Speaker 1: Pushkin. I was having my annual medical checkup. The nurse
Speaker 1: measured my weight in blood pressure, She listened to my heart,
Speaker 1: and then did some blood work. Most of my test
Speaker 1: results came back fine except one. My CRP levels were
Speaker 1: kind of high. But I didn't actually know what CRP
Speaker 1: levels were, so I turned to Google. Turns out, high
Speaker 1: CRP levels are a sign of bodily inflammation, which can
Speaker 1: increase the risk of chronic health conditions like kidney disease, cancer, dementia,
Speaker 1: and premature death. I'm no medical doctor, but that did
Speaker 1: not sound good. I returned to the clinic to go
Speaker 1: over the results. So this inflammation thing, I asked, what's
Speaker 1: causing it? Inflammation? My doctor replied, can be lots of things,
Speaker 1: but it's usually a sign that your immune system is
Speaker 1: on the defense. But we often see levels like that
Speaker 1: when patients are experiencing a period of intense stress. Have
Speaker 1: you been going through any stress lately? I fidgeted, well,
Speaker 1: I said, then launched into all the stuff on my plate.
Speaker 1: I talked about how I'd cared for over five hundred
Speaker 1: students during a pandemic while also running a lab while
Speaker 1: also making a podcast. I admitted I hadn't been exercising
Speaker 1: or eating well, and that I was feeling totally overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: My doctor, a fan of the show, gave a smirk.
Speaker 1: So the famous happiness expert has been all stressed out?
Speaker 1: Huh yeah, yeah, I guess she has been, and apparently
Speaker 1: it's making her ill. Stress is a normal bodily response.
Speaker 1: It can be triggered by external factors like major life changes,
Speaker 1: relationship troubles, financial worries, and troubles at work, but also
Speaker 1: by internal things like self criticism, unrealistic expectations, and being
Speaker 1: too busy all the time. Stress is just the body's
Speaker 1: natural response to a perceived threat. But as I know well,
Speaker 1: that response doesn't feel good. It can make us anxious, sad,
Speaker 1: and irritable. But it also hurts us physically, causing headaches
Speaker 1: and insomnia and digestive problems. And if we leave stress unchecked,
Speaker 1: it can badly damage our bodies and our immune systems.
Speaker 1: Stress is a happiness challenge that I and so many
Speaker 1: others face on a daily basis. But is there anything
Speaker 1: we can do about it for my own sake? I
Speaker 1: really hope so. Our minds are constantly telling us what
Speaker 1: to do to be happy. But what if our minds
Speaker 1: are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us,
Speaker 1: leading us away from what will really make us happy.
Speaker 1: The good news is that understanding the science of the
Speaker 1: mind can point us all back in the right direction.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Happiness Lab with doctor Laurie Santos.
Speaker 1: At around the time I was thinking about my own
Speaker 1: struggle with stress, a new book landed on my desk.
Speaker 1: There seemed to be an odd mismatch between the author
Speaker 1: and the subject matter, but after reading it, I realized
Speaker 1: there was a lot I could learn from his experience.
Speaker 2: Hey, Steve, I'm in the car because for some reason,
Speaker 2: all the traffic lights on since sent Boulevard are out.
Speaker 1: When scientists studies stress, they often turn to one particular
Speaker 1: group of very stressed out people, caregivers, and there's no
Speaker 1: shortage of such research subjects. Around thirty percent of US
Speaker 1: adults provide some form of care to say a child
Speaker 1: with special needs, a sick partner, or even an aging parent.
Speaker 1: It's around the clock job that's often really brutal. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for taking the time. Of course, the person
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to had a hectic life before
Speaker 1: he took on the tough role of a caretaker, and
Speaker 1: he's still rushing around La from meeting to meeting today
Speaker 1: traffic allowing, of course, do you want to talk now?
Speaker 1: Do you want to wait till you get back to
Speaker 1: your place? What's better?
Speaker 2: Let's start right now because I have another appointment.
Speaker 1: But I'm thrilled to talk to you, but not as
Speaker 1: thrilled as I was. You see, I'm not just a
Speaker 1: fan of Steve's book, Time to Think Caregiving for my Hero.
Speaker 1: I'm also a fan of Steve's acting. Steve Gutenberg is
Speaker 1: the star of some of my favorite eighties movies, Three
Speaker 1: Men in a Baby Cocoon and Short Circuit Number Five
Speaker 1: is a Lie, and Steve attributes much of his amazing
Speaker 1: career success to his father.
Speaker 2: He was my hero, and my dad was really a
Speaker 2: very tough guy who was a US Army Airborne ranger,
Speaker 2: one of the first Jewish ones. And then my dad
Speaker 2: became a New York City policeman and he actually went
Speaker 2: to the New York City Police Academy. So when I
Speaker 2: auditioned for Police Academy the movie, he said, why don't
Speaker 2: you wear my police Academy shirt? And I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: that would be great.
Speaker 1: The director asked about Steve's shirt and seemed impressed by
Speaker 1: the actor's attention to detail. After all, Steve was reading
Speaker 1: for character Kerrie Mahoney, who was also the son of
Speaker 1: a police officer. It was a great start, but the
Speaker 1: audition went terribly.
