April 20, 2018 • 34 mins
The idea that "stress kills" is all over the internet. But are there good and bad stresses? Why does stress affect our appetites? And why do scientists think that mowing the lawn can make you less tense? Will and Mango take a care-free dive into stress: what it does to our bodies, how we can use it for good, and what are the best ways to relieve it.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what, mango, what's that? Well, you know, sometimes you'll
set your alarm clock really early, like if you've got
a flight or something like that, and then the next
morning you'll wake up right on time. Does happen to you,
I'll either do that or I'll wake up at like
two and then three and then four and then whenever
I have to wake up. But more often than not,
it's so weird because you'll wake up like a minute
before your alarm goes off. And I was reading this
(00:21):
study from the University of lu back and they got
some student volunteers to go to sleep, and they told
them before that that they'd wake them up at either
six in the morning or nine in the morning, and
then they lied and with everybody up at six o'clock.
So I'm guessing a lot of people who were told
they'd wake up at six were like more awake at
that time, right, Yeah, that's exactly what happens. And the
kids who were told they'd be getting up at nine
(00:43):
were completely groggy and just out of it. But what's
interesting is that they were monitoring their bodies the entire time.
And so for the sleepers who were told they to
be woken up early. Their stress hormones kicked in at
around four thirty in the morning. You could actually see
that their bodies were using stress to anticipate these early
mornings and prepare them for the early day. And so
(01:03):
today's episode is all about stress. What does it due
to our body and how can we use it for
good and what are the best ways to relieve it?
So let's dig in ai their podcast listeners, Welcome to
(01:33):
Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm
joined by my good friend man guest shot Ticketer and
on the other side of the soundproof glass raking this
tiny zen garden. Oh it's so sweet, but he's breaking
pretty aggressively. Actually that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil.
I think you need to go a little easier, Tristan,
but he is getting pretty zin with it and he's
he's raking the heck out of this thing. Yeah, I know,
(01:55):
I mean he does claim it helps them to relax.
So I think we ought to support the man for
today's show. Especially, we should try to keep an open
mind to different approaches to dealing with stress, because there
really is no one correct way to cope with it.
For for example, I was reading about the study from
a team out of Australia, these neuroscientists from the University
of Queensland, and apparently they figured out that when grass
(02:17):
is cut, it actually inhibits our brain's release of stress
causing hormones. So it turns out there's a good reason
why people love the scent of fresh cut grass so much.
It can actually help you calm down. That's pretty interesting.
So that's our first tip pretty early in the day.
So if you're feeling stressed, just mow your lawn or
get an air freshener that smells like mode lawn. And
(02:37):
the truth is, there are a ton of other offbeat
examples that you know are there to relieve our stress.
But to start things off, why don't we talk about
what stress is and what kind of effects that can
have on our bodies? Alright? Well, since stress is something
that's always been a part of life, obviously don't have
a great origin story for this one, but the closest
thing might be the origin of the term. So I
didn't realize this, but prior to the word stressed didn't
(03:01):
mean like a mental or emotional strain. Until that point,
it was just used to refer to the pressure applied
to an object, you know, not to a prison's well being.
So what changed in nineteen forty six specifically that that
kind of gave it this new meaning. So there's this
Austrian physician named Hans Celier, and that's the year he
first coined the term stress while describing his latest experiments. So,
(03:22):
of course this comes back to a rat study, because
we love rats studies on this show. But uh Celia
had been monitoring the physical responses of rats that have
been injected with different hormones and also different like tissues,
and he found that the rats symptoms were identical regardless
of what they had been injected with. And what became
apparent was that the rats were responding to the trauma
(03:44):
of the experiments themselves. And and he called this trauma stress.
So I'm assuming the stress that Selia witnessed was involuntary,
like you know, a faster heart rate or an increase
in blood pressure. I actually looked into this fight or
flight response a little bit, and you know, that's the
feeling that gets triggered in your body when the brain
recognizes some sort of outside threat. So basically it starts
(04:04):
when the hypothalamus sends signals to the pituitary glands and
the adrenal glands. What that does is it triggers the
production of adrenaline and these other stress hormones like cortisol
and epidephrin. And then a few things happen when all
these chemicals are swirling around in our blood stream. So
for starters are reflexes and senses are heightened so we
can better deal with that perceived threat. The cortisol also
(04:26):
pushes glucose out of our tissues and into our blood,
and that gives our bodies this extra boost of energy
that you might experience if you're really really stressed. Yeah,
so I'm always amazed by that sort of thing, like
like we think of stress is such a negative and yeah,
it's also this reaction that's supposed to help us deal
with these life threatening situations, like if our ancestors had
(04:46):
to like avoid running from a lion or something, that's
when stress kicks in and it's helpful. But obviously these
sharpened senses don't always help us deal with the more
benign things like trying to make a deadline or trying
to give a public speech. And you know, for for
someone like me, who is really used to avoiding public speaking.
That sort of stress can be debilitating, Like doesn't it
(05:07):
feel like overkill from the body to still be sending
out all these signals? Yeah, it does, and the response
to stress can be a problem when all that extra
focus and energy doesn't really have a natural outlet. Part
of that is because the stress hormones actually begin to
build up, and that not only keeps us on edge,
but it also provokes all kinds of unnecessary responses in
our bodies. For example, you know how stress can make
(05:29):
some people feel nauseous or stick to their stomach. Well,
that's because stress hormones push the blood away from the
gastro intestinal system and actually redirect it to the brain.
And that makes sense because it helps the brain better
respond to threats. But there are side effects, and that's
when this redirection agitates the microbes living in our gut,
and that of course makes you feel sick at your stomach.
(05:49):
So I definitely feel that loss of appetite from anxiety.
But what's weirder to me is that even though stress
can sap your desire to eat, it can also make
you gain weight at the same time. And I didn't
realize this before. But as stress hormones like cortisols circulate
through the body, they relay messages to our fat stores,
telling them to generate as much energy as possible, and
(06:09):
this call to action triggers the process called lippo license,
which is basically when fatty assets called lipids are broken
down and circulated through the body as a source of energy. Alright,
so if the fat is being broken down, it seems
like that what calls us to lose weight rather than
gain it. So how does this work? Yeah, I mean
it should accept that these lipids also signal the brain
to release more stress hormones, which basically tells the body
(06:32):
to conserve its fat supplies. So it's kind of this
negative feedback loop like as one professor of neuroscience explained.
He said, cortisol causes lippo license to release energy, but
stimulates the growth of fat cells replenishing it, which makes
it a double edged sword. And basically these mixed messages
are also a big reason why stress can lead to
(06:53):
obesity is as well as certain kinds of diabetes. Okay,
I mean it makes sense. I've actually never heard that before.
And when you were talking abou a weight gain. I
just assume you were talking about like stress eating or
other responses like that. Yeah, I mean that's interesting to
me too. I find a bizarre because you know, I
can't eat, but like other people tend to chow down
when they're stressed. And that's really because stress responses are
(07:13):
highly individualized to our genetic differences, So you know, people
can have widely different responses to the exact same stressor Yeah,
and it is probably worth mentioning that while we know
stress can make us feel sick, we aren't a hundred
percent sure of the physiological reasons behind that. But scientists
have made some headway on that over the past decade
or so. For instance, there was a study out of
U c l A. This was back in two thousand
(07:34):
and twelve, and it pointed towards the immune system as
a possible answer to this. So the researchers had a
group of a hundred and twenty two participants fill out
questionnaires and they were answering questions about their activities over
the last week or so, and including that was whether
each social encounter they had was positive or negative. And
they also have participants undertake a whole series of these
(07:54):
very stressful lab tests and before and after these tests,
the volunteers had their salive attested and what they were
looking for was, you know, indicators of inflammation called cytokinds,
and these are products of the immune system. So cyto
kinds are supposed to travel to the side of the
wound or you know, something like that so they can
help fight off infection. So the researchers were trying to
(08:15):
see if the stress would lead to a rise in
these cyto kinds, and amazingly it did. After the participants
engaged in negatively stressful activities things like arguments, their levels
of cyto kinds went way up, which is pretty wild
when you think about It's like our immune system is
responding to an emotional or maybe a mental wound in
the same way that it would a physical one. That's crazy. So,
(08:37):
I mean, are there any negative effects of this? Let like,
have scientists figured that part out? Well? There definitely are.
