Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Our dominant model and narrative is that we should deny, reduce,
Speaker 2: and avoid stress, and that is not always the case.
Speaker 2: Every single person I know can tell of the time
Speaker 2: where their stress helps them.
Speaker 1: That's Madubay Aquinola, a professor at the Columbia Business School
Speaker 1: and an expert on stress. Madubay's on a mission to
Speaker 1: change how we think about short term stress, the kind
Speaker 1: we feel when we're preparing for a big presentation at
Speaker 1: work or before a difficult conversation with a friend. She says,
Speaker 1: we can reframe our stress as something that actually helps us.
Speaker 2: It's often your mindset about stress that can influence the
Speaker 2: extent to which it can have harmful or helpful effects.
Speaker 2: So when we have more of a stress is enhancing
Speaker 2: mindset that leads to better outcomes.
Speaker 1: On today's show, What Science teaches Us about the Upside
Speaker 1: of Stress, I'm maya Shunker and this is a slight
Speaker 1: change of plans, a show about who we are and
Speaker 1: who we become in the face of a big change.
Speaker 1: It's easy for us to see stress as the enemy.
Speaker 1: In a stressful situation, our heart races, our blood pressure rises,
Speaker 1: our breathing quickens, and this can all feel pretty uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: If we could wave a magic wand that would eliminate
Speaker 1: all future stress from our lives, many of us would
Speaker 1: wave that wand, and the dow Pay believes that if
Speaker 1: we can make a small shift in our mindset, stress
Speaker 1: can actually be a powerful asset. So, madiuve, can you
Speaker 1: start off by sharing what it is that got you
Speaker 1: interested in studying stress in the first place.
Speaker 2: Basically, I grew up as a child of immigrants, and
Speaker 2: anyone who is a child of immigrants knows that there
Speaker 2: is just stress involved in that experience. The stress of
Speaker 2: moving to a new country, the stress of having kids,
Speaker 2: raising kids in a new environment, the stress of being
Speaker 2: far away from your family if you've come from a
Speaker 2: developing country, being able to support your family while also
Speaker 2: trying to help your kids learn a new language here,
Speaker 2: all of that, and so I realized later on in
Speaker 2: life that I had absorbed a lot of that stress. Heck,
Speaker 2: to this day, I still watch my parents' stress and
Speaker 2: have to say to myself, wait a minute, pause, do
Speaker 2: all the things that I advise other people to do.
Speaker 2: So that is a piece of why a study stress.
Speaker 2: But also one of the things I love about my
Speaker 2: parents was that they were very education focused, and so
Speaker 2: the stress of doing well in school, not even just
Speaker 2: the pressure that they put on us. They didn't put
Speaker 2: much pressure on us. They just sent us to one
Speaker 2: of the best private schools possible and said, you know,
Speaker 2: you do you. But in that process that meant that
Speaker 2: I experienced the stress of being one a few black
Speaker 2: people in every classroom I was in. So then there's
Speaker 2: a stress of adjusting and adapting to environments where you
Speaker 2: are the only where you're different. So all of those
Speaker 2: things combined led to me eventually studying stress.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's this charming story in the Dufet about your
Speaker 1: high school yearbook and the fact that clearly you weren't
Speaker 1: the only one thinking that you were stressed out. Can
Speaker 1: you tell us a bit about that.
Speaker 2: Yes, So, you know, in high school usually you have
Speaker 2: a yearbook, and in our yearbook there are roasts. In
Speaker 2: those roasts, it highlights who you think you are and
Speaker 2: who you actually are. And my dream was that I
Speaker 2: was best dressed, is what they said. But my reality
Speaker 2: was that I was the most stressed. So even senior year,
Speaker 2: you know, even senior year, they saw that in me,
Speaker 2: and I saw it in myself. But the thing about
Speaker 2: it is there were so many ways in which that
Speaker 2: stress helped me. It challenged me, and it pushed me.