Speaker 2: I called my dad and I said, Dad, you know,
Speaker 2: I wore your shirt, but I don't think I got
Speaker 2: this thing. You know, nobody laughed, nobody clapped, nothing. He said, well,
Speaker 2: you never go just give it a little time. My
Speaker 2: dad was really positive thinker. He just said it'll all
Speaker 2: work out. Take your time with it. About ten minutes later,
Speaker 2: my agent called and I said, oh, I feel lousy.
Speaker 2: I did terrible. He goes, no, you got it. He
Speaker 2: said what? And that was the phone call that changed
Speaker 2: my life. And I think that my dad's lucky shir
Speaker 2: It really helped me.
Speaker 1: So Steve was going to star in Police Academy. What
Speaker 1: could possibly go wrong?
Speaker 2: Actually, my manager saw Police Academy. He said, this is
Speaker 2: going to be the worst movie ever. I'm going to
Speaker 2: put you in a TV series Tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Steve landed a role in a spy series made by
Speaker 1: Blake Edwards.
Speaker 2: He was a great director, directed Breakfast and Tiffany's and
Speaker 2: all the Pink Panthers.
Speaker 1: Steve's dad was incredibly supportive of his new role and
Speaker 1: wanted to join his son on set, but that might
Speaker 1: have also had something to do with Blake Edward's famous wife.
Speaker 2: My dad wanted to come out because he thought maybe
Speaker 2: you'd get to meet Julie.
Speaker 1: Andrews Stanley Gutenberg. Set visit coincided with a short delay
Speaker 1: in shooting. Steve's character was supposed to jump off a
Speaker 1: thirty foot roof and Steve didn't want to do the
Speaker 1: stunt himself.
Speaker 2: And my dad was looking up there and said to
Speaker 2: Blake Edwards, you know I could do that, and the
Speaker 2: director Blake Edwards said yeah, but you don't want to
Speaker 2: do it, do you? And he said, yeah, I'll do it.
Speaker 2: I'm airborn rajor. I jumped from airplane some thousands of feet.
Speaker 1: Stanley made the jump, and as he was finishing up
Speaker 1: the stunt, it became clear that he wasn't the only
Speaker 1: visitor on the lot.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, this Rose Royce pulls up and
Speaker 2: out of it comes Julie Andrews, and my dad looks
Speaker 2: down there and says, Julie Andrews Julia Hedgers and Julie
Speaker 2: Andrews looked up and I guess asked who that was.
Speaker 2: He said, oh, was a good bug. And he said,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I wanted to meet you. He says, well,
Speaker 2: here I am.
Speaker 1: So Steve's dad got to play the hero and meet
Speaker 1: his movie.
Speaker 2: Idol, and that was a big kick for me.
Speaker 1: Steve's dad was a caring, positive guy who also took
Speaker 1: great joy at his powerful physique. But age and infirmity
Speaker 1: pay little respect to such things.
Speaker 2: He said, look at my thigh, Yes, look how big
Speaker 2: my thighs are. And I would say, dad, but you're
Speaker 2: still tough, Dad, You're still tough.
Speaker 1: Stanley was diagnosed with kidney failure, a disease that immediately
Speaker 1: reversed the Gutenberg family roles. Steve, along with his sister
Speaker 1: were now cast as caregivers with all the stress that entails.
Speaker 2: And I was a reluctant caregiver because I didn't want
Speaker 2: to see my dad like that.
Speaker 3: As many of us know, being a caregiver is very challenging.
Speaker 1: Doctor Alissa Epple is one of many scientists studying stress
Speaker 1: and caregivers.
Speaker 3: It's a job that doesn't end twenty four to seven,
Speaker 3: and that's because we care so much, We're so connected
Speaker 3: to another's well being, we feel responsible for it, and
Speaker 3: that doesn't end.
Speaker 1: Alyssa is a professor a UCSF and the author of
Speaker 1: the Stress prescription seven Days to More Joy and Ease.
Speaker 1: She explained that caregivers, like so many of us, are
Speaker 1: often harmed by the very biological reaction that's supposed to
Speaker 1: help us.
Speaker 3: Our stress response is the only reason we're all here,
Speaker 3: the only reason our ancestors have survived.
Speaker 1: Thanks to those ancestors, we've inherited a unique biological control center,
Speaker 1: the autonomic nervous system, which allows our brains to switch
Speaker 1: instantly from normal processes like breathing or digesting food, to
Speaker 1: the high energy fighter flight activities we need for emergencies
Speaker 1: like sprinting away from a tiger or punching an attacker.
Speaker 1: Whenever our brains perceive a threat, this fighter flight system
Speaker 1: kicks into high gear. We breathe quicker, our hearts pump faster,
Speaker 1: our pupils dilate, and our brains release energy rich glucose
Speaker 1: into the blood. This response allows us to react faster,
Speaker 1: see better, and summon the muscle power required to flee
Speaker 1: or tackle an oncoming threat. Neuro Scientists like to think
Speaker 1: of this fight or flight response kind of like jamming
Speaker 1: your foot on a gas pedal, and if the brain
Speaker 1: decides a particular threat isn't going away, it will keep
Speaker 1: that response pressed to the metal. That's when we launch
Speaker 1: a hormone cyclone orem glands release substances like cortisol, which
Speaker 1: keep our energy up and our muscles at the ready
Speaker 1: at least until the threat passes. And that's when our
Speaker 1: brains finally hit the brakes. We relax, our muscles and
Speaker 1: our bodies switch back to running the normal rest and
Speaker 1: digest processes we need for everyday life. The problem is
Speaker 1: the modern world leaves our fight or flight mode switched
Speaker 1: on way longer than it should, which means our digestive, sexual,
Speaker 1: and sleep functioning gets all screwed up. We up our
Speaker 1: risk for high blood pressure and headaches. We spend our
Speaker 1: days feeling irritable and.
