Jeg har en tilståelse, men først, vil jeg bede jer om at komme med en lille tilståelse til mig. I løbet af det sidste år, ræk hånden i vejret,
I have a confession to make. But first, I want you to make a little confession to me. In the past year, I want you to just raise your hand
hvis I har oplevet relativt lidt stress. Nogen?
if you've experienced relatively little stress. Anyone?
Hvad med en moderat mængde stress?
How about a moderate amount of stress?
Hvem har oplevet meget stress? Ja. Også mig.
Who has experienced a lot of stress? Yeah. Me too.
Men det er ikke min tilståelse. Min tilståelse er dette: jeg er sundhedspsykolog, og min mission er at hjælpe mennesker til at være gladere og sundere. Men jeg er bange for at noget jeg har prædiket de sidste 10 år gør mere skade end gavn, og det har med stress at gøre. I årevis har jeg fortalt mennesker, at stress gør en syg. Det øger risikoen for alt fra almindelig forkølelse til hjerte-karsygdomme. Dybest set, har jeg gjort stress til fjenden. Men jeg har ændret mening med hensyn til stress, og i dag, vil jeg ændre jeres.
But that is not my confession. My confession is this: I am a health psychologist, and my mission is to help people be happier and healthier. But I fear that something I've been teaching for the last 10 years is doing more harm than good, and it has to do with stress. For years I've been telling people, stress makes you sick. It increases the risk of everything from the common cold to cardiovascular disease. Basically, I've turned stress into the enemy. But I have changed my mind about stress, and today, I want to change yours.
Lad mig begynde med den undersøgelse der fik mig til at revurdere hele min tilgang til stress. Denne undersøgelse fulgte 30.000 voksne i USA i otte år, og de begyndte med at spørge folk, "Hvor meget stress har du oplevet i det sidste år?" De spurgte også, "Mener du at stress er farligt for dit helbred?" Og så brugte de offentlige dødelighedsstatistikker til at finde ud af hvem der døde.
Let me start with the study that made me rethink my whole approach to stress. 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. (Laughter)
(Latter)
Okay. De dårlige nyt først. Folk der oplevede en masse stress i det forgående år havde 43 procent forhøjet risiko for at dø. Men det var kun sandt for de mennesker der også troede på at stress er dårligt for ens helbred. (Latter) Mennesker der oplevede en masse stress men ikke så på stress som skadeligt havde ikke større sandsynlig for at dø. Faktisk, havde de den laveste risiko for at dø ud af dem der var med i undersøgelsen, inklusiv de mennesker der oplevede relativt lidt stress.
Okay. Some bad news first. 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. (Laughter) 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.
Forskerne skønnede at i løbet af de otte år de talte dødsfald, døde 182.000 amerikanere for tidligt, ikke af stress, men af troen på at stress er dårligt for en. (Latter)
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.
Det er mere end 20.000 dødsfald om året. Hvis det skøn er rigtigt, ville det gøre det svært at tro på at stress er dårligt for en den 15. hyppigste dødsårsag i USA sidste år, dræbte flere mennesker end hudkræft, HIV/AIDS og selvmord.
(Laughter) That is over 20,000 deaths a year. Now, if that estimate is correct, that would make believing stress is bad for you the 15th largest cause of death in the United States last year, killing more people than skin cancer, HIV/AIDS and homicide.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
I kan nok se hvorfor denne undersøgelse skræmte mig. Her har jeg brugt så meget energi på at fortælle mennesker at stress er dårligt for ens helbred.
You can see why this study freaked me out. Here I've been spending so much energy telling people stress is bad for your health.
Så denne undersøgelse fik mig til at overveje: Kan det at ændre hvordan man tænker på stress gøre en sundere? Og her siger videnskaben ja. Når man ændrer mening om stress, kan man ændre sin krops reaktion på stress.
So this study got me wondering: Can changing how you think about stress make you healthier? And here the science says yes. When you change your mind about stress, you can change your body's response to stress.
