Speaker 1: Guess what, mango, what's that? Well, you know, sometimes you'll
Speaker 1: set your alarm clock really early, like if you've got
Speaker 1: a flight or something like that, and then the next
Speaker 1: morning you'll wake up right on time. Does happen to you,
Speaker 1: I'll either do that or I'll wake up at like
Speaker 1: two and then three and then four and then whenever
Speaker 1: I have to wake up. But more often than not,
Speaker 1: it's so weird because you'll wake up like a minute
Speaker 1: before your alarm goes off. And I was reading this
Speaker 1: study from the University of lu back and they got
Speaker 1: some student volunteers to go to sleep, and they told
Speaker 1: them before that that they'd wake them up at either
Speaker 1: six in the morning or nine in the morning, and
Speaker 1: then they lied and with everybody up at six o'clock.
Speaker 1: So I'm guessing a lot of people who were told
Speaker 1: they'd wake up at six were like more awake at
Speaker 1: that time, right, Yeah, that's exactly what happens. And the
Speaker 1: kids who were told they'd be getting up at nine
Speaker 1: were completely groggy and just out of it. But what's
Speaker 1: interesting is that they were monitoring their bodies the entire time.
Speaker 1: And so for the sleepers who were told they to
Speaker 1: be woken up early. Their stress hormones kicked in at
Speaker 1: around four thirty in the morning. You could actually see
Speaker 1: that their bodies were using stress to anticipate these early
Speaker 1: mornings and prepare them for the early day. And so
Speaker 1: today's episode is all about stress. What does it due
Speaker 1: to our body and how can we use it for
Speaker 1: good and what are the best ways to relieve it?
Speaker 1: So let's dig in ai their podcast listeners, Welcome to
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm
Speaker 1: joined by my good friend man guest shot Ticketer and
Speaker 1: on the other side of the soundproof glass raking this
Speaker 1: tiny zen garden. Oh it's so sweet, but he's breaking
Speaker 1: pretty aggressively. Actually that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 1: I think you need to go a little easier, Tristan,
Speaker 1: but he is getting pretty zin with it and he's
Speaker 1: he's raking the heck out of this thing. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I mean he does claim it helps them to relax.
Speaker 1: So I think we ought to support the man for
Speaker 1: today's show. Especially, we should try to keep an open
Speaker 1: mind to different approaches to dealing with stress, because there
Speaker 1: really is no one correct way to cope with it.
Speaker 1: For for example, I was reading about the study from
Speaker 1: a team out of Australia, these neuroscientists from the University
Speaker 1: of Queensland, and apparently they figured out that when grass
Speaker 1: is cut, it actually inhibits our brain's release of stress
Speaker 1: causing hormones. So it turns out there's a good reason
Speaker 1: why people love the scent of fresh cut grass so much.
Speaker 1: It can actually help you calm down. That's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: So that's our first tip pretty early in the day.
Speaker 1: So if you're feeling stressed, just mow your lawn or
Speaker 1: get an air freshener that smells like mode lawn. And
Speaker 1: the truth is, there are a ton of other offbeat
Speaker 1: examples that you know are there to relieve our stress.
Speaker 1: But to start things off, why don't we talk about
Speaker 1: what stress is and what kind of effects that can
Speaker 1: have on our bodies? Alright? Well, since stress is something
Speaker 1: that's always been a part of life, obviously don't have
Speaker 1: a great origin story for this one, but the closest
Speaker 1: thing might be the origin of the term. So I
Speaker 1: didn't realize this, but prior to the word stressed didn't
Speaker 1: mean like a mental or emotional strain. Until that point,
Speaker 1: it was just used to refer to the pressure applied
Speaker 1: to an object, you know, not to a prison's well being.
Speaker 1: So what changed in nineteen forty six specifically that that
Speaker 1: kind of gave it this new meaning. So there's this
Speaker 1: Austrian physician named Hans Celier, and that's the year he
Speaker 1: first coined the term stress while describing his latest experiments. So,
Speaker 1: of course this comes back to a rat study, because
Speaker 1: we love rats studies on this show. But uh Celia
Speaker 1: had been monitoring the physical responses of rats that have
Speaker 1: been injected with different hormones and also different like tissues,
Speaker 1: and he found that the rats symptoms were identical regardless
Speaker 1: of what they had been injected with. And what became
Speaker 1: apparent was that the rats were responding to the trauma
Speaker 1: of the experiments themselves. And and he called this trauma stress.