Speaker 2: So I kind of always felt like stress isn't always
Speaker 2: this terrible thing that we need to run away from
Speaker 2: and avoid and deny. Maybe it is helping us in
Speaker 2: some ways too.
Speaker 1: So let's start with the basics. If you can give
Speaker 1: us kind of the stress one oh one, how do
Speaker 1: you define stress?
Speaker 2: I feel like the simplest definition is when the demands
Speaker 2: of a situation exceed your resources to cope. But you
Speaker 2: have to then take it a step further and say, well,
Speaker 2: what are demands? And often demands are there's some type
Speaker 2: of danger in the situation, there's some type of uncertainty,
Speaker 2: you need to exert a lit what a bit of
Speaker 2: extra effort in this situation. Then when you think about resources, well,
Speaker 2: what helps us overcome danger, uncertainty, extra effort we need
Speaker 2: to put into something, Well, when we have the knowledge
Speaker 2: and the abilities to tackle that thing, when our personalities,
Speaker 2: our dispositions can be helpful in tackling that thing, and
Speaker 2: also when we have external support, other people cheering us on,
Speaker 2: other people teaching us. That's when we have more resources.
Speaker 1: What's interesting about this definition is that when it comes
Speaker 1: to stress, it's really about our subjective assessment that we
Speaker 1: have the resources to cope. So it might not be
Speaker 1: the objective resources. In fact, I might have the mental
Speaker 1: and physical resources to cope with the situation. But if
Speaker 1: my self perception is that I don't have those resources now,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it is a stressful situation. So
Speaker 1: I would almost reframe the definition as feeling like the
Speaker 1: demands of the situation exceed your resources to cope. Is
Speaker 1: that right?
Speaker 2: Yet a lot of it is our subjective assessment of it,
Speaker 2: which is a piece of why I tell people don't
Speaker 2: say like, don't be stressed, that shouldn't stress you out,
Speaker 2: because it doesn't matter Subjectively, I am feeling stressed. So
Speaker 2: that's what needs to be taken into consideration, my subjective
Speaker 2: experience of it.
Speaker 1: On a physiological level, can you tell us what happens
Speaker 1: to us when we experience stress?
Speaker 2: So when we experience stress, our sympathetic nervous system gets activated.
Speaker 2: It's that part of our body that tells us do
Speaker 2: you need to fight or do you need to flee
Speaker 2: this situation? And when that happens, we get adrenaline, We
Speaker 2: get dopamine, we get cortisol, all of the resources we
Speaker 2: need physiologically to move to act, to do what we
Speaker 2: need to do. This process is a very adaptive one,
Speaker 2: so that when you're done with the stressor ideally your
Speaker 2: body wants to go back to its resting state, where
Speaker 2: those hormones decrease, that adrenaline decreased, you get back to
Speaker 2: resting and relaxing and all that. That is a normal
Speaker 2: physiological response to an acute stressor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love your sharing that, because stress obviously gets
Speaker 1: a really bad rep but it's not just this random
Speaker 1: bad thing that our bodies experience. It exists in part
Speaker 1: because it is highly adaptive, and there are many situations
Speaker 1: in which an active stress response helps us do what
Speaker 1: needs to be done. So, in other words, you mentioned cortisol, dopamine, adrenaline,
Speaker 1: How do those translate into increased performance increased acuity? Just
Speaker 1: help me build that bridge.
