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5 min readStress: The Science of Chilling Out
When researchers asked 2,000 people to check off the terrible things that had happened to them—serious illness, combat, divorce, death of a loved one—the result was predictable: people who had experienced the most adversity had the worst mental health. But there was a twist. The people who reported zero adversity were not the best off. They were actually worse off than people who had experienced some. "It's very much analogous to developing physical fitness," says Mark Seery, a psychology professor at the University at Buffalo. "If you never work out, you have zero opportunity to develop." Some stress, it turns out, might build resilience rather than destroy it.
The Sweet Spot of Adversity
Seery's research suggests that exposure to major negative life events can function like exercise for your stress response. In a separate lab experiment, he asked people to submerge their hand in ice-cold water for as long as they could stand. Those who had experienced some level of trauma in their lives reported less pain and less "catastrophizing"—the feeling that the pain would never end—than those who had experienced none. Animal experiments back this up. The pattern holds up to about four major adverse events; beyond that, the benefits reverse and people start to struggle again.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:12) **Opening: Stress is everywhere** - Wendy Zuckerman introduces the episode's topic and the pervasive feeling of stress in modern life.
- 2 (05:14) **Is all stress bad? The resilience sweet spot** - Producer Meryl Horn shares surprising research from Professor Mark Seery showing some stress can be beneficial.
- 3 (11:29) **The danger of relentless stress: Cortisol dysregulation** - The conversation shifts to the difference between occasional stress and chronic, day-in-day-out stress.
- 4 (15:28) **The "challenge response": Stress as fuel** - Professor Jeremy Jamieson explains that not all stress responses are harmful; there is a beneficial "challenge response."
- 5 (18:03) **Teaching a better stress mindset** - Jamieson tested whether people could be taught to shift from a threat to a challenge response.
- 6 (20:18) **The karaoke experiment: "I am excited"** - A simpler study used karaoke to test the power of reappraising stress.
- 7 (26:08) **The vagus nerve: The body's chill-out cable** - The episode pivots to the "vagus nerve stimulators" flooding the internet.
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Show Notes
Stress! We’re all feeling it. And besides just feeling crappy, we’re also told that stress can wreak havoc on our bodies. The internet has a million solutions: vagus nerve stimulators, deep breaths, or a hot sauna! If that doesn’t work, maybe a cold plunge? But what does the science say about all this — what works to lower our stress? And is it really THAT bad to be stressed out? We dive into the research to find out, with psychology Professor Mark Seery, psychology Professor Jeremy Jamieson, and anatomist Dr. Theresa Larkin.
Find our transcript here: https://tinyurl.com/ScienceVsStress
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) We’re all stressed out!
(02:37) Is stress that bad for us?
(13:55) A healthier stress response
(22:32) How our vagus nerves are involved in stress
(25:57) Can we “hack” our vagus nerves?
(30:42) What else can relieve stress?
This episode was produced by Meryl Horn, with help from Michelle Dang, Rose Rimler, and Ekedi Fausther-Keeys. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Wendy Zukerman is the executive producer. Fact checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Video editing and sound by Bobby Lord. Music written by Bumi Hidaka, Peter Leonard, Emma Munger and Bobby Lord. Thanks to the researchers we spoke to for this episode including Professor Julie Vašků, Dr. Christopher Austelle, Professor Daryl O'Connor, and Dr. Jennifer Wild, as well as Humdinger Studios in Melbourne. And thanks as well to Humdinger Studios in Melbourne.
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