Speaker 1: So I'm assuming the stress that Selia witnessed was involuntary,
Speaker 1: like you know, a faster heart rate or an increase
Speaker 1: in blood pressure. I actually looked into this fight or
Speaker 1: flight response a little bit, and you know, that's the
Speaker 1: feeling that gets triggered in your body when the brain
Speaker 1: recognizes some sort of outside threat. So basically it starts
Speaker 1: when the hypothalamus sends signals to the pituitary glands and
Speaker 1: the adrenal glands. What that does is it triggers the
Speaker 1: production of adrenaline and these other stress hormones like cortisol
Speaker 1: and epidephrin. And then a few things happen when all
Speaker 1: these chemicals are swirling around in our blood stream. So
Speaker 1: for starters are reflexes and senses are heightened so we
Speaker 1: can better deal with that perceived threat. The cortisol also
Speaker 1: pushes glucose out of our tissues and into our blood,
Speaker 1: and that gives our bodies this extra boost of energy
Speaker 1: that you might experience if you're really really stressed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm always amazed by that sort of thing, like
Speaker 1: like we think of stress is such a negative and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's also this reaction that's supposed to help us deal
Speaker 1: with these life threatening situations, like if our ancestors had
Speaker 1: to like avoid running from a lion or something, that's
Speaker 1: when stress kicks in and it's helpful. But obviously these
Speaker 1: sharpened senses don't always help us deal with the more
Speaker 1: benign things like trying to make a deadline or trying
Speaker 1: to give a public speech. And you know, for for
Speaker 1: someone like me, who is really used to avoiding public speaking.
Speaker 1: That sort of stress can be debilitating, Like doesn't it
Speaker 1: feel like overkill from the body to still be sending
Speaker 1: out all these signals? Yeah, it does, and the response
Speaker 1: to stress can be a problem when all that extra
Speaker 1: focus and energy doesn't really have a natural outlet. Part
Speaker 1: of that is because the stress hormones actually begin to
Speaker 1: build up, and that not only keeps us on edge,
Speaker 1: but it also provokes all kinds of unnecessary responses in
Speaker 1: our bodies. For example, you know how stress can make
Speaker 1: some people feel nauseous or stick to their stomach. Well,
Speaker 1: that's because stress hormones push the blood away from the
Speaker 1: gastro intestinal system and actually redirect it to the brain.
Speaker 1: And that makes sense because it helps the brain better
Speaker 1: respond to threats. But there are side effects, and that's
Speaker 1: when this redirection agitates the microbes living in our gut,
Speaker 1: and that of course makes you feel sick at your stomach.
Speaker 1: So I definitely feel that loss of appetite from anxiety.
Speaker 1: But what's weirder to me is that even though stress
Speaker 1: can sap your desire to eat, it can also make
Speaker 1: you gain weight at the same time. And I didn't
Speaker 1: realize this before. But as stress hormones like cortisols circulate
Speaker 1: through the body, they relay messages to our fat stores,
Speaker 1: telling them to generate as much energy as possible, and
Speaker 1: this call to action triggers the process called lippo license,
Speaker 1: which is basically when fatty assets called lipids are broken
Speaker 1: down and circulated through the body as a source of energy. Alright,
Speaker 1: so if the fat is being broken down, it seems
Speaker 1: like that what calls us to lose weight rather than
Speaker 1: gain it. So how does this work? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it should accept that these lipids also signal the brain
Speaker 1: to release more stress hormones, which basically tells the body
Speaker 1: to conserve its fat supplies. So it's kind of this
Speaker 1: negative feedback loop like as one professor of neuroscience explained.
Speaker 1: He said, cortisol causes lippo license to release energy, but
Speaker 1: stimulates the growth of fat cells replenishing it, which makes
Speaker 1: it a double edged sword. And basically these mixed messages
Speaker 1: are also a big reason why stress can lead to
Speaker 1: obesity is as well as certain kinds of diabetes. Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean it makes sense. I've actually never heard that before.
Speaker 1: And when you were talking abou a weight gain. I
Speaker 1: just assume you were talking about like stress eating or
Speaker 1: other responses like that. Yeah, I mean that's interesting to
Speaker 1: me too. I find a bizarre because you know, I
Speaker 1: can't eat, but like other people tend to chow down
Speaker 1: when they're stressed. And that's really because stress responses are
Speaker 1: highly individualized to our genetic differences, So you know, people
Speaker 1: can have widely different responses to the exact same stressor Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it is probably worth mentioning that while we know
Speaker 1: stress can make us feel sick, we aren't a hundred
Speaker 1: percent sure of the physiological reasons behind that. But scientists
Speaker 1: have made some headway on that over the past decade
Speaker 1: or so. For instance, there was a study out of
Speaker 1: U c l A. This was back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and twelve, and it pointed towards the immune system as
Speaker 1: a possible answer to this. So the researchers had a
Speaker 1: group of a hundred and twenty two participants fill out
Speaker 1: questionnaires and they were answering questions about their activities over
Speaker 1: the last week or so, and including that was whether
Speaker 1: each social encounter they had was positive or negative. And
Speaker 1: they also have participants undertake a whole series of these
Speaker 1: very stressful lab tests and before and after these tests,
Speaker 1: the volunteers had their salive attested and what they were
Speaker 1: looking for was, you know, indicators of inflammation called cytokinds,
Speaker 1: and these are products of the immune system. So cyto
Speaker 1: kinds are supposed to travel to the side of the
Speaker 1: wound or you know, something like that so they can
Speaker 1: help fight off infection. So the researchers were trying to
Speaker 1: see if the stress would lead to a rise in
Speaker 1: these cyto kinds, and amazingly it did. After the participants
Speaker 1: engaged in negatively stressful activities things like arguments, their levels
Speaker 1: of cyto kinds went way up, which is pretty wild
Speaker 1: when you think about It's like our immune system is
Speaker 1: responding to an emotional or maybe a mental wound in
Speaker 1: the same way that it would a physical one. That's crazy. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, are there any negative effects of this? Let like,
Speaker 1: have scientists figured that part out? Well? There definitely are.