Speaker 2: So essentially, your body is being taxed and your heart
Speaker 2: rate is increasing because again you're getting ready. That cortisol
Speaker 2: is giving you the energy that you need to be attentive,
Speaker 2: to be focused, to approach the situation. And when you
Speaker 2: have increased cortisol, you are attentive to threats, often in
Speaker 2: a good way. You're like waiting for what's happening. You're
Speaker 2: able to remember things in a different way, and so
Speaker 2: we need to remember when our bodies are acting. It's
Speaker 2: telling us you've got this, now, let's use this. But
Speaker 2: one of the problems is when we can be overactivated
Speaker 2: and too attentive to threat and those levels of the dopamine,
Speaker 2: the cord is the adrenaline, all that are staying elevated
Speaker 2: kind of chronically, and that is what leads to disease
Speaker 2: and all of these problems that we want to avoid physiologically.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of the stress cycle.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now you've given us the lay of the
Speaker 1: land on the basics of stress. Yes, one fascinating thing
Speaker 1: your research focuses on is that how we think about
Speaker 1: our own stress, our mindset, and our attitude towards stress
Speaker 1: can actually change its impact on us. Yes, can you
Speaker 1: first walk us through the two types of mindsets that
Speaker 1: we can have towards stress.
Speaker 2: So the two types of mindsets are a mindset that
Speaker 2: stress is enhancing. It can help us in terms of
Speaker 2: our perform orments, our growth, our learning. The second piece
Speaker 2: is that stress is debilitating. It harms us in terms
Speaker 2: of our health and vitality and our performance and our
Speaker 2: growth in our learning. And it's often your mindset about
Speaker 2: stress that can influence the extent to which it can
Speaker 2: have harmful or helpful effects. So when we have more
Speaker 2: of a stress is enhancing mindset that leads to better outcomes.
Speaker 1: I love this research. I'm wondering if you can give
Speaker 1: me a couple of examples of how introducing this mindset
Speaker 1: shift was actually able to help performance in different contexts.
Speaker 2: So in one study, we had people just watch a
Speaker 2: video showing the many ways in which stress can be enhancing.
Speaker 2: You can imagine things like that stressful moment in a
Speaker 2: soccer game and somebody makes the goal. We can each
Speaker 2: think of times when we have risen to the occasion.
Speaker 2: When we show people these videos and then have them
Speaker 2: engage in a creative task, we find the they're more creative.
Speaker 2: We find that they are more attentive to positive things
Speaker 2: in the environment versus negative things in the environment. On
Speaker 2: the flip side, tell people or show them videos of
Speaker 2: when stress can be debilitating and see the opposite, they're
Speaker 2: less creative and also generally more negative mood more attentive
Speaker 2: to threats. So that's some of the research we've done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I know that you work at a business
Speaker 1: school and you often think about psychology as it applies
Speaker 1: to organizational behavior. Yeah, and you did some similar research
Speaker 1: when it comes to negotiators.
Speaker 2: Yes, so often people are very stressed in the context
Speaker 2: of negotiation. So in this research, we basically just told
Speaker 2: people that, you know, a little bit of stress before
Speaker 2: negotiations is actually okay. So we had half the people
Speaker 2: we told that, the other half we didn't tell anything
Speaker 2: prior to negotiation, and we found that for women who
Speaker 2: experienced cortisol increases in the negotiations, so physiologically they were stressed. However,
Speaker 2: they were told a little bit of stress is okay
Speaker 2: in the negotiation, they outperformed those who were told nothing
Speaker 2: about stress being helpful for negotiations. So there's something about
Speaker 2: knowing that this is actually an okay thing, that when
Speaker 2: your body is having this response, that can lead to
Speaker 2: beneficial outcomes.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And one of the most fascinating insights is that
Speaker 1: our underlying physiology can change when we adopt a stress
Speaker 1: as enhancing mindset. So it's not just that I think
Speaker 1: more positive thoughts, it actually can affect our physiological response
Speaker 1: to stress at this underlying level.
Speaker 2: I think that that's absolutely right, that when you have
Speaker 2: an enhancing mindset, it can affect your body's response to stress.
Speaker 2: There has been research showing that the walls of your
Speaker 2: blood vessels, rather than constricting, they are more likely to
Speaker 2: dilate with a stress. Is enhancing mindset and the importance
Speaker 2: of the mind body cannet is something I think we
Speaker 2: often forget. And you know, our dominant model and narrative
Speaker 2: is that we should deny, reduce and avoid stress, and
Speaker 2: that is not always the case. Every single person I
Speaker 2: know can tell of the time where their stress helps them.
