave the complexity of reality in the shadows. In today's world, little threatens our wellbeing as pervasively as stress. Therefore, when discussing the building of wellbeing, we cannot ignore the impact of stress on our ability to function well. No matter where we go, we get sold the same message; stress is killing us, stress is having significant detrimental effects on our health, stress is dangerous. As science evolves and research continues to expand our understandings, we now know that this is only part of the story. Now we have a very different story to share, and it turns out, what we believe about stress can be the difference between whether it hurts us or helps us.
Before we go any further, I want you to stop and think about something in your life that is stressful. Take a moment to sit with it and feel it. Notice what is happening in your body as you think about it. I now want you to ask yourself, when you think of stress, which statement do you consider to be most accurate? That stress is harmful and should be avoided and reduced wherever possible, or that stress is helpful and should be embraced and utilised? Take another moment to reflect...
My hope is that you begin thinking about stress in a way that could dramatically change how you engage in the world. I want to help you change your mind about stress and I want you to help those you engage with to do the same.
When it comes to stress, most of the information we hear is about the need to avoid it, get rid of it or learn how to "calm down". Not only is this advice unhelpful, often it can leave us feeling even more distressed about our lack of control over it. It can even make us feel as though we are fighting against our bodies. This is the issue with current stress narratives; they tells us to be scared of the stress response. This leaves so many of us viewing the stress in our bodies as a sign that we are not coping, that we are failing and that we should immediately stop doing whatever is producing these uncomfortable feelings. For us to regain control, we must first understand why our body is responding in the way that it is.
Did you know that 99.99% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct? That makes us part of the 0.01% of those that have survived. Why? Because the human body is an incredibly resilient system of survival. When our skin gets a cut, it heals, but it doesn’t just heal, it heals with scar tissue and becomes stronger than it was before. Our bones break and they fuse back together, but the place where the new bone grows becomes stronger than it was before. When we get sick, our body learns to not only fight off the illness, but it creates the antibodies needed to give us greater protection if we were ever to become exposed again. Every part of our body performs an important function. Unfortunately, so many of us feel as if our bodies are letting us down when it comes to stress. However, just like the healing of skin and bone and the building of our immune system, the body’s stress response is an in-built system to help us.
The body's stress responses
It is a common assumption that we only have one stress response the fight/flight/freeze response. However, the new science of stress has found that we actually have many different stress responses, all causing our body's physiology to respond in unique ways. These include:
The Fight or Flight/Threat Response.
The Challenge Response.
The Tend-and-Befriend Response.
The Excite-and-Delight Response.
The one thing that separates which stress response our body shifts into, is our mind. Our appraisal of a situation determines whether we see something as a threat, as a challenge, as a time to get support or a time to embrace excitement. That is all. It all lies in perception. Most importantly however, the cognitive interpretation of the stressor we are experiencing direcly impacts how our physiology shifts to prepare to protect our bodies.
I want you to now take a moment to think about all of the ways that your body responds to stress...
When you start to experience a racing heart, butterflies in your stomach, a change in your breathing, sweaty palms, a rush of adrenaline or hyperfocus, what story does your mind tell you about these changes? Maybe you interpret it as danger and that you have to get yourself out of whatever situation is making you feel this way. Maybe you call it anxiety. Maybe it is as a sign that you are doing something that you shouldn’t or that you don’t have the capacity to cope with whatever is happening in front of you. This is where we need to change our minds about stress. These signals from your body are not telling you that you aren’t coping, they are fuelling you with exactly what you need to be able to cope. To get better at stress, we need to learn to embrace and trust what is happening in our bodies, not work against it.
So what are these changes and why do they happen?
When we experience stress, our sympathetic nervous system is instantaneously activated making us more alert and ready to act by directing our whole body to mobilise energy. Our liver releases fat and sugar into our bloodstream to use as additional fuel. Breathing deepens so more oxygen can be delivered to our hearts. Our hearts pump faster to deliver the oxygen, fat and sugar to our muscles and brain. Stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol are released to help our muscles and brain take in and use that energy more efficiently. The adrenaline wakes up our senses, our pupils dilate to let more light in and our hearing sharpens. Our brain processing becomes faster. Mind-wandering stops and unimportant information fades away.