Speaker 1: I mean the reaction can lead to some pretty major
Speaker 1: problems in the long term, including stuff like heart disease
Speaker 1: and even cancer. You know, because why can we mentioned
Speaker 1: These cyto kinds are looking for a wound to work on,
Speaker 1: and when they don't find one. They just keep circulating
Speaker 1: and inflame regions that really don't require their attention. Huh.
Speaker 1: So is there any way to prevent these unneeded side
Speaker 1: of kinds from circulating? I mean, besides trying to avoid
Speaker 1: any of these stressful situations we put ourselves in. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's pretty much the only solution. And this
Speaker 1: was actually the takeaway of the study. I've got a
Speaker 1: quote here from the papers author Shelley Taylor. She says,
Speaker 1: the message is that the flauntsom and jetsam of life
Speaker 1: predict changes in your underlying biology in ways that cumulatively
Speaker 1: could have a bad effect on health. What this tells
Speaker 1: me is that people should be investing in socially supportive
Speaker 1: relationships and they should not court relationships that lead to
Speaker 1: a great deal of conflict. So don't hang out with
Speaker 1: enemies all the time, don't hang out with bad people. See,
Speaker 1: it's such sound advice we're providing. I also know from
Speaker 1: my own experience, I'm not always the best at evaluating
Speaker 1: my own stress levels. So it's actually something I looked into.
Speaker 1: And did you come across this, uh, the scientist named
Speaker 1: Stephen Cole in your research? I don't think so. It
Speaker 1: doesn't bring a bell. So Cole was basically bothered by
Speaker 1: our inability to measure our own stress. So he wondered, like,
Speaker 1: what if our brains automatic stress assessment doesn't translate to
Speaker 1: a conscious awareness of it? So are there actually subconscious
Speaker 1: signs that we're feeling stressed? Like things we might not
Speaker 1: even notice in ourselves. So that's exactly what Colin is.
Speaker 1: Fellow researchers wanted to find out and and to do
Speaker 1: it they enlisted a hundred forty three volunteers and had
Speaker 1: them where these audio recorders for two days. And during
Speaker 1: that time the recorders would switch on automatically every couple
Speaker 1: of minutes, and they actually gathered over twenty thousand audio clips.
Speaker 1: And from there the researchers transcribed the recordings and started
Speaker 1: picking apart the specific language, and in particularly they paid
Speaker 1: attention to these things called function words, which are pronouns
Speaker 1: and adjectives that I guess clarify meaning rather than providing
Speaker 1: it themselves. So you think about the opposite that, which
Speaker 1: is meaning words nouns and verbs. Those are words a
Speaker 1: speaker might liberally choose versus like the so called function words,
Speaker 1: which are produced without thinking. And the idea is that
Speaker 1: maybe these function words could theoretically give you a glimpse
Speaker 1: of what's going on subconsciously, so where the research is
Speaker 1: able to link certain words to feelings of stress. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the study found that a volunteer's use of function words
Speaker 1: was much more accurate prediction of gene expression than even
Speaker 1: like an individual self report about his or her stress levels. So,
Speaker 1: for example, participants who exhibited stressed out gene expressions talked
Speaker 1: less overall, but when they did speak, they used more
Speaker 1: intensifying adverbs such as like really, you're very or incredibly,
Speaker 1: and they also used fewer third person plural pronouns such
Speaker 1: as they are there. Alright, alright, I'm writing all these
Speaker 1: down for later years. Well, I mean there's a reason like, like,
Speaker 1: according to the researchers, uh, we use they are they're
Speaker 1: less and and that's because people tend to focus inwards.
Speaker 1: And of course there's still much more research to do
Speaker 1: on all of this, but if these initial findings hold up,
Speaker 1: you could actually be a new way for doctors or
Speaker 1: even like your phones or your watches or your alexis
Speaker 1: to spot if you're stressed out and all that by
Speaker 1: just listening to the words you use. That is pretty
Speaker 1: incredible and also a little bit weird to think about,
Speaker 1: but yeah, very interesting, and it reminds me there are
Speaker 1: actually a few other symptoms of stress that I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about, and one of these is is whether
Speaker 1: or not it can really make your hair turn gray. Well,
Speaker 1: as someone whose hair has all turned gray since I've
Speaker 1: had kids, I'm very interested in who to blame for this.
Speaker 1: But before we dig in, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about
Speaker 1: all the different ways stress can affect our bodies, and Mango,
Speaker 1: I've got bad news for you. There's one thing stress
Speaker 1: doesn't do, and that's turn your hair gray. So I'm
Speaker 1: definitely a little confused by this because I look at
Speaker 1: Obama and George Bush and how their hair turned color
Speaker 1: like pretty soon after they got into office, and for
Speaker 1: some reason, our current president's hair has stayed the exact
Speaker 1: same color. But are are you saying stress makes no
Speaker 1: contribute usian to these like Bonnie Rate streaks in my hair?