Speaker 2: So instead, in this research we talk a lot about
Speaker 2: how can you acknowledge your stress, welcome your stress, and
Speaker 2: use it in a way that will be beneficial because
Speaker 2: it is designed to help you. Now, it's important to say,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying run towards stress, like you shouldn't like
Speaker 2: find more stressors. No, that's not what we're saying. We're
Speaker 2: saying it's not always a bad thing. It's actually designed
Speaker 2: to help you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you talk about dating your stress, Yes, you know
Speaker 1: slight change listeners. We're simply asking for a first date. Okay,
Speaker 1: you can decide if you want to do a second
Speaker 1: or a third that just go on that first date.
Speaker 1: That's right. Get to know your stress a little better
Speaker 1: and brace it and.
Speaker 2: Be kind to it. Open the door for it, you know,
Speaker 2: let it in, welcome it, see how it feels. That's
Speaker 2: what we need to do a lot more of.
Speaker 1: After the break, we hear more from a Dubet about
Speaker 1: the benefits of this mindset shift, and we talk about
Speaker 1: its limits. She shares her go to strategies for managing stress.
Speaker 1: When a simple reframe isn't enough, We'll be back in
Speaker 1: a moment with a slight change of plans. Are there
Speaker 1: situations where applying a stress is enhancing mindset? Doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense because I can see a situation where if we
Speaker 1: apply this mindset too liberally, we might end up tolerating
Speaker 1: certain stressful situations that we really should try and avoid. So,
Speaker 1: for example, a highly toxic relationship at work or in
Speaker 1: your personal life, that's a situation where you're kind of
Speaker 1: you really think, okay, we need to change the situation.
Speaker 1: I need to get out of this situation, versus using
Speaker 1: a mindset shift in order to better adapt to it.
Speaker 1: So do you have thoughts on that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do think that our minds are so complicated
Speaker 2: and we will trick ourselves into believing a stressful situation
Speaker 2: is a good one when it's not. So that's when
Speaker 2: the idea. Remember I talked about demands resources. One resource
Speaker 2: is external support, your friends helping you and seeing when
Speaker 2: something is harmful versus helpful for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's helpful to clarify that this is
Speaker 1: a mindset that's almost best to adopt when you're in
Speaker 1: situations where you can't avoid the stress or you can't
Speaker 1: control whether that situation exists or not, right, and so
Speaker 1: adopting a more positive mindset might be one of the
Speaker 1: few resources at hand.
Speaker 2: That's absolutely right. And the challenge with the dominant narrative
Speaker 2: about reducing or avoiding stress is that there are times
Speaker 2: where we cannot do that. You can't, it's not possible.
Speaker 2: So that's why it's important to understand how the stress
Speaker 2: that you're experiencing or how your body's response can be helpful.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, so many people listening right now are thinking I
Speaker 1: don't have any control right now over the stressful situation.
Speaker 1: So Madupe, thank you for giving us some other techniques. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: let's say we've consulted with our resources, so our friends
Speaker 1: and our family and the people that we trust in
Speaker 1: our lives, and we've consulted with ourselves of course, and
Speaker 1: we've identified a situation in which having a stress as
Speaker 1: enhancing mindset is going to serve us. Well, how do
Speaker 1: we learn to cultivate this mindset?
Speaker 2: So a piece of this goes back to that, how
Speaker 2: do I think of my stress differently? When my heart
Speaker 2: is beating. I'm normally thinking to myself, this is bad.
Speaker 2: But if you can remind yourself that my heart beating
Speaker 2: is telling me, like I'm excited about something, there's something
Speaker 2: here that I care about. This is something that I
Speaker 2: want to do well in. This is something that I
Speaker 2: can do well in. Then that reframes that heartbeat not
Speaker 2: as a bad thing, but as your body preparing to act.