Nu skal jeg forklare hvordan det fungerer, jeg vil bede jer alle om at forestille jer at I er deltagere i et forsøg der er designet til at stresse jer maksimalt. Det hedder den sociale stresstest. Man kommer ind i et laboratorium, og man får at vide at man skal give en fem minutters improviseret tale om ens personlige svagheder til et panel af eksperter der sidder lige foran en, og for at være sikker på man føler sig presset, er der skinnende lys og et kamera i ens ansigt, lidt ligesom her.
Now to explain how this works, I want you all to pretend that you are participants in a study designed to stress you out. It's called the social stress test. You come into the laboratory, and you're told you have to give a five-minute impromptu speech on your personal weaknesses to a panel of expert evaluators sitting right in front of you, and to make sure you feel the pressure, there are bright lights and a camera in your face, kind of like this.
Og de eksperterne er blevet instrueret i at give en nedslåede, ikke-verbal feedback, ligesom dette.
(Laughter) And the evaluators have been trained to give you discouraging, non-verbal feedback, like this.
(Latter)
(Exhales)
Nu hvor man er grundigt demoraliseret,
(Laughter)
er det tid til anden del: en matematik test. Og man ved ikke at forsøgslederen er blevet instrueret i at chikanere en i løbet af testen. Nu skal vi alle gøre dette sammen. Det bliver sjovt. For mig.
Now that you're sufficiently demoralized, time for part two: a math test. And unbeknownst to you, the experimenter has been trained to harass you during it. Now we're going to all do this together. It's going to be fun. For me.
Okay. Jeg vil have jer til at tælle baglæns
Okay.
fra 996, syv ad gangen. I skal tælle højt så hurtigt som I kan, begyndende med 996. Start! Publikum: (Tæller) Hurtigere. Hurtigere tak. I gør det for langsomt. Stop. Stop, stop, stop.
(Laughter) I want you all to count backwards from 996 in increments of seven. You're going to do this out loud, as fast as you can, starting with 996. Go! (Audience counting) Go faster. Faster please. You're going too slow. (Audience counting)
Den fyr lavede en fejl. Vi starter forfra igen. (Latter) Du er ikke særlig god til dette, er du? Okay, så I forstår. Hvis I faktisk deltog i dette forsøg, ville I sikkert være lidt stressede nu. Ens hjerte banker måske kraftigt, I trækker måske vejret hurtigere, måske begynder I at svede lidt. Og normalvis, fortolker vi disse fysiske ændringer som angst eller tegn på at vi ikke håndterer presset særlig godt.
Stop. Stop, stop, stop. That guy made a mistake. We are going to have to start all over again. (Laughter) 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.
Men hvad hvis man i stedet så dem som tegn på at ens krop var klar, og forberedte en på at møde denne udfordring? Det er præcis det deltagerne blev fortalt i en undersøgelse der blev gennemført på Harvard University. Inden de gennemgik den sociale stresstest, blev de lært at tolke deres stressreaktioner som nyttige. Det bankende hjerte forbereder en på aktion. Hvis man trækker vejret hurtigere, er det ikke noget problem. Det giver mere ilt til hjernen. Og deltagere der lærte at se på stressreaktionen som nyttige for deres præstation, jamen, de var mindre stressede, mindre ængstelige, mere selvsikre, men det resultat der fascinerede mig mest var hvordan deres fysiske stress reaktion ændrede sig. I en typisk stressreaktion, stiger ens puls, og ens blodkar trækker sig sammen på denne måde. Og dette er en af grundene til at kronisk stress nogle gange bliver associeret med hjerte-karsygdomme. Det er ikke særlig sundt at være i denne tilstand hele tiden. Men i undersøgelsen, når deltagere tolkede deres stressreaktion som hjælpsom, forblev deres blodkar afslappede ligesom dette. Deres hjerte bankede stadigvæk, men dette er en meget sundere kardiovaskulær profil, Det ligner utrolig meget det der sker i øjeblikke med glæde og mod. I løbet af et liv med stressende oplevelser, kunne denne ene biologiske ændring være forskellen mellem et stress fremkaldt hjertestop i en alder af 50 eller et liv til et godt stykke over 90. Og dette er i virkeligheden det den nye viden om stress afslører, at hvordan man tænker om stress gør en forskel.