Speaker 1: You know, I've always wanted to tell you how much
Speaker 1: you reminded me of Bonnie Rate, So I'm glad you
Speaker 1: finally brought it up. But you know, despite what many
Speaker 1: people think, there's actually no clear scientific link between stress
Speaker 1: and going gray. And it turns out it's actually a
Speaker 1: person's genes more than anything else, that determine when their
Speaker 1: hair turns gray. So why is the when like my
Speaker 1: kids started talking a lot and bossing me around, that's
Speaker 1: where my hair went gray. I think it's just getting older, man.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the same thing for the presidents that
Speaker 1: you talk about, or or or most of our presidents.
Speaker 1: And you know, while we don't know the exact genetic
Speaker 1: reason why most people go gray as they age, we
Speaker 1: do know that it ultimately comes down to these millenno sites,
Speaker 1: which are these pigments cells that give hair its color.
Speaker 1: So when you're younger, the cells work to fight off
Speaker 1: damaging compounds like hydrogen peroxide, and these would otherwise cause
Speaker 1: oxidation if they were allowed to build up on the scalp.
Speaker 1: But as we get older, our genes have a harder
Speaker 1: and harder time keeping that oxidation at bed, and so,
Speaker 1: according to one theory, as the hydrogen peroxide accumulates over time,
Speaker 1: our melano sites start to die off. So you know,
Speaker 1: once our follicles begin to run low, on their only
Speaker 1: source of pigment, they start producing colorless or or gray
Speaker 1: hair instead. So I mean, I'm going to accept that answer,
Speaker 1: but but I also feel like, you know, these old
Speaker 1: wives tales have been going on for long enough that
Speaker 1: there has to be some validity, right, Like, is there
Speaker 1: any truth to any of it? Well, there actually is
Speaker 1: one thing that kind of redeems their tail, and and
Speaker 1: that's because cellular strain that's brought on by oxidation. It
Speaker 1: is actually known as oxidative stress. And that's different from
Speaker 1: the kind of emotional stress that we've been talking about,
Speaker 1: though it's still somewhat connected. So this comes from Mary
Speaker 1: Seilberg of the Global Dermatology Institute, And as she says,
Speaker 1: a very strong chronic stress is known to increase oxidative stress,
Speaker 1: and there are studies that document correlations between extreme emotional
Speaker 1: stress and increased cellular oxydatings. I got out you didn't
Speaker 1: let me finish your mango. So this is not to
Speaker 1: say that we gray every time that we fight with
Speaker 1: our children or spouses. That was what she said at
Speaker 1: the end of it. Well, well, family and work stress
Speaker 1: might not turn our hair gray. There is one thing
Speaker 1: that does lead to hair loss, because oddly enough, losing
Speaker 1: your hair is a coping mechanism when we're going through
Speaker 1: exceptionally hard times. So I do have my kids to blame.
Speaker 1: This is good to know. Well, for first, it helps
Speaker 1: to know the life cycle of our hair includes three phases.
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk through that, the last of which
Speaker 1: is this resting period called the telligent phase. And hairs
Speaker 1: in this stage are no longer connected to a blood supply,
Speaker 1: which which means they're no longer growing either. Now, usually
Speaker 1: about eight percent of our hair is in this dormant
Speaker 1: stage at any given time, and this is all completely natural, right, Like,
Speaker 1: hairs in this telligent phase they put for around three
Speaker 1: months or so and then they guy of just fall
Speaker 1: out gradually as we go about our lives. Alright, So
Speaker 1: then how does stress figure into this? Well, when people
Speaker 1: go through something that's emotionally draining, like illness, or or
Speaker 1: like the loss of a loved one, or even something
Speaker 1: positive but still taxing, something like childbirth, are our bodies
Speaker 1: will sometimes prompt much of our hair to enter this
Speaker 1: telligent phase prematurely, and it's actually the body's way of
Speaker 1: conserving energy to be used elsewhere during like a period
Speaker 1: of extended stress. All right, So let me get this straight.
Speaker 1: Not only do you have to get through a tough time,
Speaker 1: but when you finally get to the end of it
Speaker 1: a few months later, all your hair falls out. I mean,
Speaker 1: it kind of feels like a raw deal. But you know,
Speaker 1: we've been concentrating on the negative here, which is a
Speaker 1: little uncharacteristic for us. But the truth is not all
Speaker 1: of stress's effects on the body are bad ones. They're
Speaker 1: actually upsides to emotional or mental pressure. And you know,
Speaker 1: for one thing, experiencing stress better prepares us to handle
Speaker 1: it in the future, and the reason for that really
Speaker 1: comes down to mental conditioning. You know, whenever we encounter
Speaker 1: a stressful situation, our prefrontal cortex takes notice of this.
Speaker 1: And remember this is the part of the brain that
Speaker 1: handles executive functions that help us cope with different threats.