Speaker 1: There have been so many times in my life, whether
Speaker 1: when I was a child playing the violin, or whether
Speaker 1: it's going into an interviews for a slight change of plans,
Speaker 1: I get a little spooked if I'm not nervous, because
Speaker 1: that means maybe I don't care as much as I
Speaker 1: used to. And so I'm actually I see stress as
Speaker 1: being a very affirming signal because it shows me that
Speaker 1: I really care about the outcome, and it justifies the
Speaker 1: unpleasantness of some of those feelings.
Speaker 2: And that's a beautiful way of approaching it. That we
Speaker 2: are typically stressed because there is an underlying reason why
Speaker 2: we care about the situation. And if we can continue
Speaker 2: to ask ourselves why, why why, then that puts a
Speaker 2: whole different lens around why you're stressed and changes your approach.
Speaker 1: Can you give me an example in the dupe from
Speaker 1: your own life in which you started asking yourself these
Speaker 1: series of why questions and it led you to a
Speaker 1: place where you're better able to embrace your stress or
Speaker 1: at least realize okay, good, at least it's serving some purpose.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm a professor, so each semester I teach one
Speaker 2: hundred and forty plus students and the day before class
Speaker 2: would always feel very stressed. And here's the thing, it's
Speaker 2: not that I'd also be stressed. I'd also be a jerk,
Speaker 2: you know, I'd be obnoxious to my loved ones, like
Speaker 2: just not a person that anyone wanted to be around.
Speaker 2: And in fact, i'd be happier when my significant others
Speaker 2: were traveling or whatever, because it's like I just wanted
Speaker 2: to be focused, and I had to ask say to myself,
Speaker 2: first of all, that's not sustainable over time. I'm a
Speaker 2: good teacher. Students like me. I've done this for years.
Speaker 2: So I had to say, Okay, well why do you
Speaker 2: have this reaction? Why are you stressed? And often it
Speaker 2: was like, I'm stressed because I don't want to do
Speaker 2: badly in the classroom. Why because I feel like what
Speaker 2: I have to share with students is really important. Why
Speaker 2: because I'm training future business leaders to be the most
Speaker 2: phenomenal leaders possible. Why well, if I do that well,
Speaker 2: then our organizations will be healthier and people will be
Speaker 2: happier in their workplaces. Why does that matter? Because if
Speaker 2: people are happier and healthier in their workplaces, then we're
Speaker 2: going to be able to address some of the critical
Speaker 2: challenges in this world. The questions that need to be addressed,
Speaker 2: solve lots of the problems that need to be solved.
Speaker 2: And so when you get to that, then it's like, well, a,
Speaker 2: it tells you that's a good reason to be stressed,
Speaker 2: but be it also says, you know, all right, well,
Speaker 2: go get it, go do it. And that's a piece
Speaker 2: of just kind of like acknowledging that type of stress
Speaker 2: and welcoming it, because then you're like, oh, I'm pumped
Speaker 2: up because what am I doing. I'm changing the world.
Speaker 2: I'm feeling right now hearing just that process, just that
Speaker 2: process makes a big difference.
Speaker 1: I really love that, Madupe, because as you were sharing this,
Speaker 1: I related to that early stress, and I was thinking
Speaker 1: to myself that damn well deserves stress. That situation definitely
Speaker 1: desert stress because the dupe is changing the world, and
Speaker 1: so it certainly seems like that lecture carries significance and
Speaker 1: importance because look at all these extremely positive downstream consequences.
Speaker 2: Right, And the more I do that, then it tells me, like,
Speaker 2: I don't have to be a jerky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, share more about that, because obviously stress does not
Speaker 1: just have internal consequences. It can have a lot of
Speaker 1: external consequences on our loved ones and the people we
Speaker 1: care about. Yeah, So I'd love to dig into that
Speaker 1: a bit more. I'm sure that's something a lot of
Speaker 1: people can resonate with.