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. And participants who learned to view the stress response as helpful for their performance, well, they were less stressed out, less anxious, more confident, but the most fascinating finding to me was how their physical stress response changed. Now, in a typical stress response, your heart rate goes up, and your blood vessels constrict like this. And this is one of the reasons that chronic stress is sometimes associated with cardiovascular disease. It's not really healthy to be in this state all the time. But in the study, when participants viewed their stress response as helpful, their blood vessels stayed relaxed like this. Their heart was still pounding, but this is a much healthier cardiovascular profile. It actually looks a lot like what happens in moments of joy and courage. Over a lifetime of stressful experiences, this one biological change could be the difference between a stress-induced heart attack at age 50 and living well into your 90s. And this is really what the new science of stress reveals, that how you think about stress matters.
Mit mål som sundhedspsykolog har ændret sig. Jeg vil ikke længere af med stress. Jeg vil gøre jer bedre til stress. Og vi gennemførte lige en lille intervention. Hvis du var en af dem som rakte hånden op og sagde at de oplevede meget stress i løbet af det sidste år, Har vi måske lige reddet dit liv, fordi forhåbentlig næste gang dit hjerte banker på grund af stress, vil du huske dette foredrag og du vil kunne sige ti dig selv, dette er min krop der hjælper mig med klare overkomme udfordring. Og når man ser på stress på den måde, så tror ens krop på det, og ens stress reaktion bliver sundere.
So my goal as a health psychologist has changed. I no longer want to get rid of your stress. I want to make you better at stress. And we just did a little intervention. If you raised your hand and said you'd had a lot of stress in the last year, we could have saved your life, because hopefully the next time your heart is pounding from stress, you're going to remember this talk and you're going to think to yourself, this is my body helping me rise to this challenge. And when you view stress in that way, your body believes you, and your stress response becomes healthier. Now I said I have over a decade of demonizing stress
Nu sagde jeg at jeg havde over et årti med dæmoniserende stress for at rette op på det, skal vi laver endnu en intervention. Jeg vil fortælle jer om et af de mest oversete fordel ved stressreaktionen, og ideen er dette: Stress gør en social.
to redeem myself from, so we are going to do one more intervention. I want to tell you about one of the most under-appreciated aspects of the stress response, and the idea is this: Stress makes you social. To understand this side of stress,
For at forstå denne side af stress, skal vi tale om hormonet, oxytocin, og jeg ved oxytocin allerede har fået så meget hype som et hormon kan få. Det har endda sit eget nuttede øgenavn, puttehormonet, fordi det bliver frigivet når man krammer nogen. Men det er en meget lille del af hvad oxytocin er involveret i. Oxytocin er et neuro-hormon. Det fintuner ens hjernes sociale instinkter. Det får en til at gøre ting der styrker de nære relationer. Oxytocin får en til at tørste efter fysisk kontakt med ens venner og familie. Det forstærker ens empati. Det gør endda en mere villig til at hjælpe og støtte de mennesker man holder af. Nogle mennesker har endda foreslået at vi burde sniffe oxytocin for at blive mere medmenneskelige og omsorgsfulde. Men her er hvad de fleste mennesker ikke forstår om oxytocin. Det er et stresshormon. Ens hypofyse pumper dette stads ud som en del af stressreaktionen. Det er lige så stor en del af stressreaktionen som adrenalinen der får ens hjerte til at banke. Og når oxytocin bliver frigivet i stressreaktionen, motiverer det en til at søge støtte. Ens biologiske stress reaktion skubber en til at fortælle en hvordan man har det i stedet for at lukker det inde. Ens stressreaktion vil være sikker på at man lægger mærke til når en anden i ens liv kæmper så man kan støtte hinanden. Når livet er svært, vil ens stressreaktion have en til at være omgivet af mennesker der holder af en.
