Of Families, Psychiatry and Stress...

Have you ever considered why older traditional families with close family ties and a healthy extended family never really had any need for psychiatrists or psychologists?

With these types of families when managing differences or difficulties, they can go to an impartial family member (from the immediate or extended family or relatives) who may be better able to see what one might be missing. They can keep communications open and allow folks involved to see both sides, problems can be overcome and the family carries on in it's supporting function.

The families of today are more fractured and individually oriented. Many of the grown children, and thus grandchildren will live miles apart from their parents and grandparents. It's difficult for them to be there to support each other and if there is not a good circle of support then the next option is to pay for the help of a professional.

While attending a Mental Health Literacy Workshop I watched a TED Talk by Kelly McGonigal.

Check out How to make stress your friend

She was a Health Psychologist wanting to help people be healthier and happier. While continuing her studies she came to the realization that something she had been teaching her clients was doing more harm than good and that something had to do with stress.

She held the belief, as many of us do, that stress makes you sick, leaving you vulnerable to everything from the common cold to cardiovascular disease. It was coming upon a study that made her rethink her whole approach to stress. She described the study as thus:

This study tracked 30,000 adults in the United States for eight years, and they started by asking people, "How much stress have you experienced in the last year?" They also asked, "Do you believe that stress is harmful for your health?" And then they used public death records to find out who died.
People who experienced a lot of stress in the previous year had a 43 percent increased risk of dying. But that was only true for the people who also believed that stress is harmful for your health.
People who experienced a lot of stress but did not view stress as harmful were no more likely to die. In fact, they had the lowest risk of dying of anyone in the study, including people who had relatively little stress.
Now the researchers estimated that over the eight years they were tracking deaths, 182,000 Americans died prematurely, not from stress, but from the belief that stress is bad for you.

After reviewing this study she wondered:

Can changing how you think about stress make you healthier?

Science was with this one and yes indeed,

When you change your mind about stress, you can change your body's response to stress.

Normally when our heart begins pounding from stress and the breathing becomes faster, you might be breaking into a sweat, we think of these physical changes are anxiety or signs that we aren't handling pressure very well.

But here's another view - it is a sign that your body is energized, and preparing you to meet a challenge.

A study conducted at Harvard University told participants in their study exactly this.

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.

Now those who could view the stress response as helpful, making them performance better, were less stressed out and anxious. They became more confident, AND... their physical stress response changed!

That physical change was seen in the blood vessels that in a typical respond of the heart rate going up, constrict.
But in the study, when participants viewed their stress response as helpful, their blood vessels stayed relaxed! That's BIG!
Okay, can you now see the point of stop trying to get rid of stress, and to change our minds about stress?

See the stress response as our bodies being energized, and preparing us to meet challenges.

Kelly bought up one more interesting aspect about stress in her talk.

Stress makes you social!

She described it thus:

To understand this side of stress, we need to talk about a hormone, oxytocin. The one with the cute nickname, the cuddle hormone, because it's released when you hug someone. But this is a very small part of what oxytocin is involved in.
The physical benefits of oxytocin are enhanced by social contact and social support. So when you reach out to others under stress, either to seek support or to help someone else, you release more of this hormone, your stress response becomes healthier, and you actually recover faster from stress. Your stress response has a built-in mechanism for stress resilience, and that mechanism is human connection.

To sum it all up -

It's not inevitable that there will be harmful effects from stress.
Change your view on stress, see it as helpful, preparing you and giving you strength, then your whole experience of stress will change.
Combine that with connecting with others when you are under stress and you become resilient, you can handle life's challenges and you don't have to do it alone!

Image source Pixabay.com
Information describing Kelly McGonigal findings were taken from the transcript of her TED Talk How to make stress your friend