Speaker 3: Anxious, our bodies really living in a chronically aroused state
Speaker 3: that we don't even notice anymore.
Speaker 1: All this would be bad enough if we only freaked
Speaker 1: out about our actual daily stressors, but part of.
Speaker 3: The problem with our stress today is that we keep
Speaker 3: it alive with our thoughts, because things aren't always happening,
Speaker 3: but they can be in our mind if we take
Speaker 3: them with us and we ruminate about what's happened, or
Speaker 3: we are worrying about what might happen next, and we're
Speaker 3: all challenged by that to some extent, and especially right now,
Speaker 3: because things are more unstable than they used to be.
Speaker 3: We live in an unstable climate, in an unstable political world,
Speaker 3: and then we still have our daily drama that we
Speaker 3: need to cope with as well.
Speaker 1: It's a lot, and as I have definitely experienced in
Speaker 1: my own life, we usually react to these daily mental
Speaker 1: dramas in ways that make things even worse.
Speaker 3: For so many of us, it really is about rushing,
Speaker 3: about creating a schedule that has no spaciousness in it,
Speaker 3: that has no time for breaks, and it doesn't match
Speaker 3: our value as usually we don't have time for people,
Speaker 3: we don't have time for health or eating healthy meals.
Speaker 3: We no longer want to eat normal food. We want
Speaker 3: to eat highly palatable food, high sugar food, high fat food,
Speaker 3: and for some of us, high salt food. And we
Speaker 3: call this comfort food because it is biologically comforting to
Speaker 3: the body and brain.
Speaker 1: Ah comfort food, I could honestly spend a whole episode
Speaker 1: in this series talking about this happiness challenge. When my
Speaker 1: Yale students disappeared during lockdown, I comforted myself with whatever
Speaker 1: sugary food looked good. I wound up putting on the
Speaker 1: so called COVID nineteen pounds and then some But Alyssa says,
Speaker 1: this wasn't a willpower failure. It was just my basic
Speaker 1: biology at work. Take one experiment in which researchers stressed
Speaker 1: out a bunch of rats and then gave them access
Speaker 1: not just to their usual meals but also to human
Speaker 1: junk food like cookies and candy. The rats switched over
Speaker 1: to the fatty stuff, but they also changed their approach
Speaker 1: to feeding time.
Speaker 3: The addition of stress on top of giving rats access
Speaker 3: to oreos creates this craving an addiction in these rats.
Speaker 3: So each time they get access to the oreos, they're
Speaker 3: not just eating leisurely and saying, what a fine meal,
Speaker 3: this feels great. They're binge eating. They will eat more,
Speaker 3: and they'll develop greater or intro abdominal fat, and that
Speaker 3: is just a little disease making machine. To have a
Speaker 3: lot of introbdominal fat means that We're also having a
Speaker 3: lot of lipids and our blood and insulin resistance. So
Speaker 3: stress plus comfort food means we're becoming more apple shaped
Speaker 3: in our body.
Speaker 1: But chronic stress doesn't just change the size of our
Speaker 1: mid sections, as my own heightened CRP marker show, it
Speaker 1: can also affect our immune systems.
Speaker 3: Our immune cells have receptors for cortisol, but when we're
Speaker 3: chronically stressed and cortisol gets too high, then the immune
Speaker 3: cells are not turning off inflammation in response to cortisol,
Speaker 3: and those cells are more prone flammatory during stress.
Speaker 1: Chronic stress results in exactly the same inflammation profile that
Speaker 1: I presented with at my doctor's visit. What researchers are
Speaker 1: referring to as inflammating chronic stress also damages our DNA.
Speaker 1: It destroys the part of our chromosomes that we need
Speaker 1: for cell division.
Speaker 3: What are known as teeling telomeres are these caps at
Speaker 3: the tips of our chromosomes and they protect our genes,
Speaker 3: so they have this incredibly important role in the cell.
Speaker 3: Telomeres are basically the sentinels or these guards, and when
Speaker 3: there's too much stress in the cell, the telomeres tend
Speaker 3: to shorten quickly. And more excessively.
Speaker 1: Telomeres work like the plastic tip at the top of
Speaker 1: our shoelaces, which the Internet tells me is actually called
Speaker 1: an ag lit. Did not know that. In any case,
Speaker 1: if you've ever had a shoelace lose it zag lit,
Speaker 1: you know what happens next. The lease starts to fray
Speaker 1: and fall apart. Telomeres at the top of a DNA
Speaker 1: strand work the same way. When they get messed up,
Speaker 1: our DNA winds up frayed and broken.
Speaker 3: And once they get too short, they start sending out
Speaker 3: distress signals saying this cell is no longer good. We
Speaker 3: got to call it quits. Time for this cell to
Speaker 3: become senescent.