I mean the reaction can lead to some pretty major
problems in the long term, including stuff like heart disease
and even cancer. You know, because why can we mentioned
These cyto kinds are looking for a wound to work on,
and when they don't find one. They just keep circulating
and inflame regions that really don't require their attention. Huh.
(09:01):
So is there any way to prevent these unneeded side
of kinds from circulating? I mean, besides trying to avoid
any of these stressful situations we put ourselves in. Well,
I mean, that's pretty much the only solution. And this
was actually the takeaway of the study. I've got a
quote here from the papers author Shelley Taylor. She says,
the message is that the flauntsom and jetsam of life
predict changes in your underlying biology in ways that cumulatively
(09:23):
could have a bad effect on health. What this tells
me is that people should be investing in socially supportive
relationships and they should not court relationships that lead to
a great deal of conflict. So don't hang out with
enemies all the time, don't hang out with bad people. See,
it's such sound advice we're providing. I also know from
my own experience, I'm not always the best at evaluating
(09:44):
my own stress levels. So it's actually something I looked into.
And did you come across this, uh, the scientist named
Stephen Cole in your research? I don't think so. It
doesn't bring a bell. So Cole was basically bothered by
our inability to measure our own stress. So he wondered, like,
what if our brains automatic stress assessment doesn't translate to
a conscious awareness of it? So are there actually subconscious
(10:06):
signs that we're feeling stressed? Like things we might not
even notice in ourselves. So that's exactly what Colin is.
Fellow researchers wanted to find out and and to do
it they enlisted a hundred forty three volunteers and had
them where these audio recorders for two days. And during
that time the recorders would switch on automatically every couple
of minutes, and they actually gathered over twenty thousand audio clips.
(10:28):
And from there the researchers transcribed the recordings and started
picking apart the specific language, and in particularly they paid
attention to these things called function words, which are pronouns
and adjectives that I guess clarify meaning rather than providing
it themselves. So you think about the opposite that, which
is meaning words nouns and verbs. Those are words a
speaker might liberally choose versus like the so called function words,
(10:51):
which are produced without thinking. And the idea is that
maybe these function words could theoretically give you a glimpse
of what's going on subconsciously, so where the research is
able to link certain words to feelings of stress. Yeah,
the study found that a volunteer's use of function words
was much more accurate prediction of gene expression than even
like an individual self report about his or her stress levels. So,
(11:13):
for example, participants who exhibited stressed out gene expressions talked
less overall, but when they did speak, they used more
intensifying adverbs such as like really, you're very or incredibly,
and they also used fewer third person plural pronouns such
as they are there. Alright, alright, I'm writing all these
down for later years. Well, I mean there's a reason like, like,
(11:34):
according to the researchers, uh, we use they are they're
less and and that's because people tend to focus inwards.
And of course there's still much more research to do
on all of this, but if these initial findings hold up,
you could actually be a new way for doctors or
even like your phones or your watches or your alexis
to spot if you're stressed out and all that by
just listening to the words you use. That is pretty
(11:56):
incredible and also a little bit weird to think about,
but yeah, very interesting, and it reminds me there are
actually a few other symptoms of stress that I wanted
to talk about, and one of these is is whether
or not it can really make your hair turn gray. Well,
as someone whose hair has all turned gray since I've
had kids, I'm very interested in who to blame for this.
But before we dig in, let's take a quick break.
(12:33):
You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about
all the different ways stress can affect our bodies, and Mango,
I've got bad news for you. There's one thing stress
doesn't do, and that's turn your hair gray. So I'm
definitely a little confused by this because I look at
Obama and George Bush and how their hair turned color
like pretty soon after they got into office, and for
(12:54):
some reason, our current president's hair has stayed the exact
same color. But are are you saying stress makes no
contribute usian to these like Bonnie Rate streaks in my hair?
You know, I've always wanted to tell you how much
you reminded me of Bonnie Rate, So I'm glad you
finally brought it up. But you know, despite what many
people think, there's actually no clear scientific link between stress
and going gray. And it turns out it's actually a
(13:16):
person's genes more than anything else, that determine when their
hair turns gray. So why is the when like my
kids started talking a lot and bossing me around, that's
where my hair went gray. I think it's just getting older, man.
I mean, it's the same thing for the presidents that
you talk about, or or or most of our presidents.
And you know, while we don't know the exact genetic
(13:36):
reason why most people go gray as they age, we
do know that it ultimately comes down to these millenno sites,
which are these pigments cells that give hair its color.
So when you're younger, the cells work to fight off
damaging compounds like hydrogen peroxide, and these would otherwise cause
oxidation if they were allowed to build up on the scalp.
But as we get older, our genes have a harder
(13:57):
and harder time keeping that oxidation at bed, and so,
according to one theory, as the hydrogen peroxide accumulates over time,
our melano sites start to die off. So you know,
once our follicles begin to run low, on their only
source of pigment, they start producing colorless or or gray
hair instead. So I mean, I'm going to accept that answer,
but but I also feel like, you know, these old
(14:19):
wives tales have been going on for long enough that
there has to be some validity, right, Like, is there
any truth to any of it? Well, there actually is
one thing that kind of redeems their tail, and and
that's because cellular strain that's brought on by oxidation. It
is actually known as oxidative stress. And that's different from
the kind of emotional stress that we've been talking about,
though it's still somewhat connected. So this comes from Mary
(14:42):
Seilberg of the Global Dermatology Institute, And as she says,
a very strong chronic stress is known to increase oxidative stress,
and there are studies that document correlations between extreme emotional
stress and increased cellular oxydatings. I got out you didn't
let me finish your mango. So this is not to
say that we gray every time that we fight with
(15:03):
our children or spouses. That was what she said at
the end of it. Well, well, family and work stress
might not turn our hair gray. There is one thing
that does lead to hair loss, because oddly enough, losing
your hair is a coping mechanism when we're going through
exceptionally hard times. So I do have my kids to blame.
This is good to know. Well, for first, it helps
(15:26):
to know the life cycle of our hair includes three phases.
I'm going to talk through that, the last of which
is this resting period called the telligent phase. And hairs
in this stage are no longer connected to a blood supply,
which which means they're no longer growing either. Now, usually
about eight percent of our hair is in this dormant
stage at any given time, and this is all completely natural, right, Like,
(15:46):
hairs in this telligent phase they put for around three
months or so and then they guy of just fall
out gradually as we go about our lives. Alright, So
then how does stress figure into this? Well, when people
go through something that's emotionally draining, like illness, or or
like the loss of a loved one, or even something
positive but still taxing, something like childbirth, are our bodies
will sometimes prompt much of our hair to enter this
(16:08):
telligent phase prematurely, and it's actually the body's way of
conserving energy to be used elsewhere during like a period
of extended stress. All right, So let me get this straight.
Not only do you have to get through a tough time,
but when you finally get to the end of it
a few months later, all your hair falls out. I mean,
it kind of feels like a raw deal. But you know,
we've been concentrating on the negative here, which is a
(16:31):
little uncharacteristic for us. But the truth is not all
of stress's effects on the body are bad ones. They're
actually upsides to emotional or mental pressure. And you know,
for one thing, experiencing stress better prepares us to handle
it in the future, and the reason for that really
comes down to mental conditioning. You know, whenever we encounter
a stressful situation, our prefrontal cortex takes notice of this.