we need to talk about a hormone, oxytocin, and I know oxytocin has already gotten as much hype as a hormone can get. It even has its own 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. Oxytocin is a neuro-hormone. It fine-tunes your brain's social instincts. It primes you to do things that strengthen close relationships. Oxytocin makes you crave physical contact with your friends and family. It enhances your empathy. It even makes you more willing to help and support the people you care about. Some people have even suggested we should snort oxytocin... to become more compassionate and caring. But here's what most people don't understand about oxytocin. It's a stress hormone. Your pituitary gland pumps this stuff out as part of the stress response. It's as much a part of your stress response as the adrenaline that makes your heart pound. And when oxytocin is released in the stress response, it is motivating you to seek support. Your biological stress response is nudging you to tell someone how you feel, instead of bottling it up. Your stress response wants to make sure you notice when someone else in your life is struggling so that you can support each other. When life is difficult, your stress response wants you to be surrounded by people who care about you.
Okay, så hvordan vil denne viden om stress gøre en raskere? Jamen, oxytocin påvirker ikke kun hjernen. Det påvirker også kroppen, og en af dets vigtigste roller i ens krop er at beskytte ens kardiovaskulære system fra effekterne af stress. Det er naturligt anti-inflammatorisk. Det hjælper også ens blodkar med at forblive afslappede under stress. Men min yndlingseffekt på kroppen er faktisk hjertet. Ens hjerte har receptorer til dette hormon, og oxytocin hjælper hjerteceller med at regenerere og hele fra enhver stress fremkaldt skade. Dette stress hormon styrker ens hjerte, og det fede er at alle disse fysiske fordele ved oxytocin bliver forstærket af social kontakt og social støtte, så når man rækker ud til andre under stress, enten for at søge støtte eller for at hjælpe en anden, frigiver man mere af dette hormon, ens stress reaktion bliver sundere, og man kommer sig faktisk hurtigere over stress. Jeg synes det er fantastisk, at ens stress reaktion har en indbygget mekanisme til at modstå effekterne af stress, og den mekanisme er menneskelig kontakt.
Okay, so how is knowing this side of stress going to make you healthier? Well, oxytocin doesn't only act on your brain. It also acts on your body, and one of its main roles in your body is to protect your cardiovascular system from the effects of stress. It's a natural anti-inflammatory. It also helps your blood vessels stay relaxed during stress. But my favorite effect on the body is actually on the heart. Your heart has receptors for this hormone, and oxytocin helps heart cells regenerate and heal from any stress-induced damage. This stress hormone strengthens your heart. And the cool thing is that all of these 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. I find this amazing, that your stress response has a built-in mechanism for stress resilience, and that mechanism is human connection.
Jeg vil slutte af med at fortælle jer om endnu en undersøgelse. Og hør efter, fordi denne undersøgelse kan også redde liv. Undersøgelsen fulgte 1.000 voksne i USA, i alderen 34 til 93, og de begyndte undersøgelsen med at spørge, "Hvor meget stress har du oplevet i det foregående år?" De spurgte også, "Hvor meget tid har du brugt på at hjælpe vores venner, naboer, mennesker i dit nærsamfund?" Og så brugte de offentlige optegnelser i de næste fem år for at finde ud af hvem der døde.
I want to finish by telling you about one more study. And listen up, because this study could also save a life. This study tracked about 1,000 adults in the United States, and they ranged in age from 34 to 93, and they started the study by asking, "How much stress have you experienced in the last year?" They also asked, "How much time have you spent helping out friends, neighbors, people in your community?" And then they used public records for the next five years to find out who died.