Speaker 1: Dyeing sinescent cells, higher abdominal fat levels, long standing anxiety, irritability, inflammating,
Speaker 1: and an increased risk for premature death. Apparently this is
Speaker 1: where all my self imposed pressures over the last few
Speaker 1: years have gotten me. At this point in my conversation
Speaker 1: with Alyssa, things were starting to sound kind of hopeless,
Speaker 1: but Alyssa assured me that chronic stress doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be a cellular death sentence. In fact, her newest research
Speaker 1: has shown that healthier stress responses are possible even in
Speaker 1: a population that experiences some of the hardest possible stressors.
Speaker 3: We've learned more about chroduct stress from these caregiving studies
Speaker 3: than other types of stressors.
Speaker 1: But what lessons can we learn from the painful experience
Speaker 1: of stressed out caregivers. We'll find out when the Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab returns from the break.
Speaker 2: When you were a caregiver, beautiful responsibility to be more
Speaker 2: than a human being, you just do.
Speaker 1: When his father Stanley became ill, movie star Steve Guttenberg
Speaker 1: was forced to trade the glamor of Hollywood for the
Speaker 1: hard job of a long term caretaker.
Speaker 2: You have to be superhuman because it takes a superhuman
Speaker 2: to clean somebody up when they go to the bathroom,
Speaker 2: when they throw up, when they have a seizure, when
Speaker 2: they have bouts of true darkness. You have to be
Speaker 2: more than an average human being.
Speaker 1: Step and his sister joined the thirty four million other
Speaker 1: Americans offering unpaid care to an older person in need.
Speaker 2: I would call them angels, super angels, muscular, strong, super
Speaker 2: powered angels, because when you're looking at somebody at two
Speaker 2: in the morning and they have to go to the
Speaker 2: bathroom and you have to pick them up out of
Speaker 2: bed and they can't make it to the regular bathroom,
Speaker 2: and you have to put them on their commode, and
Speaker 2: you have to give them their privacy and their dignity
Speaker 2: at the same time being there to help them. You're
Speaker 2: not a human being, You're way above a human being,
Speaker 2: because the average human being walks out of the room.
Speaker 2: Can't do it, cannot do it. Now, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to tell you that I didn't have my moments of
Speaker 2: gagging and dry eaving, because some of it was really
Speaker 2: hard to watch. And I feel my metal coming up
Speaker 2: in me when I'm talking about this, because you have
Speaker 2: to be made of metal to deal with this.
Speaker 1: The range of daily challenges that carers face is immense
Speaker 1: medical bills, dealing with hospitals and insurance companies, negotiating time
Speaker 1: off work, and that doesn't include the heartbreaking pain of
Speaker 1: watching once healthy loved ones deteriorate.
Speaker 2: The reason I wrote the book is caregiving is a
Speaker 2: really lonely occupation. You're basically sitting in the room with
Speaker 2: that one person who's very ill, and you're looking at
Speaker 2: them constantly, monitoring their health well and seeing what you
Speaker 2: can do for them, and at the same time, you're
Speaker 2: trying to figure out your own life and what you're
Speaker 2: doing with it and what you have to give up
Speaker 2: to be part of this process.
Speaker 1: The problems caregivers contend with can last day after day
Speaker 1: after day, and as doctor Elyssa Epple explained earlier, such
Speaker 1: sustained stress can be really bad for our bodies. Melissa
Speaker 1: likes to point to one caregiver study in particular.
Speaker 3: Showing that their wounds heal almost ten days longer than
Speaker 3: low stress age matched older controls, And that really is
Speaker 3: about the chronic stress response, the excesses of the exposure
Speaker 3: to cortisol.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be surprising if Steve Gutenberg's cortisol levels were
Speaker 1: through the roof during his time as a caregiver. Steve
Speaker 1: was living in LA when his father was diagnosed with
Speaker 1: renal failure, so taking care of him meant regular drives
Speaker 1: to his father's house in Arizona mile.
Speaker 2: Round trip every week. And I started listening to podcasts
Speaker 2: or music, but quickly I stopped and just started thinking.
Speaker 2: So what I would think about was when my dad
Speaker 2: was younger, and my dad was really fit and young
Speaker 2: and healthy and enthusiastic, sitting.
Speaker 1: Behind the wheel for long hours isn't ideal, but ruminating
Speaker 1: about his father's physical decline during those long drives was
Speaker 1: bound to trigger even more stress.
Speaker 2: My dad was in such pain, physical pain, mental pain,
Speaker 2: he did not want to die.
Speaker 1: Steve says his father's final years were the most depressing
Speaker 1: period of his entire life. And Steve's not alone. It's
Speaker 1: estimated that half of caregivers have major depression, a rate
Speaker 1: that's twice as high as the general population. Even more shockingly,
Speaker 1: twelve percent of dementia caregivers die before their sick loved.
Speaker 1: One one study estimated that a caregiver's mortality risk was
Speaker 1: sixty three percent higher than they're not caregiving peers. With
Speaker 1: stats like these, it's probably not surprising that many caregivers
Speaker 1: like Steve wind up neglecting their own self care.
Speaker 2: It fell by the wayside. I did not exercise for
Speaker 2: so many years. I didn't sleep very well at all.
