We live in an age of abundant (often
too much) information. That will be the subject of a future blog.
Today, I am going to address one of the most important pieces of
information I Iearned back in 2013, when I discovered Ted talks. I
have passed it along to countless clients.
Nearly seven years
ago, Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist, gave a compelling talk
about stress. Other people agreed as it has amassed almost 22 million
views. It is worth watching.
To summarize the first part of
the talk, Kelly referenced a landmark study involving roughly 30,000
adults over an eight year span. It focuses on the death rate of
people based on their self described stress levels coupled with their
belief about the impact stress has on them.
Most people DO
believe stress is harmful so some results are in line with that
thought. People were asked how much stress they had experienced in
the past year and the choices were- a little, a moderate amount or a
lot. So it would stand to reason that the higher the stress level the
higher the risk of death. And those who believed stress negatively
impacts health had a 43% increase in death when they had rated their
previous year as high in stress.
Here is where is gets
interesting and hopeful. Some people also rated themselves high on
stress but they did NOT perceive that stress would negatively impact
their health. These folks had the lowest mortality rate of the study
even lower than those who ranked themselves to have a low level of
stress but a high belief that stress is damaging. Behold, the power
of a strong belief system. Whether positive OR negative.
If
we currently believe that stress is harmful, what can we do to shift
that mindset? A first step is to address the steady stream of
thoughts flowing through our minds. Many of us have abundant negative
and self critical thoughts. Sometimes that inner critic is the
loudest voice- which may be the voice of a parent who was hard to
please, peers who were unkind, a teacher or coach who was negative.
Then, we adopted that voice as our own. One of my clients has a
parent who was so disparaging with words, it has taken him decades to
drown our that voice and replace it with a positive and encouraging
one.
When our self talk becomes more positive, we can shift
outdated thoughts that we now know can be dangerous to our health and
well being.
I compare the untrained mind to a not yet
housebroken puppy. With consistency and persistence, we can train the
pup to be a joy not a nuisance.
Sometimes, our first thought
when confronted with an unexpected crisis is- “I cannot deal
with this situation!” Better to replace it with, in your own
words, a phrase like, “I will find the resources to handle my
challenge.”
Affirmations like this work but they have to
be believable. A brain will call fraud if you go overboard and say,
“I am the master of the universe and I will zap the stress
away!”
Find your positive inner voice. Change how you
view stress. Work at this daily. And see how you transform.
The
power of the mind is great
Turn it into a positive state