Speaker 2: Yes, one of the first things I tell people to
Speaker 2: do is to acknowledge your typical reactions to stress. What
Speaker 2: are their emotions, what are their behaviors, and what's their physiology?
Speaker 2: And the behaviors one is really important because a it
Speaker 2: serves as a signal when you are going for the
Speaker 2: potato chips, the wine and yelling at your partner, that
Speaker 2: probably means you're stressed. So now do an inventory about
Speaker 2: what you need to do about it. And the reason
Speaker 2: why it's really important for me to always kind of
Speaker 2: go back and ask myself why something matters is that
Speaker 2: ultimately none of us wants to do those destructive behaviors
Speaker 2: to ourselves and to others. And so when you keep
Speaker 2: asking yourself why and you understand the bigger picture, one
Speaker 2: of the things it does, it's like I need that
Speaker 2: source of support to help we change the world. So
Speaker 2: I think it increases your ability to relate to others
Speaker 2: in a way that can maybe help you in what
Speaker 2: you're trying to achieve, versus them being a distraction that's
Speaker 2: preventing you from doing what you need to achieve effectively.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is so interesting because you initially defined stress
Speaker 1: as the demands of the situation exceed your resources to cope,
Speaker 1: And I think what I'm hearing from you is we
Speaker 1: often have more resources than we think, we're just really
Speaker 1: hesitant to ask for them, to admit that we actually
Speaker 1: need that kind of support in those resources. And so
Speaker 1: when we think through this lens, which is my stress
Speaker 1: has a purpose because I really care about these end outcomes,
Speaker 1: it can lead us to feel less sheepish about asking
Speaker 1: a friend for help, asking a loved one if they're
Speaker 1: willing to give us a hand. It's hard for all
Speaker 1: of us to ask people for help. It's one of
Speaker 1: the hardest things.
Speaker 2: And what's interesting is when we don't ask somebody for help,
Speaker 2: it's often because there is something that we're uncertain about,
Speaker 2: or feel threatened about, we're worried about. One of the
Speaker 2: ways I interpret what you're saying is that when you
Speaker 2: kind of reframe your stress, the people that seem like
Speaker 2: demands actually become resources. Yes, you can view them more
Speaker 2: as resources versus as demands. You go from thinking of
Speaker 2: it as the person who's taking away from my ability
Speaker 2: to prepare for class to the person who is helping
Speaker 2: me and can help me in what do I need
Speaker 2: to do to make this difference in the lives of others?
Speaker 1: Oh, that's so nice. You know, you've taught us how
Speaker 1: changing our attitudes towards stress can lead to better outcomes,
Speaker 1: and also how it is that we can cultivate this
Speaker 1: kind of mindset. But of course, there are lots of
Speaker 1: situations where we overshoot and a shift in mindset might
Speaker 1: not be enough to tamp down that response. So what
Speaker 1: other techniques would you recommend help us to just lower
Speaker 1: our stress response overall in these kinds of situations. What
Speaker 1: are the types of things that you do adubat to
Speaker 1: manage your stress?
Speaker 2: So I am I'm.
Speaker 1: A big meditator, darn. I was hoping you wouldn't say meditation.
Speaker 2: I know, I know, and I couldn't at one point too,
Speaker 2: you know. And I remember, like when I was first
Speaker 2: trying to meditate, I just fall asleep each time, like
Speaker 2: give me five minutes. I am out immediately. But I
Speaker 2: realize that I really need to slow my mind down.
Speaker 2: You know, there's so much firing that for me when
Speaker 2: I sit and I'm just present first thing in the morning,
Speaker 2: that allows me to just have a different response to
Speaker 2: the many things that will come my way during the day.
Speaker 2: And I say that, and I don't like sounding woo
Speaker 2: woo like I don't like sounding like that person.
Speaker 1: Hey, meditation is science based, so there's nothing woo about it.