Speaker 2: There was about a month before he passed where he
Speaker 2: would be up all night, that he would be screaming
Speaker 2: all night. So my self care did go to the side.
Speaker 1: But researcher Alyssa Apple has found that not all caregivers
Speaker 1: succumbed to the effects of stress.
Speaker 3: The good news is that there are ways to be
Speaker 3: with this life situation.
Speaker 1: Alissa studied caregivers telomeres, that part of our DNA that
Speaker 1: gets prematurely shortened by chronic stress. She found that many
Speaker 1: of her subjects telomeres were badly affected. They showed all
Speaker 1: the expected hallmarks of inflammating, but the telomeres of some
Speaker 1: caregivers were fine. Even though the these people face the
Speaker 1: same stresses as those with the shortened tail of mirrors,
Speaker 1: their bodies weren't affected in the same way. How is
Speaker 1: that possible? Alyssa discovered that one factor was the narrative
Speaker 1: these caregivers created to explain the difficulties they were facing.
Speaker 1: The healthier caregivers embraced what's known as radical acceptance.
Speaker 3: I don't control outcomes. I don't control the disease course.
Speaker 3: I don't control someone else's behavior. I can control X
Speaker 3: and Y. So really separating out a situation to understand
Speaker 3: there is a little bit that we can control. We
Speaker 3: can control our response, and we can do things to
Speaker 3: show compassion, to be with someone with a loving presence,
Speaker 3: spend our time with them showing that we care. There
Speaker 3: are ways that we can be our best self in
Speaker 3: these uncontrollable situations that allow us to not be in
Speaker 3: this chronically stressed state of striving, of hitting a brick wall.
Speaker 1: If you're a caregiver, you might be saying, well, that's
Speaker 1: easier said than done. Radical acceptance was definitely something Steve
Speaker 1: Gutenberg struggled with.
Speaker 2: I was reluctant to accept the reality of the situation.
Speaker 2: I just couldn't accept it. I wouldn't accept it. Everyone
Speaker 2: else knew my dad was dying. I knew it, but
Speaker 2: wouldn't accept it, so I never talked about it. I
Speaker 2: always said, he's going to get better, He's going to
Speaker 2: come through this, even at the very end.
Speaker 1: Alyssa shared one strategy we can use to bring a
Speaker 1: healthier narrative to times of stress. We can try out
Speaker 1: what's known as expressive writing. Take time to journal about
Speaker 1: all the crap on your plate and how it makes
Speaker 1: you feel.
Speaker 3: I suggest just starting off with a massive list without
Speaker 3: any editing or censoring, just writing down everything that you
Speaker 3: feel bothered by, worried by, pressured by, and then thinking
Speaker 3: about your day. You know what stresses you out most
Speaker 3: during the day. We often don't give ourselves the opportunity
Speaker 3: to step back and reflect on the level that we're carrying.
Speaker 1: The act of putting all your stresses down on paper
Speaker 1: can also reveal all the things you're doing that inadvertently
Speaker 1: add to your stress levels.
Speaker 3: We're very routine animals, you know. We get into this
Speaker 3: I'll call it a daily stress routine, and we can
Speaker 3: break that routine. We can see where we're creating unnecessary stress.
Speaker 1: You can then take stock of all the neglected stuff
Speaker 1: you can control about your situation practices like sleep, or
Speaker 1: food or time with friends. You can also take some
Speaker 1: time to count your blessings. Gratitude, it turns out, is
Speaker 1: a powerful tool for tackling stress. Fortunately, this was a
Speaker 1: practice that did come naturally for caregivers. Steve Gutenberg his
Speaker 1: dad was a gratitude role model.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, my dad was grateful for anything. Had told
Speaker 2: get a cup of coffee. H coffee. My dad taught me,
Speaker 2: you know, Stephen, enjoy your life. Enjoy your life. Be happy.
Speaker 2: That's it. Just be happy. Everything else will come.
Speaker 1: Steve called his book a Time to Think, because in
Speaker 1: spite of his father's difficult illness, he still managed to
Speaker 1: remember all the many ways in which he was fortunate.
Speaker 2: Thank god I have a job that I could stop
Speaker 2: and just sit there with my dad all the time.
Speaker 2: How lucky I was that I didn't have to be
Speaker 2: in some office hearing about my dad on the telephone.
Speaker 1: Steve hated seeing Stanley's physical decline, but the time Steve
Speaker 1: spent with his dad in those final months allowed him
Speaker 1: to remember the dead of gratitude. He owed the old man.
Speaker 2: I think gratitude it's a verb. I think like love
Speaker 2: is a verb. You know. My dad used to say
Speaker 2: to me, you could either love someone or you can
Speaker 2: love someone and show up. You know. That's that's gratitude.
Speaker 2: That's gratitude. That's the deep part of gratitude.
Speaker 1: Research shows that strategies like gratitude and radical acceptance can
Speaker 1: protect us from the negative effects of chronic stress. But
Speaker 1: as I read through a list is work, I learned
Speaker 1: one additional way to handle stress that sounded kind of odd.
Speaker 1: It turns out we can fight stress by looking for
Speaker 1: new chances to get stressed out. This is the insight
Speaker 1: behind what effective scientists call hermetic stress.
