1: Imagine participating in a stressful group task where we compete with strangers in a mock job interview and tests of cognitive ability.  The study maximizes two aspects of stress: the pressure to perform and the threat of being compared with others, Kelly McGonigal shares in The Upside of Stress.

Immediately afterward, we play the Trust Game.  We are given $100.  The other player, a total stranger, is given zero dollars.  If … continue reading

1: Imagine participating in a stressful group task where we compete with strangers in a mock job interview and tests of cognitive ability.  The study maximizes two aspects of stress: the pressure to perform and the threat of being compared with others, Kelly McGonigal shares in The Upside of Stress.

Immediately afterward, we play the Trust Game.  We are given $100.  The other player, a total stranger, is … continue reading

1: We’ve got it all wrong.

We’ve been taught that stress is bad for us.

This belief is harmful, Kelly McGonigal argues in The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It: “The best way to manage stress isn’t to reduce or avoid it, but rather to rethink and even embrace it.”

The fight-or-flight survival instinct is part of our stress … continue reading

1: Do we believe all meaningful problems are deeply rooted and difficult to change.”

David Yeager, a mindset researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, shares a story which reveals how deep people’s skepticism can run about the power of short interventions to improve people’s lives.

This week we’re examining multiple studies which show our mindset, or how we think about something, can have a profound impact on … continue reading

1: Two-thirds of the housekeepers in Stanford Professor Alia Crum‘s study believed they weren’t exercising regularly.  One-third said they got no exercise at all.  

“Their bodies reflected this perception,” Kelly McGonigal notes in The Upside of Stress.  “The average housekeeper’s blood pressure, waist-to-hip ratio, and body weight were exactly what you’d expect to find if they were truly sedentary,”

Their perception was their reality.  

2: Four weeks later, Alia checked … continue reading

1: Do people who have a positive attitude about aging live longer?

The short answer?  

Yes.  More than seven years longer, according to researchers at Yale University who followed middle-aged adults for twenty years.

“Those who had a positive view of aging in midlife lived an average of 7.6 years longer than those who had a negative view,” writes Kelly McGonigal in her terrific book The Upside of Stress.  

“To … continue reading

Yesterday, we looked at the powerful benefits of writing about our values.  Let’s put this theory into action.  

When?  Right now.  This will take no longer than 12 minutes.

Step one: What are your values?  Click on this link and pick your top three values.  Values are simply what you care about.  Your values are what you feel is important and meaningful.  They can be an attitude, a strength, or … continue reading

Back in the 1990s a group of Stanford students agreed to keep journals over the winter break.  

“Some were asked to write about their most important values, and how the day’s activities related to those values,” writes Kelly McGonigol in The Upside of Stress.  “Others were asked to write about the good things that happened to them.” 

Yesterday, we explored how our mindset drives our behavior.  Our mindsets are … continue reading

1: Scientist Alia Crum has an unusual track record of high-profile findings.

“By changing how people think about an experience, she can change what’s happening in their bodies,” Kelly McGonigal observes in The Upside of Stress.  “Her work gets attention because it shows that our physical reality is more subjective than we believe.” 

What is the single idea that motivates Alia’s research?

How we think about something can transform … continue reading

1: What we’ve taught about stress is wrong, Kelly McGonigal argues in her terrific book The Upside of Stress.  Despite what we’ve been taught and told, the latest science shows stress by itself is not harmful.  However, believing stress is harmful to our health is toxic. 

So, how do we transform our view of stress?  Are there actions we can take when we feel overwhelmed to direct our stress?

The … continue reading