Speaker 1: So the next time we're faced with a mild stress
Speaker 1: or that we've handled before, the prefrontal cortex is able
Speaker 1: to overrule those warnings and and that makes the stress
Speaker 1: much easier to bear than it was the last time.
Speaker 1: I'm actually glad you're pointing out how stress can make
Speaker 1: is more resilient because One of the things I found
Speaker 1: out this week is that having a well rounded view
Speaker 1: of stress can actually help you live longer. So why
Speaker 1: is that? This is According to a study from when
Speaker 1: researchers asked about thirty adults in the US about their
Speaker 1: opinions on stress, and the participants were asked to report
Speaker 1: how much stress they had experienced in the past year
Speaker 1: and whether or not they believed that stress was negatively
Speaker 1: impacting their health. Then, eight years later, the researchers determined
Speaker 1: that high levels of stress had increased the risk of
Speaker 1: dying by but only in the people who had said
Speaker 1: stress was making them less healthy. So what about the
Speaker 1: people who reported high stress levels but didn't think it
Speaker 1: was hurting them. I mean, that's the craziest part. Not
Speaker 1: only were those people less likely to die prematurely, they
Speaker 1: actually had the lowest risk of death of all the participants,
Speaker 1: including those who'd reported low stress levels. So it really
Speaker 1: seems like stress itself isn't the problem. It's kind of
Speaker 1: how we think about it or deal with it that
Speaker 1: makes or breaks is Well, that sounds right, and of
Speaker 1: course there's a little caveat there. I mean, simply being
Speaker 1: exposed to stressful situation doesn't equip us to handle them
Speaker 1: better next time. I mean, if you get really stressed
Speaker 1: before presentation and then you crack under pressure, it's not
Speaker 1: like you're gonna feel stress free then next time you
Speaker 1: have to give a presentation. And on the other hand,
Speaker 1: like if you overcome those anxious feelings and give a
Speaker 1: solid performance despite all that stress, then of course the
Speaker 1: next time you'll feel a whole lot less stress going
Speaker 1: up again. I mean, there's definitely no quick fix for stress.
Speaker 1: But like we've been saying, maybe that's not such a
Speaker 1: bad thing. I mean, I think about the people from
Speaker 1: the study who reported high stress levels but didn't actually
Speaker 1: consider your problem, and I'd wager what they were experiencing
Speaker 1: is something called you stress or healthy stress. And this
Speaker 1: was another term coined by that scientists we talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: Hans Celier, and it refers to the range of us
Speaker 1: where people actually feel motivated or more productive. It was
Speaker 1: just fascinating to think about it. It makes sense. But
Speaker 1: but what separates this good stress from the bad stress? Again,
Speaker 1: it really comes down to perception. So like if if
Speaker 1: you think about like an employee who's been given a
Speaker 1: reasonable amount of work and a realistic deadline, then it's
Speaker 1: likely that person will feel engaged but not overwhelmed, you know,
Speaker 1: like the goal seems achievable, so they know that any
Speaker 1: stress they feel is temporary or you know, surmountable, and
Speaker 1: that usually results in motivation and focus rather than I
Speaker 1: guess what would be discouraging feelings, you know, when when
Speaker 1: you feel like it's just too much to cope with. Well,
Speaker 1: that does make sense. And obviously not all stress is
Speaker 1: going to be healthy stress, I mean, sooner or later
Speaker 1: we have to deal with the bad kind. And well,
Speaker 1: you mentioned how working through distress can make you more
Speaker 1: resilient in the long run. Sometimes you just want relief
Speaker 1: from it, you know, absolutely, So let's check out a
Speaker 1: few offbeat ways to cope with stress. But before we do,
Speaker 1: let's take another quick break. Okay, well, so why don't
Speaker 1: you go first? What's your favorite time tested way to distress?
Speaker 1: All right, So this isn't anything I've tried before, but
Speaker 1: I came across this study on acupuncture, and I've always
Speaker 1: been curious about acupuncture, and this study was from a
Speaker 1: few years back, and it it really shed some light
Speaker 1: on why the practice might be so effective at relieving
Speaker 1: certain people's stress. Now, acupuncture is of course a big
Speaker 1: part of traditional Chinese medicine, and it actually dates back
Speaker 1: several thousand years, but for all that time, the treatment
Speaker 1: has largely been seen is really more of a placebo
Speaker 1: in the eyes of western medicine, and it seemed to
Speaker 1: work as a form of pain management, but you know,
Speaker 1: researchers weren't sure exactly why. So I've actually done a
Speaker 1: chorus of acupuncture for this arm injury I had, and
Speaker 1: I was really skeptical going in, and then I found
Speaker 1: it really helpful. But I was also curious whether it
Speaker 1: was just like a placebo thing. But you're kind of
Speaker 1: saying that someone's cracked the case on why it might work.