Okay, så de dårlige nyheder først: For hver større stressende oplevelse i livet, som økonomiske vanskeligheder eller familie krise, øgedes risikoen for at dø med 30 procent. Men -- og jeg håber I forventede et "men" -- men det gjaldt ikke for alle. Mennesker der brugte tid på at tage sig af andre viste absolut ingen stress relateret forøgelse i dødsraten. Nul. Omsorg skabte robusthed. Så vi ser igen at de sundhedsskadelige virkninger af stress kan undgås. Måden man tænker og handler kan ændre ens oplevelse af stress. Når man vælger at se på ens stress reaktion som nyttig, skaber man modets biologi. Og når man vælger at række ud til andre under stress, kan man skabe robusthed. Nu vil jeg ikke nødvendigvis bede om flere stressede oplevelser i mit liv, men denne viden har givet mig en hel ny påskønnelse af stress. Stress giver os adgang til vores hjerter. Det medmenneskelige hjerte der finder glæde og mening i at række ud til andre, og ja, ens bankende fysiske hjerte, arbejder så hårdt på at give en styrke og energi, og når man vælger at se stress på denne måde, bliver man ikke bare bedre til stress, man udtrykker faktisk et inderligt budskab. Man siger at man stoler nok på sig selv til at håndtere livets udfordringer, og man husker på at man ikke behøver at stå alene med dem.
Okay, so the bad news first: For every major stressful life experience, like financial difficulties or family crisis, that increased the risk of dying by 30 percent. But -- and I hope you are expecting a "but" by now -- but that wasn't true for everyone. People who spent time caring for others showed absolutely no stress-related increase in dying. Zero. Caring created resilience. And so we see once again that the harmful effects of stress on your health are not inevitable. How you think and how you act can transform your experience of stress. When you choose to view your stress response as helpful, you create the biology of courage. And when you choose to connect with others under stress, you can create resilience. Now I wouldn't necessarily ask for more stressful experiences in my life, but this science has given me a whole new appreciation for stress. Stress gives us access to our hearts. The compassionate heart that finds joy and meaning in connecting with others, and yes, your pounding physical heart, working so hard to give you strength and energy. And when you choose to view stress in this way, you're not just getting better at stress, you're actually making a pretty profound statement. You're saying that you can trust yourself to handle life's challenges. And you're remembering that you don't have to face them alone.
Tak.
Thank you.
(Bifald)
(Applause)
Chris Anderson: Det er ret forbløffende, det du fortæller os. Det virker utroligt på mig at opfattelsen af stress kan have så stor indflydelse på folks levetid. Hvordan kan det omsættes til et råd, altså, hvis nogen foretager et livsstil valg mellem, lad os sige, et stressende job og et ikke stressende job, gør det nogen forskel hvilken vej de går? Er det lige så klogt at gå efter det stressende job hvis blot man tror på at man kan klare det, på en måde?
Chris Anderson: This is kind of amazing, what you're telling us. It seems amazing to me that a belief about stress can make so much difference to someone's life expectancy. How would that extend to advice, like, if someone is making a lifestyle choice between, say, a stressful job and a non-stressful job, does it matter which way they go? It's equally wise to go for the stressful job so long as you believe that you can handle it, in some sense?
Kelly McGonigal: Ja, og en ting vi ved med sikkerhed er, at jagten på mening er bedre for ens helbred end at prøve at undgå ubehag. Så jeg ville sige at det i virkeligheden er den bedste måde at træffe beslutninger på, er at gå efter det der skaber mening i ens liv og så stole på en selv til at håndtere den stress der følger med.
KM: Yeah, and one thing we know for certain is that chasing meaning is better for your health than trying to avoid discomfort. And so I would say that's really the best way to make decisions, is go after what it is that creates meaning in your life and then trust yourself to handle the stress that follows.
CA: Mange tak, Kelly. Det er temmelig sejt. KM: Tak.
CA: Thank you so much, Kelly. It's pretty cool.
(Bifald)
(Applause)