(16:54):
And remember this is the part of the brain that
handles executive functions that help us cope with different threats.
So the next time we're faced with a mild stress
or that we've handled before, the prefrontal cortex is able
to overrule those warnings and and that makes the stress
much easier to bear than it was the last time.
I'm actually glad you're pointing out how stress can make
is more resilient because One of the things I found
(17:14):
out this week is that having a well rounded view
of stress can actually help you live longer. So why
is that? This is According to a study from when
researchers asked about thirty adults in the US about their
opinions on stress, and the participants were asked to report
how much stress they had experienced in the past year
and whether or not they believed that stress was negatively
(17:36):
impacting their health. Then, eight years later, the researchers determined
that high levels of stress had increased the risk of
dying by but only in the people who had said
stress was making them less healthy. So what about the
people who reported high stress levels but didn't think it
was hurting them. I mean, that's the craziest part. Not
only were those people less likely to die prematurely, they
(17:59):
actually had the lowest risk of death of all the participants,
including those who'd reported low stress levels. So it really
seems like stress itself isn't the problem. It's kind of
how we think about it or deal with it that
makes or breaks is Well, that sounds right, and of
course there's a little caveat there. I mean, simply being
exposed to stressful situation doesn't equip us to handle them
better next time. I mean, if you get really stressed
(18:21):
before presentation and then you crack under pressure, it's not
like you're gonna feel stress free then next time you
have to give a presentation. And on the other hand,
like if you overcome those anxious feelings and give a
solid performance despite all that stress, then of course the
next time you'll feel a whole lot less stress going
up again. I mean, there's definitely no quick fix for stress.
But like we've been saying, maybe that's not such a
(18:42):
bad thing. I mean, I think about the people from
the study who reported high stress levels but didn't actually
consider your problem, and I'd wager what they were experiencing
is something called you stress or healthy stress. And this
was another term coined by that scientists we talked about earlier,
Hans Celier, and it refers to the range of us
where people actually feel motivated or more productive. It was
(19:03):
just fascinating to think about it. It makes sense. But
but what separates this good stress from the bad stress? Again,
it really comes down to perception. So like if if
you think about like an employee who's been given a
reasonable amount of work and a realistic deadline, then it's
likely that person will feel engaged but not overwhelmed, you know,
like the goal seems achievable, so they know that any
(19:25):
stress they feel is temporary or you know, surmountable, and
that usually results in motivation and focus rather than I
guess what would be discouraging feelings, you know, when when
you feel like it's just too much to cope with. Well,
that does make sense. And obviously not all stress is
going to be healthy stress, I mean, sooner or later
we have to deal with the bad kind. And well,
(19:45):
you mentioned how working through distress can make you more
resilient in the long run. Sometimes you just want relief
from it, you know, absolutely, So let's check out a
few offbeat ways to cope with stress. But before we do,
let's take another quick break. Okay, well, so why don't
(20:13):
you go first? What's your favorite time tested way to distress?
All right, So this isn't anything I've tried before, but
I came across this study on acupuncture, and I've always
been curious about acupuncture, and this study was from a
few years back, and it it really shed some light
on why the practice might be so effective at relieving
certain people's stress. Now, acupuncture is of course a big
(20:33):
part of traditional Chinese medicine, and it actually dates back
several thousand years, but for all that time, the treatment
has largely been seen is really more of a placebo
in the eyes of western medicine, and it seemed to
work as a form of pain management, but you know,
researchers weren't sure exactly why. So I've actually done a
chorus of acupuncture for this arm injury I had, and
(20:55):
I was really skeptical going in, and then I found
it really helpful. But I was also curious whether it
was just like a placebo thing. But you're kind of
saying that someone's cracked the case on why it might work.
Well maybe, I mean, there was a team at Georgetown
that took on this challenge back in two thousand and fifteen,
and they found that acupuncture might actually work by suppressing
some of those stress hormones that we talked about earlier.
(21:17):
So in humans, are central stress response is called the
h p A and this stands for the hypothalamus pituitary
adrenal axis, and believe it or not, this complex feedback
system is linked to an acupuncture point on our shens
of all things. Not Luckily, there appears to be a
similar point on the pause of what else but rats,
and so researchers were able to use them for a
(21:38):
study instead. And so first they stressed out the rats
by exposing them the cold conditions, and then they tested
how these cold rats responded to stimulation on that specific
Paul point. So it turns out the acupuncture greatly reduced
the activity in the rats hp A axis and it
was blocking the production of stress hormones. And this is
much like the anti anxiety medication might do. So, you know,
(22:01):
while there's still more research to be done, the evidence
does suggest that acupuncture holds more water than many people
give it credit for. Well, for those of you out
there who have no interest in like poking yourself or
prodding yourself before a big speech or game or whatever,
you can actually make do with stress toys. And this
is anything from fidget widgets to paper clips too, stress
balls to silly putty, even that little zen garden that
(22:23):
Tristan's been raking the heck out of for half an hour,
and he's he's only getting more aggressive, I know. But
the strange thing is it really works. So there's this
pair of researchers from Polytechnic Institute at an n y U,
and they've been doing a study on these kinds of objects,
and they claim that stress toys function as quote, playful
(22:44):
secondary interactions that are able to engage bodily movement, effective states,
and cognition to support primary serious tests. I mean, that
feels like a high salutant way to talk about paper clips,
but but I get it, and and I'm curious. I mean,
have there been any studies just on stress balls, because
it feels like there was a time when these things
were the most popular thing in the world, Like you
(23:06):
remember this, and everybody was giving away these stress balls.
I know, I feel like I came back with three
stress balls a week just from walking around campus or whatever.
But uh, there's actually no definitive research on it. I
did find one study that showed that brief distractions actually
help people concentrate. So you think about like checking your
email or watching a short YouTube clip or you know,
(23:27):
all that type of thing can serve as a mini
vacation for your brain and it kind of resets your
attention span, which makes sense unless you get back to work,
and when you do, your focus is more readily there.
But this is where the team from n YU comes
in because, according to them, fidget widgets have an advantage
over these other kinds of diversions. And that's because stress
toys are typically used just for the enjoyment of the
(23:48):
experience itself. So with something like a smartphone game, like
you might find relief from work, but you're also setting
a new kind of goal as you're playing it, like
you've got to beat this level or you've got to
get this high score. And on the other hand, like
when you're squeezing a stress ball, all you're doing is
squeezing a stress ball, right, I mean it's something that's
done just as a simple form of mindless fun. Then
(24:10):
it actually stands a better chance of relieving your stress
than any of the other stuff we mentioned. But there's
actually this other great study I have to bring up
because it involves fake smiles. Fake smile, Sorry, we'll tell
me about it. So you remember that episode we did
on Exercise will back where there was this one study
about how when you smile when you're running, it can
improve your endurance. Yeah, I remember that one, but it's
(24:33):
it was only if the smile was like truly genuine though, right, Yeah,
so apparently fake smiles are actually good for something else.
So this is an experiment I actually paid a witness,
but researchers used chopsticks to manipulate participants faces into one
of three expressions. Like they use the chopsticks to press
their faces into like a neutral expression and a standard smile,
(24:54):
and then the so called genuine smile, where it also
pressed the muscles around their eyes. And once their expressions
were set, the volunteers were asked to complete a series
of stressful multitasking activities. All will continue to hold the
shopsticks in place. See this is where I'm jealous of scientists,
because even if you didn't actually believe there was something
you could find for this, you could just say, like,
(25:16):
we're trying to study for this for science, so I'm
gonna stick some chopsticks in your face and move your
face around. But I'm with you. I want to see
this experiment too. But I'm curious here, like how was
their stress level monitored or was this really just some
elaborate hoax like I said, to get, you know, to
get to be able to press these chopsticks into people's faces. No,
it was a real thing. And researcher was actually tracked
(25:37):
the volonteers heart rates through the experiment, and they also
had each person give a self report of how stress
they felt at different times. And in the end, the
people who maintained the neutral expressions had the highest heart
rates of all the participants. And granted, the people with
the genuine smiles were the most relaxed and gave the
most positive reports, but even the people who were forced
with standard smiles, they responded more positively than those who
(25:58):
didn't smile at all. I mean, that is pretty amazing.