Speaker 1: Well maybe, I mean, there was a team at Georgetown
Speaker 1: that took on this challenge back in two thousand and fifteen,
Speaker 1: and they found that acupuncture might actually work by suppressing
Speaker 1: some of those stress hormones that we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1: So in humans, are central stress response is called the
Speaker 1: h p A and this stands for the hypothalamus pituitary
Speaker 1: adrenal axis, and believe it or not, this complex feedback
Speaker 1: system is linked to an acupuncture point on our shens
Speaker 1: of all things. Not Luckily, there appears to be a
Speaker 1: similar point on the pause of what else but rats,
Speaker 1: and so researchers were able to use them for a
Speaker 1: study instead. And so first they stressed out the rats
Speaker 1: by exposing them the cold conditions, and then they tested
Speaker 1: how these cold rats responded to stimulation on that specific
Speaker 1: Paul point. So it turns out the acupuncture greatly reduced
Speaker 1: the activity in the rats hp A axis and it
Speaker 1: was blocking the production of stress hormones. And this is
Speaker 1: much like the anti anxiety medication might do. So, you know,
Speaker 1: while there's still more research to be done, the evidence
Speaker 1: does suggest that acupuncture holds more water than many people
Speaker 1: give it credit for. Well, for those of you out
Speaker 1: there who have no interest in like poking yourself or
Speaker 1: prodding yourself before a big speech or game or whatever,
Speaker 1: you can actually make do with stress toys. And this
Speaker 1: is anything from fidget widgets to paper clips too, stress
Speaker 1: balls to silly putty, even that little zen garden that
Speaker 1: Tristan's been raking the heck out of for half an hour,
Speaker 1: and he's he's only getting more aggressive, I know. But
Speaker 1: the strange thing is it really works. So there's this
Speaker 1: pair of researchers from Polytechnic Institute at an n y U,
Speaker 1: and they've been doing a study on these kinds of objects,
Speaker 1: and they claim that stress toys function as quote, playful
Speaker 1: secondary interactions that are able to engage bodily movement, effective states,
Speaker 1: and cognition to support primary serious tests. I mean, that
Speaker 1: feels like a high salutant way to talk about paper clips,
Speaker 1: but but I get it, and and I'm curious. I mean,
Speaker 1: have there been any studies just on stress balls, because
Speaker 1: it feels like there was a time when these things
Speaker 1: were the most popular thing in the world, Like you
Speaker 1: remember this, and everybody was giving away these stress balls.
Speaker 1: I know, I feel like I came back with three
Speaker 1: stress balls a week just from walking around campus or whatever.
Speaker 1: But uh, there's actually no definitive research on it. I
Speaker 1: did find one study that showed that brief distractions actually
Speaker 1: help people concentrate. So you think about like checking your
Speaker 1: email or watching a short YouTube clip or you know,
Speaker 1: all that type of thing can serve as a mini
Speaker 1: vacation for your brain and it kind of resets your
Speaker 1: attention span, which makes sense unless you get back to work,
Speaker 1: and when you do, your focus is more readily there.
Speaker 1: But this is where the team from n YU comes
Speaker 1: in because, according to them, fidget widgets have an advantage
Speaker 1: over these other kinds of diversions. And that's because stress
Speaker 1: toys are typically used just for the enjoyment of the
Speaker 1: experience itself. So with something like a smartphone game, like
Speaker 1: you might find relief from work, but you're also setting
Speaker 1: a new kind of goal as you're playing it, like
Speaker 1: you've got to beat this level or you've got to
Speaker 1: get this high score. And on the other hand, like
Speaker 1: when you're squeezing a stress ball, all you're doing is
Speaker 1: squeezing a stress ball, right, I mean it's something that's
Speaker 1: done just as a simple form of mindless fun. Then
Speaker 1: it actually stands a better chance of relieving your stress
Speaker 1: than any of the other stuff we mentioned. But there's
Speaker 1: actually this other great study I have to bring up
Speaker 1: because it involves fake smiles. Fake smile, Sorry, we'll tell
Speaker 1: me about it. So you remember that episode we did
Speaker 1: on Exercise will back where there was this one study
Speaker 1: about how when you smile when you're running, it can
Speaker 1: improve your endurance. Yeah, I remember that one, but it's
Speaker 1: it was only if the smile was like truly genuine though, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so apparently fake smiles are actually good for something else.
Speaker 1: So this is an experiment I actually paid a witness,
Speaker 1: but researchers used chopsticks to manipulate participants faces into one
Speaker 1: of three expressions. Like they use the chopsticks to press
Speaker 1: their faces into like a neutral expression and a standard smile,
Speaker 1: and then the so called genuine smile, where it also
Speaker 1: pressed the muscles around their eyes. And once their expressions
Speaker 1: were set, the volunteers were asked to complete a series
Speaker 1: of stressful multitasking activities. All will continue to hold the
Speaker 1: shopsticks in place. See this is where I'm jealous of scientists,
Speaker 1: because even if you didn't actually believe there was something
Speaker 1: you could find for this, you could just say, like,
Speaker 1: we're trying to study for this for science, so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna stick some chopsticks in your face and move your
Speaker 1: face around. But I'm with you. I want to see
Speaker 1: this experiment too. But I'm curious here, like how was
Speaker 1: their stress level monitored or was this really just some
Speaker 1: elaborate hoax like I said, to get, you know, to
Speaker 1: get to be able to press these chopsticks into people's faces. No,
Speaker 1: it was a real thing. And researcher was actually tracked
Speaker 1: the volonteers heart rates through the experiment, and they also
Speaker 1: had each person give a self report of how stress
Speaker 1: they felt at different times. And in the end, the
Speaker 1: people who maintained the neutral expressions had the highest heart
Speaker 1: rates of all the participants. And granted, the people with
Speaker 1: the genuine smiles were the most relaxed and gave the
Speaker 1: most positive reports, but even the people who were forced
Speaker 1: with standard smiles, they responded more positively than those who
Speaker 1: didn't smile at all. I mean, that is pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to try that the next time I'm
Speaker 1: stuck in traffic. I'm gonna keep some chopsticks in my
Speaker 1: glove compartment and then when I get stressed, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna pull them out and just shove them into my cheeks. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that will make you feel better.
