Kelly McGonigal is Coming to Stanford

Kelly McGonigal is coming to Stanford on Thursday, March 12. She is giving a talk at CCARE, The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. She is on the faculty there.

In this Ted talk, she talks about how to make stress your friend. Up until now, Kelly has been trying to eliminate stress. But, to be more accurate, she has been trying to eliminate distress. There is a good type of stress call eustress. It helps us prepare our bodies and minds to meet the challenges in life that we need in order to grow.

Kelly says,

This is really what the new science of stress reveals that how you think about stress matters. So my goal as a health psychologist has changed I no longer want to get rid of your stress. I want to make you better at stress… The next time your heart is pounding from stress you’re going to remember this talk and you’re gonna sing to yourself this is my body helping me rise to this challenge. And when you view stress and that way your body believes you and your stress response becomes healthier.

Oxytocin is a stress hormone… When oxytocin is released in the stress response, it is motivating you to seek support. Your biological stress response is nudging you to tell someone how you feel instead of bottling up. Your stress response wants to make sure you notice when someone else in your life is struggling so that you can support each other.

She goes on to say that how you think and how you act determines how your body will respond to stress. By connecting with others, helping out, and being open to communications, what you once experienced as stress can improve your health in dramatic ways. This way, you can trust yourself to handle life’s challenges.

What level of stress to you manage today? What level of stress did you manage over the past year? Have you reached out to others? Have you given back to your community? These are two of the Seven Principles of Mindfulness in Healing from my new book, Healing with the Seven Principles of Mindfulness: How to Thrive and Succeed in a Complex Cancer System.

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Books by Kelly McGonigal

The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It by Kelly McGonigal The author of The Willpower Instinct delivers a controversial and groundbreaking new book that overturns long-held beliefs about stress. More than forty-four percent of Americans admit to losing sleep over stress. And while most of us do everything we can to reduce it, Stanfo… [Read More…]