In all of these ways, our stress gets us ready to face whatever challenges lie in front of us and this response can give us extraordinary physical abilities and strength. But we need to harness what our body is producing, not become fearful of it. We need to see that our body is giving us exactly what we need to rise to the occasion.
The Fight/Flight (Threat) Response
This is activated when our mind decides that we are in a state of threat and our body interprets that our survival is on the line. Due to this appraisal, our body responds with an immediate burst of energy to either run or fight. In this threat response, all of the things that I mentioned earlier happen in our bodies. And we are lucky that it does. Because, in those unique and infrequent moments of true threat, that response allows us to rise to face it in incredible ways.
However, there is one key element of this threat response that we need to pay attention to. And this is where stress gets its bad reputation. When we shift into a threat response, our blood vessels constrict. This is because our body is anticipating physical harm. To minimize the blood loss that may occur after a battle, our body protects itself (in the short run) by constricting these vessels to slow our blood flow down. Our body also increases inflammation and mobilises immune cells to prepare us to be able to heal quickly.
This increased inflammation and blood pressure can help in an emergency or when physical harm is imminent, but when it is chronic – meaning we experience this threat response to the everyday stressors in our life again and again, it can accelerate aging and cardiovascular disease and contribute to things like stress-induced heart attacks. It is not healthy for our bodies to be in this state all of the time. If we are scared of our stress response and we interpret every sign of stress as a threat (as something that is dangerous and that we are fearful of) it shifts our body into this state regularly. This is where our mind can change our lives. If our life and survival is not on the line, instead of viewing stressful experiences as a threatening, we can view them as challenges and this completely changes the way our body prepares itself.
The Challenge Response
The challenge response also mobilizes energy and prepares us for action, however, there is one physiological shift that makes all of the difference. During the challenge response, our body isn’t anticipating harm. We feel focused, but not threatened. We still feel high levels of stress and anxiety, but when we are able to recognise that this physical response is helping us rise to meet a challenge (rather than to survive), our body feels safe and our blood vessels remain relaxed. And in this relaxed state, our body maximises blood flow (because it isn’t worried about blood loss on the other end). This increased blood flow gives us additional energy and our heart beats with greater strength. It is the feeling we get when we look a challenge in the eye and say “come at me”.
Our body’s goal in this state is not to avoid harm, but to go after what we want. A challenge response gives us an abundance of energy, but it does so in a much healthier state. In a situation which requires us to perform under pressure, (e.g. sporting events, public speaking, exams, presentations or unfamiliar social situations) this response gives us the energy to approach the challenge head on with the mental and physical resources to support our success. The challenge response can be witnessed in peak performers such as athletes, surgeons, video gamers, artists or musicians - anyone who is in a state of intense focus, or “in the zone”. Psychologists refer to this state as “flow”. These top performers' bodies are not calm under pressure, instead, they are utilising their challenge response.
This stress response helps us to boost our concentration, confidence and performance. When our bodies maximise the challenge response, it leads to better aging, cardiovascular health, and brain health. In this state, we still feel anxious and “stressed” but we also experience excitement, increased energy, enthusiasm and confidence.
So next time you feel stress rise as you face a challenge, don't try to "calm down" or ignore what is happening, get your butterflies into formation and harness this increased energy. Choose a challenge response. Tell yourself, "my body is giving me the energy I need to rise to this challenge. Focus, I can do this."
The Tend-and-Befriend Response
The tend-and-befriend response is a powerful stress response that many of us have little awareness of, but use often. Take a moment to think of whether you have ever experienced a stressful event and had an incredible urge to call someone close to you and tell them about it? Or have you ever found yourself jumping into a stressful situation with surprising levels of courage to protect someone or something you care about? This is the activation of the tend-and-befriend stress response.
When people discuss natural disasters, terrorist attacks or significant communal traumas, there are often stories that surface of incredible instances of communities coming together and people doing whatever they can to help support others. This innate desire to help in times of stress is the tend-and-befriend response. This stress response motivates you to connect. It makes you want to support and protect those that you care about and it actually increases your levels of courage to support you in doing so.