So I'm going to try that the next time I'm
stuck in traffic. I'm gonna keep some chopsticks in my
glove compartment and then when I get stressed, I'm just
gonna pull them out and just shove them into my cheeks. Well,
I don't know if that will make you feel better.
If it's definitely gonna make me feel better, alright, Well,
I do want to talk about one other aspect of stress,
(26:19):
and that's the fact that it's on the rise in
our country, according to a two thousand seventeen national survey.
This was conducted by the American Psychological Association. The US
is currently undergoing a statistically significant increase in anxiety. And
this is the first time since the annual survey launched
back in two thousand six, so we're talking over a
decade now. And that may sound vague enough to not
(26:41):
worry about it too deeply, But when you couple that
with research from Harvard and Stanford Business schools which report
that health problem stemming from job stress end up killing
about a hundred and twenty thousand people each year, you know,
it becomes clear pretty quickly that we can afford for
stress levels to get much higher. I mean, it's literally
killing us. Yeah, it's hard not to worry when you
(27:01):
hear stats like that, which is another problem in itself,
because even stressing about stress is bad for you. I
read about the study back where over seven thousand civil
servants in London whereas to rank how much they thought
their stress level affected their overall health, and then nearly
two decades later, the researchers took those answers and compared
them alongside a list of participants who wound up having
fatal or non fatal heart attacks in the years since
(27:24):
the servant And this is where things get weird. So
The Atlantic reported on this a few years later, and
this is how they summarize the findings. Eight percent of
the participants had reported that stress affected their health either
a lot or extremely and by the end of the study,
those same people were over twice as likely to have
suffered a heart attack as those who believed it didn't
impact their health at all. This was independent of how
(27:46):
much stress they actually experienced. So while psychological, biological, and
behavioral factors are all probably in play here, the takeaway
is simply that if you feel like stress is killing you,
there's a good chance it is. I mean, thankfully, they're
all kinds of effective ways to manage stress, and it's
much harder for some than others, but people turn to
things like exercise and controlled breathing as well as chronic
(28:09):
stress treatments like therapy and you know, even certain medications. Yeah,
and I also want to circle back to something we
talked about near the top of the show, which is
that idea of investing in socially supportive relationships. There's actually
a good deal of evidence to suggest that a lot
of the stress we feel today is made worse by
some of the more isolating aspects of modern culture. So
you know, if this world has you feeling anxious, I'd
(28:29):
recommend indulging in some good old fashioned camaraderie because you know,
while other people are often a major cause of stress
in our lives, in some cases, they can also be
a way to relieve it. Yeah, it's definitely true. And
if all else fails, get yourself as in garden. All right,
why don't we start the fact off? So here's when
(28:54):
to kick this off. You don't want to separate a
cow from their best friend cow. According to research from
north Hampton University, when cows are penned in with their
best cow friends, a pallid they've grown up around, their
heart rates and stress levels go down. But when they're
putting a pen for thirty minutes with a cow stranger,
they get more stressed out, which you know sounds silly,
(29:14):
but the Boddy system is relevant to farmers because that
stress can actually decrease the cow's milk production. All right,
So you know how people who are stressed sometimes want
to sleep away that stress, Like even the stress of
a big argument can make you sleepy sometimes. Well there's
a reason for this. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania
stressed out a bunch of round worms, and then they
found that there's a gene that helps repair damage DNA
(29:37):
by making them sleepy, and that helps sedate them when
they were stressed. And according to the Atlantic, the idea
is that some types of stress and due sleep occur
because the body maybe trying to patch up its genes. Huh.
That's fascinating. So, for no particular reason, I looked up
celebrities and how they relieve stress. So Keanu Reeves has
a very Buddhist approach. He has too much money, and
(29:59):
worrying about your bank account can cause stress. So his
advice is to give lots of your money away and
live simply, mostly out of a suitcase in hotels. If
selling everything and living in a hotel doesn't calm you down,
you can also follow Kendall Jenner's approach. She says, my
way to the stresses to either listen to music or
talk to my sister Courtney Kardashian, which is good advice.
(30:19):
I I'm going to talk to Courtney the next time
I'm stressed too. Yeah, I'm glad we're turning to Kindle
and Kianu for our stress relief ideas. Oh well, here's
something I didn't realize financial stress can hurt you physically.
This comes from Eileen and Chawa public policy professor at
U v A. She and her team analyzed over thirty
thousand households and they found that those with higher levels
(30:41):
of unemployment were more likely to purchase over the counter
pain killers. So they looked into it a little bit
more and set up these experiments where they discovered that
simply thinking about financial insecurity was enough to increase your pain.
I'm going to quote Scientific American here. It says people
reported feeling almost double the amount of physical pain in
their body after we're calling a financially unstable time in
(31:02):
their life, as compared with those who thought about a
secure period. They also conducted an ice bucket challenge where
they prime kids to feel anxious about their future employment
prospects and saw that their pain tolerance was less than
those who weren't stressed about their financial futures. I mean,
that's crazy, and it doesn't make you wonder if the
opioid epidemic in Sompard is related to like financial stress
(31:24):
and economic uncertainty. It's really interesting. So here's one I
really like, and it comes from discover So the scientist
Barry Marshall realized that ulcers weren't caused by stress, which
is what everyone thought forever. He believed they were caused
by this bacteria H. Pylori. But he couldn't convince any
mainstream gastroentrologists, and he couldn't prove his point with labmies either.
(31:44):
But because he was prohibited from experimenting on humans, he
did the only thing he ethically could. He used himself.
So he pulled H. Pylori from the gut of a
sick patient, put it in a broth, and drank it,
and before long you developed signs of an ulcer. And
the good news is that because it's bacterial, it can
actually be treated with antibiotics instead of the distressing things
(32:06):
that doctors have been recommending. And even better for him
at least, Marshall won a Nobel Prize for the efforts. Wow,
all right, well, here's a quick one. When forest or
overcrowded squirrels will boost their stress hormone during a pregnancy,
and that leads to faster growing squirrel pups, which of
course increases their chance of survival. That's fascinating. So here's
one I just learned the day that South Korean kids
(32:29):
take their college entrance exam is particularly stressful. It's an
eight hour exam and there are all sorts of traditions
around it, like underclassmen will actually form these cheering squads
to greet the test takers at the exam locations and
uh the stock market opens an hour later, as do
most businesses. Most parents can be found in temples or
churches just praying away the day. But the biggest indication
(32:52):
of how much stress is going on is that South
Korea actually cancels all flights on that day, so the
skies are completely quiet while the kids are concentrated. I
have to say, of all the facts that we've shared today,
that one actually makes me the most stressed just thinking
about it. But I will say, I'm looking over at Tristan,
I'm seeing him raking his zen garden, and it's making
(33:13):
me calm down a little bit. Sopemengo. I don't know
about you, but I feel like, for the first time,
we should actually give Tristan the fact off Trophy for Tristan.
The listeners, if we have forgotten any great facts about stress,
feel free to pass those two us. We love to
hear from You can email us part Time Genius and
How Stuff Works dot com, or you can call us
on our seven fact hotline that's one eight four four
(33:33):
pt Genius, or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.