Speaker 1: If it's definitely gonna make me feel better, alright, Well,
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about one other aspect of stress,
Speaker 1: and that's the fact that it's on the rise in
Speaker 1: our country, according to a two thousand seventeen national survey.
Speaker 1: This was conducted by the American Psychological Association. The US
Speaker 1: is currently undergoing a statistically significant increase in anxiety. And
Speaker 1: this is the first time since the annual survey launched
Speaker 1: back in two thousand six, so we're talking over a
Speaker 1: decade now. And that may sound vague enough to not
Speaker 1: worry about it too deeply, But when you couple that
Speaker 1: with research from Harvard and Stanford Business schools which report
Speaker 1: that health problem stemming from job stress end up killing
Speaker 1: about a hundred and twenty thousand people each year, you know,
Speaker 1: it becomes clear pretty quickly that we can afford for
Speaker 1: stress levels to get much higher. I mean, it's literally
Speaker 1: killing us. Yeah, it's hard not to worry when you
Speaker 1: hear stats like that, which is another problem in itself,
Speaker 1: because even stressing about stress is bad for you. I
Speaker 1: read about the study back where over seven thousand civil
Speaker 1: servants in London whereas to rank how much they thought
Speaker 1: their stress level affected their overall health, and then nearly
Speaker 1: two decades later, the researchers took those answers and compared
Speaker 1: them alongside a list of participants who wound up having
Speaker 1: fatal or non fatal heart attacks in the years since
Speaker 1: the servant And this is where things get weird. So
Speaker 1: The Atlantic reported on this a few years later, and
Speaker 1: this is how they summarize the findings. Eight percent of
Speaker 1: the participants had reported that stress affected their health either
Speaker 1: a lot or extremely and by the end of the study,
Speaker 1: those same people were over twice as likely to have
Speaker 1: suffered a heart attack as those who believed it didn't
Speaker 1: impact their health at all. This was independent of how
Speaker 1: much stress they actually experienced. So while psychological, biological, and
Speaker 1: behavioral factors are all probably in play here, the takeaway
Speaker 1: is simply that if you feel like stress is killing you,
Speaker 1: there's a good chance it is. I mean, thankfully, they're
Speaker 1: all kinds of effective ways to manage stress, and it's
Speaker 1: much harder for some than others, but people turn to
Speaker 1: things like exercise and controlled breathing as well as chronic
Speaker 1: stress treatments like therapy and you know, even certain medications. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I also want to circle back to something we
Speaker 1: talked about near the top of the show, which is
Speaker 1: that idea of investing in socially supportive relationships. There's actually
Speaker 1: a good deal of evidence to suggest that a lot
Speaker 1: of the stress we feel today is made worse by
Speaker 1: some of the more isolating aspects of modern culture. So
Speaker 1: you know, if this world has you feeling anxious, I'd
Speaker 1: recommend indulging in some good old fashioned camaraderie because you know,
Speaker 1: while other people are often a major cause of stress
Speaker 1: in our lives, in some cases, they can also be
Speaker 1: a way to relieve it. Yeah, it's definitely true. And
Speaker 1: if all else fails, get yourself as in garden. All right,
Speaker 1: why don't we start the fact off? So here's when
Speaker 1: to kick this off. You don't want to separate a
Speaker 1: cow from their best friend cow. According to research from
Speaker 1: north Hampton University, when cows are penned in with their
Speaker 1: best cow friends, a pallid they've grown up around, their
Speaker 1: heart rates and stress levels go down. But when they're
Speaker 1: putting a pen for thirty minutes with a cow stranger,
Speaker 1: they get more stressed out, which you know sounds silly,
Speaker 1: but the Boddy system is relevant to farmers because that
Speaker 1: stress can actually decrease the cow's milk production. All right,
Speaker 1: So you know how people who are stressed sometimes want
Speaker 1: to sleep away that stress, Like even the stress of
Speaker 1: a big argument can make you sleepy sometimes. Well there's
Speaker 1: a reason for this. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: stressed out a bunch of round worms, and then they
Speaker 1: found that there's a gene that helps repair damage DNA
Speaker 1: by making them sleepy, and that helps sedate them when
Speaker 1: they were stressed. And according to the Atlantic, the idea
Speaker 1: is that some types of stress and due sleep occur
Speaker 1: because the body maybe trying to patch up its genes. Huh.