This response is promoted by the hormone oxytocin. High levels of oxytocin create cravings for social contact, making us want to connect with others. When oxytocin is high, it increases our tendency to trust and help those we care about. Oxytocin is also a chemical of courage. It dampens the fear response in our brain. It doesn't just make us want to connect, it makes us braver. When our body experiences stress, our pituitary gland releases oxytocin to encourage social connectedness. It is our body's way of priming us to connect with our support networks and become more responsive to those within them. So when you experience stress and all you want to do is talk to someone you care about, that is part of your body's stress response encouraging you to seek support. When somebody does something unfair and you want to defend your team, your family or your community, that is all a part of the tend-and-befriend stress response.
One of the most fascinating findings about oxytocin is that this hormone is actually protective of heart health. Our heart has receptors for oxytocin which supports our heart cells to regenerate and repair from micro damage. Not only does a healthy stress response not hurt your heart, when it includes oxytocin, it literally strengthens your heart. A very different version of the story than what we are used to hearing.
The tend-and-befriend stress response is activated when we protect or connect with others. If you are feeling overwhelmed by the stress that you are facing, and it is something other than an immediate threat to overcome, seek connection and maximise the benefits of oxytocin. This act will help you navigate the stress whilst increasing your levels of courage, potentially helping you to step into the challenge response more readily.
The Excite-and-Delight Response
The final stress response that I will address is the excite-and-delight response. In studies where experimenters tracked the physiological changes of sky-divers (heart rates, blood pressure, breathing patterns etc.) they found no changes between those who were experienced sky-divers doing it for fun and those who were first-timers doing it with a feeling of immense terror. It just so happens that the sensations our bodies experience during stress is very similar to excitement. When we hear of adrenaline junkies, or extreme sports athletes, these people don’t have a physiologically calm response to the challenge in front of them, their bodies and their minds perceive the stress response as excitement. The stress response gives us a motivational boost from a mix of endorphins, adrenaline, testosterone and dopamine – resulting in a natural high. This is why some people enjoy stress. Together these chemicals increase your sense of confidence and power. This response can be found in extreme sports competitors, people falling in love, rushing to meet a deadline or watching a close game. Your body is in a state of stress, but it feels amazing.
Sometimes we won’t be able to shift our mindset to rise to the challenge in front of us or we won’t have access to connecting with others to kick-start the tend-and-befriend response. When our body is flooding with stress hormones preparing us to act, but we feel stuck in the overwhelm, the best thing we can do for our bodies is to move.
Moving Stress
We need to complete the cycle of stress by using the energy our body has generated. This can occur through running, star jumps, boxing, dancing, thrashing our head to heavy metal music, yoga or shaking our whole body - whatever movement feels intuitive to us at that time. When our body is overwhelmed, and we can't harness the energy and we don’t want to get stuck in the stress, we have to move it through our system. We have to complete the stress cycle to get out the other end.
My hope is that this article has provided you with an opportunity to see the stress response in a new way. From now on, when you feel your body responding to stress I want you to ask yourself, which part of the stress response do I need most? Do I need to fight? Escape? Engage? Connect? Rise to the challenge? Or lean into the excitement? How will this knowledge impact the way you support others next time they are faced with a stressful scenario?
Even if you feel your stress response is pushing you in one direction, remember, your mind is in the driver’s seat. You can focus on what you want and you can use what is happening inside your body to help you achieve it. At the beginning of this article I asked you to write down something that was coming up for you as a stress in your life. I now want you to revisit it and prompt yourself to think of it in a new way.
Can you instead see this stress as a challenge you can rise to meet? Is it something that could actually be exciting for you? Or can you help to protect your body through this stress by connecting with others and finding support from your network? Can you view the physical signs that your body is giving you as more than a sign of anxiety and an inability to cope, and instead see it as your body giving you exactly what you need to succeed?
Now I want you to think about the question that was asked at the beginning of the article; when you think of stress, which statement do you consider to be true... that stress is harmful and should be avoided and reduced wherever possible, or that stress is helpful and should be embraced and utilised? Remember it is your thinking about the stress you are facing that is the key to health or harm.
The majority of the research that I have shared in this article comes from the work of Stanford University health psychologist Kelly McGonigal. If you would like to find out more about this topic, I highly recommend her TED Talk, "how to make stress your friend", and her book, "The Upside of Stress".