Speaker 3: Her Medic stress is absolutely fascinating because it's so counterintuitive.
Speaker 3: We know very well from fly studies that organisms like
Speaker 3: a little shock of moderate repeated stress, and in fact
Speaker 3: it's strengthening. It's like a vaccination, so it really is
Speaker 3: building up biological resistance. It's exercise for our nervous system.
Speaker 1: What you're looking to create is a short episode of stress,
Speaker 1: something that will get your heart racing and blood pumping,
Speaker 1: but also an episode that you can stop so you
Speaker 1: can train your autonomic nervous system to go back into
Speaker 1: recovery mode. And it doesn't have to involve finding true
Speaker 1: fight or flight danger. Hermetic stress can be way easier
Speaker 1: than that.
Speaker 3: The best example, of course, is extra and we know
Speaker 3: exercise is good for our health, but we haven't thought
Speaker 3: about the fact that short bursts of exercise are creating
Speaker 3: that positive hormetic stress response.
Speaker 1: One study found that caretakers who were asked to exercise
Speaker 1: three to five times a week showed less short in
Speaker 1: telomeres than those who didn't move their bodies. The blast
Speaker 1: of stress that comes from exercise seems to slow down
Speaker 1: and possibly even reverse the effects of inflammating Exercise was
Speaker 1: another strategy that came easily to the Gutenberg family. When
Speaker 1: Steve's great grandfather first came to the US, his physical
Speaker 1: fitness came in handy.
Speaker 2: What he would do for extra money is he would
Speaker 2: go down to the Brooklyn Bridge and he feats of strength.
Speaker 2: He would carry people on his dock. He would carry
Speaker 2: huge weights and at the end he had a Shetland
Speaker 2: pony and he would pick up this little Shetland party
Speaker 2: walk around it.
Speaker 1: Steve's grandfather was a powerlifter who then passed on the
Speaker 1: jim bug to his son Stanley.
Speaker 2: My dad started lifting weights when he was twelve years old.
Speaker 2: My dad was a handstand king. My dad could do
Speaker 2: a handstand for by four straight.
Speaker 1: As a skinny teen, Steve turned to his dad for
Speaker 1: exercise tips. Under Stanley's tutelage, Steve was able to put
Speaker 1: on fifty pounds of muscle. I'm building a mean, lean monster,
Speaker 1: his dad had announced proudly. But like many stressed out folks,
Speaker 1: Steve let his usual exercise routine slide at exactly the
Speaker 1: time he needed it most. As Steve explained just how
Speaker 1: infrequently he hit the gym during his time as a caretaker,
Speaker 1: I felt a bit called out. I mean I rarely
Speaker 1: make my yoga classes or hit the elliptical. What I'm
Speaker 1: feeling frantic, but Ironically, a jolt of hermetic stress was
Speaker 1: probably the perfect remedy for the strain I was under.
Speaker 1: But giving our bodies additional bursts of stress to fight
Speaker 1: stress isn't even the most surprising way we can protect
Speaker 1: ourselves from chronic overwhelm. We also need to train our
Speaker 1: brains to think differently about stress. I'll explain more when
Speaker 1: the happiness Lab returns after the break. What someone says
Speaker 1: they're feeling stressed, we usually assume that they're having a
Speaker 1: bad time. My own periods of stress are accompanied by
Speaker 1: yucky feelings like irritability, interrupted sleep, digestive issues, and a
Speaker 1: sort of forehead clenching. Feeling stressed sucks, and I usually
Speaker 1: just wish that I could avoid it.
Speaker 4: Your heart is facing your pomps or sweaty or butterflies
Speaker 4: in your stomach, so of course, in that circumstance, it
Speaker 4: feels like self evidence the stress is bad.
Speaker 1: Right, This is ut Austin psychologist David Yeager.
Speaker 4: Your stress could be viewed in a debilitating way that
Speaker 4: it's a sign your body is preparing for damage and defeat.
Speaker 1: Who wants damage and defeat? Seems like we're all agreed.
Speaker 1: Then stress sucks. But David says that's not the whole story.
Speaker 4: There are lots of times when we face a stressor
Speaker 4: and we're thrilled and excited, and that energy allows us
Speaker 4: to show what we know. I mean, if you talk
Speaker 4: to great athletes, right, they talk about performing at the
Speaker 4: level of your preparation, and one of the ways they
Speaker 4: do that is they kind of get in a zone
Speaker 4: in their heads and they're like amped up before a performance, right.
Speaker 4: And so in those cases, that's a much better situation
Speaker 4: to be in than to have no stress at all,
Speaker 4: where you're like about to fall asleep.
Speaker 1: David is an expert on the power of mindsets, the
Speaker 1: beliefs we have about things like our abilities and how
Speaker 1: our brains respond to challenges. David's work has shown that
Speaker 1: how we think about things has a huge impact on
Speaker 1: how we behave His early research focused on what's known
Speaker 1: as the growth mindset, the belief that our abilities and
Speaker 1: talents can improve over time if we're willing to put
Speaker 1: in some work in practice. But these days David has
Speaker 1: started thinking about a different type of mindset, the beliefs
Speaker 1: we have about the effects of stress. If we think
Speaker 1: about stress is terrible, we may behave in ways that
Speaker 1: lead us to suffer. But if we greet stress as
Speaker 1: a potential friend, couldn't improve our lives. Researchers have begun
Speaker 1: conducting some elegant laboratory experiments to test this possibility. But
Speaker 1: David's favorite illustration of the importance of our stress mindset
Speaker 1: occurred when he was on vacation with his daughters.