But thanks so much for listening. Congratulations Tristan, Thanks again
for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of How
(33:54):
Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people
who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Christa McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the
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Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gave Louesier is our
lead researcher, with support from the research Army including Austin Thompson,
Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff Cook gets
(34:14):
the show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you
like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, And if
you really really like what you've heard, maybe you could
leave a good review for us. Do we do? We
forget Jason Jason, who
Guess what, mango, what's that? Well, you know, sometimes you'll
set your alarm clock really early, like if you've got
a flight or something like that, and then the next
morning you'll wake up right on time. Does happen to you,
I'll either do that or I'll wake up at like
two and then three and then four and then whenever
I have to wake up. But more often than not,
it's so weird because you'll wake up like a minute
before your alarm goes off. And I was reading this
(00:21):
study from the University of lu back and they got
some student volunteers to go to sleep, and they told
them before that that they'd wake them up at either
six in the morning or nine in the morning, and
then they lied and with everybody up at six o'clock.
So I'm guessing a lot of people who were told
they'd wake up at six were like more awake at
that time, right, Yeah, that's exactly what happens. And the
kids who were told they'd be getting up at nine
(00:43):
were completely groggy and just out of it. But what's
interesting is that they were monitoring their bodies the entire time.
And so for the sleepers who were told they to
be woken up early. Their stress hormones kicked in at
around four thirty in the morning. You could actually see
that their bodies were using stress to anticipate these early
mornings and prepare them for the early day. And so
(01:03):
today's episode is all about stress. What does it due
to our body and how can we use it for
good and what are the best ways to relieve it?
So let's dig in ai their podcast listeners, Welcome to
(01:33):
Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm
joined by my good friend man guest shot Ticketer and
on the other side of the soundproof glass raking this
tiny zen garden. Oh it's so sweet, but he's breaking
pretty aggressively. Actually that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil.
I think you need to go a little easier, Tristan,
but he is getting pretty zin with it and he's
he's raking the heck out of this thing. Yeah, I know,
(01:55):
I mean he does claim it helps them to relax.
So I think we ought to support the man for
today's show. Especially, we should try to keep an open
mind to different approaches to dealing with stress, because there
really is no one correct way to cope with it.
For for example, I was reading about the study from
a team out of Australia, these neuroscientists from the University
of Queensland, and apparently they figured out that when grass
(02:17):
is cut, it actually inhibits our brain's release of stress
causing hormones. So it turns out there's a good reason
why people love the scent of fresh cut grass so much.
It can actually help you calm down. That's pretty interesting.
So that's our first tip pretty early in the day.
So if you're feeling stressed, just mow your lawn or
get an air freshener that smells like mode lawn. And
(02:37):
the truth is, there are a ton of other offbeat
examples that you know are there to relieve our stress.
But to start things off, why don't we talk about
what stress is and what kind of effects that can
have on our bodies? Alright? Well, since stress is something
that's always been a part of life, obviously don't have
a great origin story for this one, but the closest
thing might be the origin of the term. So I
didn't realize this, but prior to the word stressed didn't
(03:01):
mean like a mental or emotional strain. Until that point,
it was just used to refer to the pressure applied
to an object, you know, not to a prison's well being.
So what changed in nineteen forty six specifically that that
kind of gave it this new meaning. So there's this
Austrian physician named Hans Celier, and that's the year he
first coined the term stress while describing his latest experiments. So,
(03:22):
of course this comes back to a rat study, because
we love rats studies on this show. But uh Celia
had been monitoring the physical responses of rats that have
been injected with different hormones and also different like tissues,
and he found that the rats symptoms were identical regardless
of what they had been injected with. And what became
apparent was that the rats were responding to the trauma
(03:44):
of the experiments themselves. And and he called this trauma stress.
So I'm assuming the stress that Selia witnessed was involuntary,
like you know, a faster heart rate or an increase
in blood pressure. I actually looked into this fight or
flight response a little bit, and you know, that's the
feeling that gets triggered in your body when the brain
recognizes some sort of outside threat. So basically it starts
(04:04):
when the hypothalamus sends signals to the pituitary glands and
the adrenal glands. What that does is it triggers the
production of adrenaline and these other stress hormones like cortisol
and epidephrin. And then a few things happen when all
these chemicals are swirling around in our blood stream. So
for starters are reflexes and senses are heightened so we
can better deal with that perceived threat. The cortisol also
(04:26):
pushes glucose out of our tissues and into our blood,
and that gives our bodies this extra boost of energy
that you might experience if you're really really stressed. Yeah,
so I'm always amazed by that sort of thing, like
like we think of stress is such a negative and yeah,
it's also this reaction that's supposed to help us deal
with these life threatening situations, like if our ancestors had
(04:46):
to like avoid running from a lion or something, that's
when stress kicks in and it's helpful. But obviously these
sharpened senses don't always help us deal with the more
benign things like trying to make a deadline or trying
to give a public speech. And you know, for for
someone like me, who is really used to avoiding public speaking.
That sort of stress can be debilitating, Like doesn't it
(05:07):
feel like overkill from the body to still be sending
out all these signals? Yeah, it does, and the response
to stress can be a problem when all that extra
focus and energy doesn't really have a natural outlet. Part
of that is because the stress hormones actually begin to
build up, and that not only keeps us on edge,
but it also provokes all kinds of unnecessary responses in
our bodies. For example, you know how stress can make
(05:29):
some people feel nauseous or stick to their stomach. Well,
that's because stress hormones push the blood away from the
gastro intestinal system and actually redirect it to the brain.
And that makes sense because it helps the brain better
respond to threats. But there are side effects, and that's
when this redirection agitates the microbes living in our gut,
and that of course makes you feel sick at your stomach.
(05:49):
So I definitely feel that loss of appetite from anxiety.
But what's weirder to me is that even though stress
can sap your desire to eat, it can also make
you gain weight at the same time. And I didn't
realize this before. But as stress hormones like cortisols circulate
through the body, they relay messages to our fat stores,
telling them to generate as much energy as possible, and
(06:09):
this call to action triggers the process called lippo license,
which is basically when fatty assets called lipids are broken
down and circulated through the body as a source of energy. Alright,
so if the fat is being broken down, it seems
like that what calls us to lose weight rather than
gain it. So how does this work? Yeah, I mean
it should accept that these lipids also signal the brain
to release more stress hormones, which basically tells the body
(06:32):
to conserve its fat supplies. So it's kind of this
negative feedback loop like as one professor of neuroscience explained.
He said, cortisol causes lippo license to release energy, but
stimulates the growth of fat cells replenishing it, which makes
it a double edged sword. And basically these mixed messages
are also a big reason why stress can lead to
(06:53):
obesity is as well as certain kinds of diabetes. Okay,
I mean it makes sense. I've actually never heard that before.
And when you were talking abou a weight gain. I
just assume you were talking about like stress eating or
other responses like that. Yeah, I mean that's interesting to
me too. I find a bizarre because you know, I
can't eat, but like other people tend to chow down
when they're stressed. And that's really because stress responses are
(07:13):
highly individualized to our genetic differences, So you know, people
can have widely different responses to the exact same stressor Yeah,
and it is probably worth mentioning that while we know
stress can make us feel sick, we aren't a hundred
percent sure of the physiological reasons behind that. But scientists
have made some headway on that over the past decade
or so. For instance, there was a study out of
U c l A. This was back in two thousand
(07:34):
and twelve, and it pointed towards the immune system as
a possible answer to this. So the researchers had a
group of a hundred and twenty two participants fill out
questionnaires and they were answering questions about their activities over
the last week or so, and including that was whether
each social encounter they had was positive or negative. And
they also have participants undertake a whole series of these
(07:54):
very stressful lab tests and before and after these tests,
the volunteers had their salive attested and what they were
looking for was, you know, indicators of inflammation called cytokinds,
and these are products of the immune system. So cyto
kinds are supposed to travel to the side of the
wound or you know, something like that so they can
help fight off infection. So the researchers were trying to
(08:15):
see if the stress would lead to a rise in
these cyto kinds, and amazingly it did. After the participants
engaged in negatively stressful activities things like arguments, their levels
of cyto kinds went way up, which is pretty wild
when you think about It's like our immune system is
responding to an emotional or maybe a mental wound in
the same way that it would a physical one. That's crazy. So,
(08:37):
I mean, are there any negative effects of this? Let like,
have scientists figured that part out? Well? There definitely are.