Speaker 2: I have learned in my life that it's something that
Speaker 2: I need, yeah, because it slows me down, and it's
Speaker 2: been so helpful. Taking out some time to just kind
Speaker 2: of be present with yourself helps you to think clearly
Speaker 2: and act deliberately instead of being reactive. So one of
Speaker 2: the types of meditations I engage in focuses on body scanning.
Speaker 2: So you start with your head and you scan and
Speaker 2: you just notice each of your bodily sensations. Because the
Speaker 2: idea behind this is that any reaction we typically have
Speaker 2: is preceded by a physical sensation, and so if we
Speaker 2: can detect and be good at understanding or feeling our sensations,
Speaker 2: then that's preempting our reacting immediately. And so I body
Speaker 2: scan regularly and I find it to be incredibly helpful.
Speaker 2: The other thing, honestly, it's just taking a moment to breathe.
Speaker 2: That minute that I find myself like I'm overwhelmed and
Speaker 2: I have this and that to do, and the this
Speaker 2: isn't working whatever. Stop breathe, breathe, just breathe, and it
Speaker 2: just slows things down in a unique way that then
Speaker 2: lets you say, Okay, how am I feeling right now?
Speaker 2: Let me take an inventory. That's what I often do.
Speaker 2: I need to pause and take an inventory instead of
Speaker 2: just trying to push through, stop and pause.
Speaker 1: As you look into the future of stress research, what
Speaker 1: excites you most?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 1: What are you are you most hoping that researcher's crack.
Speaker 2: I really want people to be better at understanding when
Speaker 2: they're stressed, because you are the only person that's with
Speaker 2: you twenty four to seven. And so what I'm most
Speaker 2: excited about are some of the technologies that will allow
Speaker 2: people to notice when they're stressed. Is there a buzzing
Speaker 2: thing on your finger that tells you that your blood
Speaker 2: pressure is super high right now? Pay attention. Is there
Speaker 2: some type of device that is telling you, Okay, here's
Speaker 2: what your cardiovascular reactivity is looking like right now, there's
Speaker 2: a spike right here. Breathe a little bit. And so,
Speaker 2: as technology develops and can even kind of help us
Speaker 2: in noticing some of these things and can just kind
Speaker 2: of like I think of it as like that blinking
Speaker 2: light that says, hey, pay attention, then I think that'll
Speaker 2: help us in being able to give ourselves what we need,
Speaker 2: and that ultimately means it will be healthier and happier.
Speaker 1: So that's interesting because I feel like I'm sort of
Speaker 1: excited about technology, and I want to get your thoughts
Speaker 1: on this, because on the one hand, I think that
Speaker 1: kind of self awareness and understanding is so critical. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, we're trying to measure so much, and
Speaker 1: all these measurements are also just proxies of stress. Right,
Speaker 1: too much vigilance around our physiological states and or our
Speaker 1: mental states can breed almost a new kind of anxiety,
Speaker 1: like a meta layer of anxiety. Do you feel in
Speaker 1: any way that there's limits to how much we should
Speaker 1: be in tune with our body and minds, because at
Speaker 1: a certain point it can be so excessive where you
Speaker 1: just forget, like, you know what, I just need to
Speaker 1: kind of exist too, And I don't need my little
Speaker 1: phone or my watch or my ring buzzing at me
Speaker 1: telling me that I'm stressed in any given moment because
Speaker 1: I'm just you know, I'm hanging out with my friends
Speaker 1: and I don't know, maybe I don't want the biofeedback.
Speaker 2: Yes, The thing about stress research, and I guess much research,
Speaker 2: is that you have to know yourself and know what
Speaker 2: works for you and what doesn't. If you're the type
Speaker 2: of person where the constant monitoring will be more stressful,
Speaker 2: then you shouldn't constantly monitor. But if you're the type
Speaker 2: of person where the monitoring makes you say, ooh, I
Speaker 2: only got two hours of sleep last night, but I
Speaker 2: need to get more and I know and that helps
Speaker 2: you and helps change your behavior, then do it. So
Speaker 2: for me, I am one of those people like I'm
Speaker 2: hard enough on myself, so I don't need a buzzing thing.