Speaker 4: Scarlet, we when water skiing in Wisconsin, and she'd never
Speaker 4: keep She's a fourth or fifth grader, and She's sitting
Speaker 4: there bobbing in the lake and I'm holding the back
Speaker 4: of her skis and she says, Daddy, I'm so nervous.
Speaker 4: I have butterflies on my stomach. I don't think I
Speaker 4: can do this. And I was like, well, Scarlet, you
Speaker 4: know that that's stress and that energy that's just getting
Speaker 4: oxygenated blood to your muscles and your brain, and those
Speaker 4: muscles with that oxygenated blood are going to be stronger.
Speaker 4: You can hold onto the rope a little more, and
Speaker 4: once you do that, you're gonna pop up and just
Speaker 4: have the most fun of your life and it's gonna
Speaker 4: be thrilling. And what I was doing was just giving
Speaker 4: her a different way of appraising or making meaning out
Speaker 4: of that bodily experience. She's like, okay, and she got
Speaker 4: right up and I just stayed there bobbing in the
Speaker 4: water for I don't know, twenty minutes. Well, she just
Speaker 4: did laughs around this lake in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: Justice Scarlet initially interpreted her stress response as a signal
Speaker 1: that she shouldn't try water skiing. David says that many
Speaker 1: of us greet the early signs of stress the wrong way.
Speaker 4: In general and society, people tend to have a stress
Speaker 4: is debilitating mindset. You see that if you just google
Speaker 4: image s, stress and well being memes, they all take
Speaker 4: this assumption that stress is always bad and should be avoided. Right.
Speaker 4: It's like depleting you. It is something that you need
Speaker 4: to suppress. Most people are convinced there's only one way
Speaker 4: to look at stress, which is that it's always bad,
Speaker 4: and when they do that, it spirals on itself and
Speaker 4: it becomes self confirming for them. But we know from
Speaker 4: just basic science of stress in both animals and humans
Speaker 4: that the stress response is simply there to keep us alive,
Speaker 4: to overcome and meet the demands that are imposed on us.
Speaker 4: And so there's a different kind of mindset or belief
Speaker 4: you can have about stress, which is the stress can
Speaker 4: be enhancing mindset.
Speaker 1: Stanford psychologist Alia Crumb was the first to show the
Speaker 1: harmful effects of the wrong stress mindset. She found that
Speaker 1: people who expected stress to be debilitating experienced more anxiety
Speaker 1: and lower happiness ratings than people who thought stress was enhancing.
Speaker 1: The people she studied who believed that stress was good
Speaker 1: for them also showed more optimism, better performance at work,
Speaker 1: and even better physical health. Crumb's work showed it's not
Speaker 1: our stress that seems to be hurting us, it's how
Speaker 1: we think about it, which got David wondering could people
Speaker 1: shift from one stress mindset to the other, just as
Speaker 1: he did with Scarlet at the Lake? Could David encourage
Speaker 1: people to reframe how they saw stress.
Speaker 4: Could you just tell people what their physiology means one
Speaker 4: way or the other and could that change their performance
Speaker 4: when they're in a stressful situation.
Speaker 1: David and a colleague, Jeremy Jamison, recruited college students planning
Speaker 1: to take the Jerry Exam and presented them with a
Speaker 1: practice version of the test. Everyone was reminded that it's
Speaker 1: normal for people to feel stressed out before an exam.
Speaker 1: Behalf of participants were given a list of reasons why
Speaker 1: their stress response might improve their performance.
Speaker 4: You know, the bodies releasing catecola means and those catacola
Speaker 4: means are going to enhance performance. And the reason your
Speaker 4: heart is pumping so much is because it's getting more
Speaker 4: blood to your brain and to your muscles. It's going
Speaker 4: to help you perform better.
Speaker 1: The results were striking. Students who reappraised their stress response
Speaker 1: as beneficial showed way better scores than those in the
Speaker 1: control condition. On some parts of the exam, their scores
Speaker 1: were more than one hundred points higher.
Speaker 4: But the interesting thing is that a month later students
Speaker 4: went and took the real gre and brought their scores back,
Speaker 4: and they did much better. The difference is like the
Speaker 4: difference between getting into a mid tier top fifty graduate
Speaker 4: program or a top five graduate program.
Speaker 1: But GIRE exams are acute stressors. David wanted to know
Speaker 1: whether the same mindset shift could also reduce the chronic
Speaker 1: stress that dogs people like me day after day. So
Speaker 1: he turned to a group of high school students from
Speaker 1: low income backgrounds.
Speaker 4: And these are almost exclusively black or Latino students whose
Speaker 4: parents had not gone to college. And we explicitly wanted
Speaker 4: to choose this situation because we know kids experienced lots
Speaker 4: of stressors. They might experience racial discrimination, prejudice, but also
Speaker 4: for kids whose parents are experiencing poverty, food and security,
Speaker 4: things like that, So could a little mindset shift have
Speaker 4: an impact in that kind of population.