I mean the reaction can lead to some pretty major
problems in the long term, including stuff like heart disease
and even cancer. You know, because why can we mentioned
These cyto kinds are looking for a wound to work on,
and when they don't find one. They just keep circulating
and inflame regions that really don't require their attention. Huh.
(09:01):
So is there any way to prevent these unneeded side
of kinds from circulating? I mean, besides trying to avoid
any of these stressful situations we put ourselves in. Well,
I mean, that's pretty much the only solution. And this
was actually the takeaway of the study. I've got a
quote here from the papers author Shelley Taylor. She says,
the message is that the flauntsom and jetsam of life
predict changes in your underlying biology in ways that cumulatively
(09:23):
could have a bad effect on health. What this tells
me is that people should be investing in socially supportive
relationships and they should not court relationships that lead to
a great deal of conflict. So don't hang out with
enemies all the time, don't hang out with bad people. See,
it's such sound advice we're providing. I also know from
my own experience, I'm not always the best at evaluating
(09:44):
my own stress levels. So it's actually something I looked into.
And did you come across this, uh, the scientist named
Stephen Cole in your research? I don't think so. It
doesn't bring a bell. So Cole was basically bothered by
our inability to measure our own stress. So he wondered, like,
what if our brains automatic stress assessment doesn't translate to
a conscious awareness of it? So are there actually subconscious
(10:06):
signs that we're feeling stressed? Like things we might not
even notice in ourselves. So that's exactly what Colin is.
Fellow researchers wanted to find out and and to do
it they enlisted a hundred forty three volunteers and had
them where these audio recorders for two days. And during
that time the recorders would switch on automatically every couple
of minutes, and they actually gathered over twenty thousand audio clips.
(10:28):
And from there the researchers transcribed the recordings and started
picking apart the specific language, and in particularly they paid
attention to these things called function words, which are pronouns
and adjectives that I guess clarify meaning rather than providing
it themselves. So you think about the opposite that, which
is meaning words nouns and verbs. Those are words a
speaker might liberally choose versus like the so called function words,
(10:51):
which are produced without thinking. And the idea is that
maybe these function words could theoretically give you a glimpse
of what's going on subconsciously, so where the research is
able to link certain words to feelings of stress. Yeah,
the study found that a volunteer's use of function words
was much more accurate prediction of gene expression than even
like an individual self report about his or her stress levels. So,
(11:13):
for example, participants who exhibited stressed out gene expressions talked
less overall, but when they did speak, they used more
intensifying adverbs such as like really, you're very or incredibly,
and they also used fewer third person plural pronouns such
as they are there. Alright, alright, I'm writing all these
down for later years. Well, I mean there's a reason like, like,
(11:34):
according to the researchers, uh, we use they are they're
less and and that's because people tend to focus inwards.
And of course there's still much more research to do
on all of this, but if these initial findings hold up,
you could actually be a new way for doctors or
even like your phones or your watches or your alexis
to spot if you're stressed out and all that by
just listening to the words you use. That is pretty
(11:56):
incredible and also a little bit weird to think about,
but yeah, very interesting, and it reminds me there are
actually a few other symptoms of stress that I wanted
to talk about, and one of these is is whether
or not it can really make your hair turn gray. Well,
as someone whose hair has all turned gray since I've
had kids, I'm very interested in who to blame for this.
But before we dig in, let's take a quick break.
(12:33):
You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about
all the different ways stress can affect our bodies, and Mango,
I've got bad news for you. There's one thing stress
doesn't do, and that's turn your hair gray. So I'm
definitely a little confused by this because I look at
Obama and George Bush and how their hair turned color
like pretty soon after they got into office, and for
(12:54):
some reason, our current president's hair has stayed the exact
same color. But are are you saying stress makes no
contribute usian to these like Bonnie Rate streaks in my hair?
You know, I've always wanted to tell you how much
you reminded me of Bonnie Rate, So I'm glad you
finally brought it up. But you know, despite what many
people think, there's actually no clear scientific link between stress
and going gray. And it turns out it's actually a
(13:16):
person's genes more than anything else, that determine when their
hair turns gray. So why is the when like my
kids started talking a lot and bossing me around, that's
where my hair went gray. I think it's just getting older, man.
I mean, it's the same thing for the presidents that
you talk about, or or or most of our presidents.
And you know, while we don't know the exact genetic
(13:36):
reason why most people go gray as they age, we
do know that it ultimately comes down to these millenno sites,
which are these pigments cells that give hair its color.
So when you're younger, the cells work to fight off
damaging compounds like hydrogen peroxide, and these would otherwise cause
oxidation if they were allowed to build up on the scalp.
But as we get older, our genes have a harder
(13:57):
and harder time keeping that oxidation at bed, and so,
according to one theory, as the hydrogen peroxide accumulates over time,
our melano sites start to die off. So you know,
once our follicles begin to run low, on their only
source of pigment, they start producing colorless or or gray
hair instead. So I mean, I'm going to accept that answer,
but but I also feel like, you know, these old
(14:19):
wives tales have been going on for long enough that
there has to be some validity, right, Like, is there
any truth to any of it? Well, there actually is
one thing that kind of redeems their tail, and and
that's because cellular strain that's brought on by oxidation. It
is actually known as oxidative stress. And that's different from
the kind of emotional stress that we've been talking about,
though it's still somewhat connected. So this comes from Mary
(14:42):
Seilberg of the Global Dermatology Institute, And as she says,
a very strong chronic stress is known to increase oxidative stress,
and there are studies that document correlations between extreme emotional
stress and increased cellular oxydatings. I got out you didn't
let me finish your mango. So this is not to
say that we gray every time that we fight with
(15:03):
our children or spouses. That was what she said at
the end of it. Well, well, family and work stress
might not turn our hair gray. There is one thing
that does lead to hair loss, because oddly enough, losing
your hair is a coping mechanism when we're going through
exceptionally hard times. So I do have my kids to blame.
This is good to know. Well, for first, it helps
(15:26):
to know the life cycle of our hair includes three phases.
I'm going to talk through that, the last of which
is this resting period called the telligent phase. And hairs
in this stage are no longer connected to a blood supply,
which which means they're no longer growing either. Now, usually
about eight percent of our hair is in this dormant
stage at any given time, and this is all completely natural, right, Like,
(15:46):
hairs in this telligent phase they put for around three
months or so and then they guy of just fall
out gradually as we go about our lives. Alright, So
then how does stress figure into this? Well, when people
go through something that's emotionally draining, like illness, or or
like the loss of a loved one, or even something
positive but still taxing, something like childbirth, are our bodies
will sometimes prompt much of our hair to enter this
(16:08):
telligent phase prematurely, and it's actually the body's way of
conserving energy to be used elsewhere during like a period
of extended stress. All right, So let me get this straight.
Not only do you have to get through a tough time,
but when you finally get to the end of it
a few months later, all your hair falls out. I mean,
it kind of feels like a raw deal. But you know,
we've been concentrating on the negative here, which is a
(16:31):
little uncharacteristic for us. But the truth is not all
of stress's effects on the body are bad ones. They're
actually upsides to emotional or mental pressure. And you know,
for one thing, experiencing stress better prepares us to handle
it in the future, and the reason for that really
comes down to mental conditioning. You know, whenever we encounter
a stressful situation, our prefrontal cortex takes notice of this.
