1.11 (V) Stress
[MUSIC] Stress, stress, stress. We seem to read about stress everywhere, and more and more, it's seen as a factor in our health, affecting body, mind, and brain. So in this talk, we're going to spend a little time on stress, its positive and more difficult sides, and what to do to tame it. This will dovetail with a lot of the other talks on our MOOC because stress is one of the newer kids on the block, and we need to know a lot about it to promote our well being and flourishing. The whole idea comes out of notions from last century, that human beings, like other animals, like to operate within a comfortable zone a lot of the time. Nowadays, we call that our window of tolerance. We don't mind getting towards the edge of the zone for a little while. For example, we can enjoy getting excited, a little anxious, a little angry, or a little scared, if it's in a good and safe enough cause. Most people might enjoy something like getting excited about the outcome of the footy match, that's what Australian's call football, or in a ball game, and getting terrified in a safe way, by the ride on, say, a roller coaster. However, part of our eagerness to do these things is we know that they're mostly safe for the majority. And the feelings and body sensations will settle safely, and we will feel back to normal some time not too long after the game, or the big day out at the amusement park. When we get out of our comfort zone, the stress begins to dramatically rise, and then we find situations distressing. We can notice changes in our body like pulse rate rising uncomfortably, blood pressure escalating, or we feel distressing levels of emotion. At even more extreme levels, we can begin to feel frozen or trapped, or even disconnect or dissociate. Then, we need to use ways to calm back down and feel more comfortable. Most of us do this best by using soothing from others and ways we've learnt through life to calm down. After particularly stressful events or periods, we may even need a solid period of rest and recovery. We don't always make time for that in our busy modern lives. Positive psychiatry talks about using ways to settle that promote our well being and don't hurt us. So, using our connecting conversations with others, good exercise, that mindfulness, meditation, breathing to calm down, rather than drugs or alcohol, just as an example. When we can't manage the high stress, it can begin to do damage to our well being and become traumatic, meaning that our normal coping is overwhelmed. The good news is that even here we can often recover, and often become more resilient in the process. At other times, cumulative or overwhelming stress is traumatic. And then we need strong pathways to recovery, and what's called post-traumatic growth. That's where we grow as a result of difficult circumstances. Just to be clear, stress is not just all in the mind. Our bodies really feel it. And too much stress can contribute to many illnesses in times when mental health breaks down. Stress triggers inflammation for example, and cumulative stress can literally become disorganizing for our mental and physical life. So, learning to manage it becomes a keystone of our well being and health. Stress regulation and stress management are essential part of positive psychology and positive psychiatry. Today, we think of it as a hierarchy of stress management at the top of those strategies that really help us connect to ourselves and others. And help our brains, bodies, minds reconnect, and be restored and nourished after stress. Stephen Porges, a psychiatrist in the US, has been describing that we have a social nervous system, evolved to manage stress best via our social connections. So at the top of the hierarchy for managing stress are the ways we connect and calm and soothe each other in relationships and connective conversations. Our facial expression, and our capacities to speak and use body language, have actually developed in evolution to help this process. For example, we really value and feel better when somebody shows, by expression and gesture, that they get us and what we're talking about. We begin to calm down. We feel really good after a shared laugh or occasionally a shared cry, and the sharing is the connecting that actually nourishes a part of our nervous system called the parasympathetic nervous system. We hear a lot about the sympathetic nervous system, the so-called fight and flight system. And people have known for a long time that the sympathetic nervous system connects with our immediate response to high stress, and we see it at work in the innovation of heart and blood vessels. It makes our pulse rate and our blood pressure go up like the accelerated pedal of a car. However, our rest and digest and restore system is the parasympathetic system. It works in our gut and our digestive system. It has connections like a brake to our heart. It powers up all of those muscles of facial expression that we were just talking about. So the social soothing comes from parasympathetic input. Some of it's from fast-talking nerves covered in a substance called myelin. And they connect upwards to the most important conscious thinking parts of our brain, and to many systems. However, we also have parasympathetic input from an older nervous system with fibers that are unmyelinated. They move slower but deeper, and are responsible for some of those deep feelings in our middle when we are stressed and distressed. The terrible deep feeling of grief, for example. When stress really overwhelms us, we can get in to that older parasympathetic state of withdrawal, when the older parasympathetic system is dominating. In that state, we need to slow down, take it easy, and warm up. Sometimes literally, sometimes emotionally. Take time, get good care to recover. After a period of more active symptoms of illness for example, whether mental or general medical, some people find they have a period of deep fatigue where they need to take things more slowly to restore energy and come back to their normal selves. These days then, with a little science to back up the art of relaxation and stress relief, we encourage people to find the ways to calm down and to find stress and stress management strategies that work for them. Meditation and mindfulness are powerfully effective, and they seem to offer a space to connect to ourselves, and literally help us to connect our body, brain, mind. However, do take lots of social soothing. Don't be afraid to get fit and busy, for example, with exercise, which uses the sympathetic system wisely. But also watch when the older, deeper system, your gut, is telling you that you're very tired or overwhelmed, and need to slow down and really rest and restore in quiet ways. Hopefully you're going to tune in to other talks which cover stress management through great strategies like relaxation, mindfulness, exercise, creativity, and play. I love to use many of them. Find what works for you and use them daily, and help your kids and those you care for to find their favorite ways. So, as we learn to surf our stress, we get stronger. Flexibility fosters resilience and highly connected minds and bodies, and our flourishing. [MUSIC]