Speaker 1: That's fascinating. So, for no particular reason, I looked up
Speaker 1: celebrities and how they relieve stress. So Keanu Reeves has
Speaker 1: a very Buddhist approach. He has too much money, and
Speaker 1: worrying about your bank account can cause stress. So his
Speaker 1: advice is to give lots of your money away and
Speaker 1: live simply, mostly out of a suitcase in hotels. If
Speaker 1: selling everything and living in a hotel doesn't calm you down,
Speaker 1: you can also follow Kendall Jenner's approach. She says, my
Speaker 1: way to the stresses to either listen to music or
Speaker 1: talk to my sister Courtney Kardashian, which is good advice.
Speaker 1: I I'm going to talk to Courtney the next time
Speaker 1: I'm stressed too. Yeah, I'm glad we're turning to Kindle
Speaker 1: and Kianu for our stress relief ideas. Oh well, here's
Speaker 1: something I didn't realize financial stress can hurt you physically.
Speaker 1: This comes from Eileen and Chawa public policy professor at
Speaker 1: U v A. She and her team analyzed over thirty
Speaker 1: thousand households and they found that those with higher levels
Speaker 1: of unemployment were more likely to purchase over the counter
Speaker 1: pain killers. So they looked into it a little bit
Speaker 1: more and set up these experiments where they discovered that
Speaker 1: simply thinking about financial insecurity was enough to increase your pain.
Speaker 1: I'm going to quote Scientific American here. It says people
Speaker 1: reported feeling almost double the amount of physical pain in
Speaker 1: their body after we're calling a financially unstable time in
Speaker 1: their life, as compared with those who thought about a
Speaker 1: secure period. They also conducted an ice bucket challenge where
Speaker 1: they prime kids to feel anxious about their future employment
Speaker 1: prospects and saw that their pain tolerance was less than
Speaker 1: those who weren't stressed about their financial futures. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's crazy, and it doesn't make you wonder if the
Speaker 1: opioid epidemic in Sompard is related to like financial stress
Speaker 1: and economic uncertainty. It's really interesting. So here's one I
Speaker 1: really like, and it comes from discover So the scientist
Speaker 1: Barry Marshall realized that ulcers weren't caused by stress, which
Speaker 1: is what everyone thought forever. He believed they were caused
Speaker 1: by this bacteria H. Pylori. But he couldn't convince any
Speaker 1: mainstream gastroentrologists, and he couldn't prove his point with labmies either.
Speaker 1: But because he was prohibited from experimenting on humans, he
Speaker 1: did the only thing he ethically could. He used himself.
Speaker 1: So he pulled H. Pylori from the gut of a
Speaker 1: sick patient, put it in a broth, and drank it,
Speaker 1: and before long you developed signs of an ulcer. And
Speaker 1: the good news is that because it's bacterial, it can
Speaker 1: actually be treated with antibiotics instead of the distressing things
Speaker 1: that doctors have been recommending. And even better for him
Speaker 1: at least, Marshall won a Nobel Prize for the efforts. Wow,
Speaker 1: all right, well, here's a quick one. When forest or
Speaker 1: overcrowded squirrels will boost their stress hormone during a pregnancy,
Speaker 1: and that leads to faster growing squirrel pups, which of
Speaker 1: course increases their chance of survival. That's fascinating. So here's
Speaker 1: one I just learned the day that South Korean kids
Speaker 1: take their college entrance exam is particularly stressful. It's an
Speaker 1: eight hour exam and there are all sorts of traditions
Speaker 1: around it, like underclassmen will actually form these cheering squads
Speaker 1: to greet the test takers at the exam locations and
Speaker 1: uh the stock market opens an hour later, as do
Speaker 1: most businesses. Most parents can be found in temples or
Speaker 1: churches just praying away the day. But the biggest indication
Speaker 1: of how much stress is going on is that South
Speaker 1: Korea actually cancels all flights on that day, so the
Speaker 1: skies are completely quiet while the kids are concentrated. I
Speaker 1: have to say, of all the facts that we've shared today,
Speaker 1: that one actually makes me the most stressed just thinking
Speaker 1: about it. But I will say, I'm looking over at Tristan,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing him raking his zen garden, and it's making
Speaker 1: me calm down a little bit. Sopemengo. I don't know
Speaker 1: about you, but I feel like, for the first time,
Speaker 1: we should actually give Tristan the fact off Trophy for Tristan.
Speaker 1: The listeners, if we have forgotten any great facts about stress,
Speaker 1: feel free to pass those two us. We love to
Speaker 1: hear from You can email us part Time Genius and
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works dot com, or you can call us
Speaker 1: on our seven fact hotline that's one eight four four
Speaker 1: pt Genius, or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.
Speaker 1: But thanks so much for listening. Congratulations Tristan, Thanks again
Speaker 1: for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people
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Speaker 1: Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gave Louesier is our
Speaker 1: lead researcher, with support from the research Army including Austin Thompson,
Speaker 1: Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff Cook gets
Speaker 1: the show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you
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