(16:54):
And remember this is the part of the brain that
handles executive functions that help us cope with different threats.
So the next time we're faced with a mild stress
or that we've handled before, the prefrontal cortex is able
to overrule those warnings and and that makes the stress
much easier to bear than it was the last time.
I'm actually glad you're pointing out how stress can make
is more resilient because One of the things I found
(17:14):
out this week is that having a well rounded view
of stress can actually help you live longer. So why
is that? This is According to a study from when
researchers asked about thirty adults in the US about their
opinions on stress, and the participants were asked to report
how much stress they had experienced in the past year
and whether or not they believed that stress was negatively
(17:36):
impacting their health. Then, eight years later, the researchers determined
that high levels of stress had increased the risk of
dying by but only in the people who had said
stress was making them less healthy. So what about the
people who reported high stress levels but didn't think it
was hurting them. I mean, that's the craziest part. Not
only were those people less likely to die prematurely, they
(17:59):
actually had the lowest risk of death of all the participants,
including those who'd reported low stress levels. So it really
seems like stress itself isn't the problem. It's kind of
how we think about it or deal with it that
makes or breaks is Well, that sounds right, and of
course there's a little caveat there. I mean, simply being
exposed to stressful situation doesn't equip us to handle them
better next time. I mean, if you get really stressed
(18:21):
before presentation and then you crack under pressure, it's not
like you're gonna feel stress free then next time you
have to give a presentation. And on the other hand,
like if you overcome those anxious feelings and give a
solid performance despite all that stress, then of course the
next time you'll feel a whole lot less stress going
up again. I mean, there's definitely no quick fix for stress.
But like we've been saying, maybe that's not such a
(18:42):
bad thing. I mean, I think about the people from
the study who reported high stress levels but didn't actually
consider your problem, and I'd wager what they were experiencing
is something called you stress or healthy stress. And this
was another term coined by that scientists we talked about earlier,
Hans Celier, and it refers to the range of us
where people actually feel motivated or more productive. It was
(19:03):
just fascinating to think about it. It makes sense. But
but what separates this good stress from the bad stress? Again,
it really comes down to perception. So like if if
you think about like an employee who's been given a
reasonable amount of work and a realistic deadline, then it's
likely that person will feel engaged but not overwhelmed, you know,
like the goal seems achievable, so they know that any
(19:25):
stress they feel is temporary or you know, surmountable, and
that usually results in motivation and focus rather than I
guess what would be discouraging feelings, you know, when when
you feel like it's just too much to cope with. Well,
that does make sense. And obviously not all stress is
going to be healthy stress, I mean, sooner or later
we have to deal with the bad kind. And well,
(19:45):
you mentioned how working through distress can make you more
resilient in the long run. Sometimes you just want relief
from it, you know, absolutely, So let's check out a
few offbeat ways to cope with stress. But before we do,
let's take another quick break. Okay, well, so why don't
(20:13):
you go first? What's your favorite time tested way to distress?
All right, So this isn't anything I've tried before, but
I came across this study on acupuncture, and I've always
been curious about acupuncture, and this study was from a
few years back, and it it really shed some light
on why the practice might be so effective at relieving
certain people's stress. Now, acupuncture is of course a big
(20:33):
part of traditional Chinese medicine, and it actually dates back
several thousand years, but for all that time, the treatment
has largely been seen is really more of a placebo
in the eyes of western medicine, and it seemed to
work as a form of pain management, but you know,
researchers weren't sure exactly why. So I've actually done a
chorus of acupuncture for this arm injury I had, and
(20:55):
I was really skeptical going in, and then I found
it really helpful. But I was also curious whether it
was just like a placebo thing. But you're kind of
saying that someone's cracked the case on why it might work.
Well maybe, I mean, there was a team at Georgetown
that took on this challenge back in two thousand and fifteen,
and they found that acupuncture might actually work by suppressing
some of those stress hormones that we talked about earlier.
(21:17):
So in humans, are central stress response is called the
h p A and this stands for the hypothalamus pituitary
adrenal axis, and believe it or not, this complex feedback
system is linked to an acupuncture point on our shens
of all things. Not Luckily, there appears to be a
similar point on the pause of what else but rats,
and so researchers were able to use them for a
(21:38):
study instead. And so first they stressed out the rats
by exposing them the cold conditions, and then they tested
how these cold rats responded to stimulation on that specific
Paul point. So it turns out the acupuncture greatly reduced
the activity in the rats hp A axis and it
was blocking the production of stress hormones. And this is
much like the anti anxiety medication might do. So, you know,
(22:01):
while there's still more research to be done, the evidence
does suggest that acupuncture holds more water than many people
give it credit for. Well, for those of you out
there who have no interest in like poking yourself or
prodding yourself before a big speech or game or whatever,
you can actually make do with stress toys. And this
is anything from fidget widgets to paper clips too, stress
balls to silly putty, even that little zen garden that
(22:23):
Tristan's been raking the heck out of for half an hour,
and he's he's only getting more aggressive, I know. But
the strange thing is it really works. So there's this
pair of researchers from Polytechnic Institute at an n y U,
and they've been doing a study on these kinds of objects,
and they claim that stress toys function as quote, playful
(22:44):
secondary interactions that are able to engage bodily movement, effective states,
and cognition to support primary serious tests. I mean, that
feels like a high salutant way to talk about paper clips,
but but I get it, and and I'm curious. I mean,
have there been any studies just on stress balls, because
it feels like there was a time when these things
were the most popular thing in the world, Like you
(23:06):
remember this, and everybody was giving away these stress balls.
I know, I feel like I came back with three
stress balls a week just from walking around campus or whatever.
But uh, there's actually no definitive research on it. I
did find one study that showed that brief distractions actually
help people concentrate. So you think about like checking your
email or watching a short YouTube clip or you know,
(23:27):
all that type of thing can serve as a mini
vacation for your brain and it kind of resets your
attention span, which makes sense unless you get back to work,
and when you do, your focus is more readily there.
But this is where the team from n YU comes
in because, according to them, fidget widgets have an advantage
over these other kinds of diversions. And that's because stress
toys are typically used just for the enjoyment of the
(23:48):
experience itself. So with something like a smartphone game, like
you might find relief from work, but you're also setting
a new kind of goal as you're playing it, like
you've got to beat this level or you've got to
get this high score. And on the other hand, like
when you're squeezing a stress ball, all you're doing is
squeezing a stress ball, right, I mean it's something that's
done just as a simple form of mindless fun. Then
(24:10):
it actually stands a better chance of relieving your stress
than any of the other stuff we mentioned. But there's
actually this other great study I have to bring up
because it involves fake smiles. Fake smile, Sorry, we'll tell
me about it. So you remember that episode we did
on Exercise will back where there was this one study
about how when you smile when you're running, it can
improve your endurance. Yeah, I remember that one, but it's
(24:33):
it was only if the smile was like truly genuine though, right, Yeah,
so apparently fake smiles are actually good for something else.
So this is an experiment I actually paid a witness,
but researchers used chopsticks to manipulate participants faces into one
of three expressions. Like they use the chopsticks to press
their faces into like a neutral expression and a standard smile,
(24:54):
and then the so called genuine smile, where it also
pressed the muscles around their eyes. And once their expressions
were set, the volunteers were asked to complete a series
of stressful multitasking activities. All will continue to hold the
shopsticks in place. See this is where I'm jealous of scientists,
because even if you didn't actually believe there was something
you could find for this, you could just say, like,
(25:16):
we're trying to study for this for science, so I'm
gonna stick some chopsticks in your face and move your
face around. But I'm with you. I want to see
this experiment too. But I'm curious here, like how was
their stress level monitored or was this really just some
elaborate hoax like I said, to get, you know, to
get to be able to press these chopsticks into people's faces. No,
it was a real thing. And researcher was actually tracked
(25:37):
the volonteers heart rates through the experiment, and they also
had each person give a self report of how stress
they felt at different times. And in the end, the
people who maintained the neutral expressions had the highest heart
rates of all the participants. And granted, the people with
the genuine smiles were the most relaxed and gave the
most positive reports, but even the people who were forced
with standard smiles, they responded more positively than those who
(25:58):
didn't smile at all. I mean, that is pretty amazing.