Speaker 2: I need to be more gentle. But how I use
Speaker 2: this technology is to say, like, I'm kind of feeling tired,
Speaker 2: and how much rest did I get? Oh wow, I've
Speaker 2: been in the danger zone for five days. Let me
Speaker 2: do something that will remind me to get in bed early.
Speaker 2: So if you can use it lovingly and gently in
Speaker 2: a way that will help you behave in a healthy
Speaker 2: way for you, that's what I'm talking about. I also
Speaker 2: wouldn't want us to over use our technology and rely
Speaker 2: on it to tell us the things that we need
Speaker 2: to rely on our minds and bodies to tell us.
Speaker 2: I just think of it as another metric to use
Speaker 2: to paint a holistic picture of what's going on with you.
Speaker 2: And because it's so hard to be in tune with
Speaker 2: what our bodies are doing, because we've ignored our bodies
Speaker 2: for so long, these technologies give us greater insight that
Speaker 2: we wouldn't ordinarily have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. I think that's exactly right. So
Speaker 1: you've been doing this work for a while, and I
Speaker 1: wonder in your years of doing stress research, whether there's
Speaker 1: any example that's particularly salient for you where someone reached
Speaker 1: out to you and said, Madupe, you changed the game
Speaker 1: for me, like you really really helped me manage the
Speaker 1: stressful situation or change my mindset. Are there any personal
Speaker 1: testimonials that you can share with us so we can
Speaker 1: see the impact of your research in the wild?
Speaker 2: You know, the biggest example I have is a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago, I was talking to a friend and
Speaker 2: she was super super stressed and I literally just asked
Speaker 2: her what do you need? And she said, I need
Speaker 2: somebody to accompany me to walk through of her home
Speaker 2: because she was closing on it the next day. And
Speaker 2: you know that's stressful, Like you're worried, like am I
Speaker 2: getting ripped off? Is the microwave going to work is
Speaker 2: that and just having somebody else with you to help
Speaker 2: out with that is huge. And sometimes you'd think you
Speaker 2: have to do it by yourself and then no one's
Speaker 2: going to have time for you. Yeah, or everyone has
Speaker 2: busy schedules, which they do, but can you at least
Speaker 2: ask first and let someone say no. But more often
Speaker 2: than not, people will make it work because if you've
Speaker 2: cultivated those relationships, they'll move things around their schedule to
Speaker 2: be there for you. And that sticks with me because
Speaker 2: it's something that I also need to remind myself to do.
Speaker 2: Ask myself, what do I need right now? What do
Speaker 2: I need? It's simple. So many of the answers to
Speaker 2: our stress are within us, and we just need to ask,
Speaker 2: just need to ask.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for listening. On next week's episode,
Speaker 1: we hear from comedian Hassan and haj. In our conversation,
Speaker 1: Usin gets candid about the downsides of his sudden rise
Speaker 1: in popularity and how it's fed an unhealthy obsession with
Speaker 1: being liked. He tells me he's now reconsidering his future
Speaker 1: in comedy.
Speaker 3: Being an artist is who I am. I do have
Speaker 3: this need to express myself, but I have to find
Speaker 3: new mediums as my life continues that are less and
Speaker 3: less and less attached to whether people like me or not.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive
Speaker 1: produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change Family includes
Speaker 1: our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson Morgan,
Speaker 1: our sound engineer Andrew Vastola, and our associate producer Sarah McCrae.
Speaker 1: Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith
Speaker 1: helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is
Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks to everyone there,
Speaker 1: and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.
Speaker 1: You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram
Speaker 1: at doctor a Mayah Schucker.
Speaker 2: Everything in moderation, That's what this is about.
Speaker 1: Except for Girl Scout cookies, but there's no moderation there. Yes,