Speaker 1: David's students watched a thirty minute video that explained both
Speaker 1: the importance of a growth mindset and why stress can
Speaker 1: have beneficial effects on performance. Would this be enough to
Speaker 1: change how they great stress? Would the video help students
Speaker 1: react better to the annoying challenges of everyday life.
Speaker 4: So, over the course of the first semester of high
Speaker 4: school kids completed daily diary surveys three times a day,
Speaker 4: provided cortisol samples several times per day, And what we
Speaker 4: find is that on days in which kids say, yeah,
Speaker 4: this is a really stressful day, like I'm feeling judged
Speaker 4: and evaluated by my teachers, I'm feeling left out by
Speaker 4: my friends, kids were saying I can handle this, I'm
Speaker 4: feeling good about myself, I feel positive. So it's by
Speaker 4: definition stress resilience. And then what we see also is
Speaker 4: just lower cortisol levels almost across the board and That's
Speaker 4: significant because the body produces cortisol in part when the
Speaker 4: mind expects damaged tissue, and so if you are expecting defeat,
Speaker 4: then you see increase in cortisol. But if you're expecting
Speaker 4: to do well to take on the challenge, then you
Speaker 4: should see less cortisol. And that's what we see over
Speaker 4: the rest of the semester.
Speaker 1: This is an amazing finding. By merely thinking of stress
Speaker 1: not as a prelude to damage and defeat, but is
Speaker 1: something helpful and useful, You can prevent your boy from
Speaker 1: chronically releasing the very substances that cause the inflammating effects
Speaker 1: usually experienced by stressed out people like me. That is
Speaker 1: really cool, But there is a trick to getting the
Speaker 1: benefits of the right stress mindset. You need to practice
Speaker 1: long term. You need to carry over that positive mindset
Speaker 1: from one situation to the next. So if you train
Speaker 1: yourself to appreciate exam stress, you need to return to
Speaker 1: that same positive mindset when your car breaks down, or
Speaker 1: when you lose your wallet, or when you face a
Speaker 1: tough meeting at work. Again, David's daughter Scarlet is there
Speaker 1: to show us the way. Remember the mindset pep talk
Speaker 1: David gave Scarlet before she went water skiing.
Speaker 4: Fast forward two years later and she's getting in the
Speaker 4: car on the way to a cello audition. She's like, Daddy,
Speaker 4: I'm so nervous, Like I don't know if I can
Speaker 4: do well in this. I was like, Scarlett, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm going to say. She's like, yeah, you're going
Speaker 4: to say that. The butterflies on my stomach are there
Speaker 4: just to pump, you know, good energy through my body
Speaker 4: and give me adrenaline and oxygen et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 4: I was like, how did you know that? She's like, oh,
Speaker 4: you total to me two years ago whenever we're skiing.
Speaker 4: And so what I love about that is, first of all,
Speaker 4: it's proof that at least once in my life, my
Speaker 4: kids listen to me, which is not always happening. But
Speaker 4: second of all, she's transferring some appraisal about her stress
Speaker 4: to a totally different situation years later. And I think
Speaker 4: about that a lot. With our interventions, we're often like
Speaker 4: giving you a different mindset right before you need it,
Speaker 4: and there's some stressful situation, and then you kind of
Speaker 4: see that it works for you, and then you carry
Speaker 4: that new mindset with you and apply it to new situations,
Speaker 4: and I knew that from our research, but I'd never
Speaker 4: seen that firsthand until the scarlet situation happened.
Speaker 1: Making this episode has made me realize that I'm way
Speaker 1: too negative about stress. I can remember lots of times
Speaker 1: in my own life when small bursts of stress have
Speaker 1: felt good. That rush I get before a big talk,
Speaker 1: or that push I experienced during a tough yoga session.
Speaker 1: The adrenaline I experience in those moments doesn't feel stressful
Speaker 1: or debilitating. It feels exciting. A reaction's going to help
Speaker 1: me perform better. I need to harness that and apply
Speaker 1: it across other situations in life. Our daily stressors probably
Speaker 1: aren't going away anytime soon, but that doesn't mean we're
Speaker 1: stuck experiencing the negative health and happiness effects of chronic stress.
Speaker 1: We can examine our feelings and create a narrative that
Speaker 1: lets us accept the things we're not able to control,
Speaker 1: while at the same time trying to control the stuff
Speaker 1: that will help us improve our lives. All those self
Speaker 1: care essentials like sleep, exercise, diet, and social interaction, and
Speaker 1: like Steve Gutenberg, we can work to greet tough times
Speaker 1: with gratitude and seize the opportunity to notice the blessings
Speaker 1: in life. With strategies like these, I'm hopeful that my
Speaker 1: inflammation markers will be a bit lower at my next
Speaker 1: annual checkup, and that my doctor will have fewer opportunities
Speaker 1: to mock me for not practicing what I preach. But
Speaker 1: there are still plenty of other happiness challenges that I
Speaker 1: still mess up. So join me next time as I
Speaker 1: learn some new strategies for being nicer to my future self,
Speaker 1: ones that involve a trip down memory lane and through
Speaker 1: a ton I realized my skin would look so bad.
Speaker 1: That's really disturbing all that next week on the Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab with me Doctor Laurie Santos