So I'm going to try that the next time I'm
stuck in traffic. I'm gonna keep some chopsticks in my
glove compartment and then when I get stressed, I'm just
gonna pull them out and just shove them into my cheeks. Well,
I don't know if that will make you feel better.
If it's definitely gonna make me feel better, alright, Well,
I do want to talk about one other aspect of stress,
(26:19):
and that's the fact that it's on the rise in
our country, according to a two thousand seventeen national survey.
This was conducted by the American Psychological Association. The US
is currently undergoing a statistically significant increase in anxiety. And
this is the first time since the annual survey launched
back in two thousand six, so we're talking over a
decade now. And that may sound vague enough to not
(26:41):
worry about it too deeply, But when you couple that
with research from Harvard and Stanford Business schools which report
that health problem stemming from job stress end up killing
about a hundred and twenty thousand people each year, you know,
it becomes clear pretty quickly that we can afford for
stress levels to get much higher. I mean, it's literally
killing us. Yeah, it's hard not to worry when you
(27:01):
hear stats like that, which is another problem in itself,
because even stressing about stress is bad for you. I
read about the study back where over seven thousand civil
servants in London whereas to rank how much they thought
their stress level affected their overall health, and then nearly
two decades later, the researchers took those answers and compared
them alongside a list of participants who wound up having
fatal or non fatal heart attacks in the years since
(27:24):
the servant And this is where things get weird. So
The Atlantic reported on this a few years later, and
this is how they summarize the findings. Eight percent of
the participants had reported that stress affected their health either
a lot or extremely and by the end of the study,
those same people were over twice as likely to have
suffered a heart attack as those who believed it didn't
impact their health at all. This was independent of how
(27:46):
much stress they actually experienced. So while psychological, biological, and
behavioral factors are all probably in play here, the takeaway
is simply that if you feel like stress is killing you,
there's a good chance it is. I mean, thankfully, they're
all kinds of effective ways to manage stress, and it's
much harder for some than others, but people turn to
things like exercise and controlled breathing as well as chronic
(28:09):
stress treatments like therapy and you know, even certain medications. Yeah,
and I also want to circle back to something we
talked about near the top of the show, which is
that idea of investing in socially supportive relationships. There's actually
a good deal of evidence to suggest that a lot
of the stress we feel today is made worse by
some of the more isolating aspects of modern culture. So
you know, if this world has you feeling anxious, I'd
(28:29):
recommend indulging in some good old fashioned camaraderie because you know,
while other people are often a major cause of stress
in our lives, in some cases, they can also be
a way to relieve it. Yeah, it's definitely true. And
if all else fails, get yourself as in garden. All right,
why don't we start the fact off? So here's when
(28:54):
to kick this off. You don't want to separate a
cow from their best friend cow. According to research from
north Hampton University, when cows are penned in with their
best cow friends, a pallid they've grown up around, their
heart rates and stress levels go down. But when they're
putting a pen for thirty minutes with a cow stranger,
they get more stressed out, which you know sounds silly,
(29:14):
but the Boddy system is relevant to farmers because that
stress can actually decrease the cow's milk production. All right,
So you know how people who are stressed sometimes want
to sleep away that stress, Like even the stress of
a big argument can make you sleepy sometimes. Well there's
a reason for this. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania
stressed out a bunch of round worms, and then they
found that there's a gene that helps repair damage DNA
(29:37):
by making them sleepy, and that helps sedate them when
they were stressed. And according to the Atlantic, the idea
is that some types of stress and due sleep occur
because the body maybe trying to patch up its genes. Huh.
That's fascinating. So, for no particular reason, I looked up
celebrities and how they relieve stress. So Keanu Reeves has
a very Buddhist approach. He has too much money, and
(29:59):
worrying about your bank account can cause stress. So his
advice is to give lots of your money away and
live simply, mostly out of a suitcase in hotels. If
selling everything and living in a hotel doesn't calm you down,
you can also follow Kendall Jenner's approach. She says, my
way to the stresses to either listen to music or
talk to my sister Courtney Kardashian, which is good advice.
(30:19):
I I'm going to talk to Courtney the next time
I'm stressed too. Yeah, I'm glad we're turning to Kindle
and Kianu for our stress relief ideas. Oh well, here's
something I didn't realize financial stress can hurt you physically.
This comes from Eileen and Chawa public policy professor at
U v A. She and her team analyzed over thirty
thousand households and they found that those with higher levels
(30:41):
of unemployment were more likely to purchase over the counter
pain killers. So they looked into it a little bit
more and set up these experiments where they discovered that
simply thinking about financial insecurity was enough to increase your pain.
I'm going to quote Scientific American here. It says people
reported feeling almost double the amount of physical pain in
their body after we're calling a financially unstable time in
(31:02):
their life, as compared with those who thought about a
secure period. They also conducted an ice bucket challenge where
they prime kids to feel anxious about their future employment
prospects and saw that their pain tolerance was less than
those who weren't stressed about their financial futures. I mean,
that's crazy, and it doesn't make you wonder if the
opioid epidemic in Sompard is related to like financial stress
(31:24):
and economic uncertainty. It's really interesting. So here's one I
really like, and it comes from discover So the scientist
Barry Marshall realized that ulcers weren't caused by stress, which
is what everyone thought forever. He believed they were caused
by this bacteria H. Pylori. But he couldn't convince any
mainstream gastroentrologists, and he couldn't prove his point with labmies either.
(31:44):
But because he was prohibited from experimenting on humans, he
did the only thing he ethically could. He used himself.
So he pulled H. Pylori from the gut of a
sick patient, put it in a broth, and drank it,
and before long you developed signs of an ulcer. And
the good news is that because it's bacterial, it can
actually be treated with antibiotics instead of the distressing things
(32:06):
that doctors have been recommending. And even better for him
at least, Marshall won a Nobel Prize for the efforts. Wow,
all right, well, here's a quick one. When forest or
overcrowded squirrels will boost their stress hormone during a pregnancy,
and that leads to faster growing squirrel pups, which of
course increases their chance of survival. That's fascinating. So here's
one I just learned the day that South Korean kids
(32:29):
take their college entrance exam is particularly stressful. It's an
eight hour exam and there are all sorts of traditions
around it, like underclassmen will actually form these cheering squads
to greet the test takers at the exam locations and
uh the stock market opens an hour later, as do
most businesses. Most parents can be found in temples or
churches just praying away the day. But the biggest indication
(32:52):
of how much stress is going on is that South
Korea actually cancels all flights on that day, so the
skies are completely quiet while the kids are concentrated. I
have to say, of all the facts that we've shared today,
that one actually makes me the most stressed just thinking
about it. But I will say, I'm looking over at Tristan,
I'm seeing him raking his zen garden, and it's making
(33:13):
me calm down a little bit. Sopemengo. I don't know
about you, but I feel like, for the first time,
we should actually give Tristan the fact off Trophy for Tristan.
The listeners, if we have forgotten any great facts about stress,
feel free to pass those two us. We love to
hear from You can email us part Time Genius and
How Stuff Works dot com, or you can call us
on our seven fact hotline that's one eight four four
(33:33):
pt Genius, or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.
But thanks so much for listening. Congratulations Tristan, Thanks again
for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of How
(33:54):
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who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Christa McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the
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Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff Cook gets
(34:14):
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