I can’t believe how stressed I am!

I’m so stressed!

I need to sort my stress out!

My stress levels are too high!

If I don’t sort my stress out I’ll have a breakdown / make myself ill!

Sound familiar?

How about…

Stress is *the* number one health issue!

Stress is linked to the six leading causes of death.

Stress can lead to mood swings, emotional exhaustion, memory loss and failure to perform.

The effects of stress are negative and should be avoided.

Do you believe it?

How do your stress levels feel now?

Last week I wrote about a study by Stanford psychologist Alia Crum which looked into how our bodies respond to our beliefs about food. (Just believing a food that we’re eating is fattening, causes our hunger hormone to keep us fuller for longer – regardless of whether that belief is true or not.)

But what about STRESSSS…?

Well Crum and her team at Stanford have white-knuckled down into this. Through a range of studies that expose participants to positive and negative stress messages* before putting them through experiences designed to cause physical and mental stress symptoms, they’ve found the ratio of stress hormones produced by our adrenal glands differs based on our belief of what stress does to us.

* The positive messages explained to participants how stress is enhancing, can improve performance and boost well-being. The negative messages were along the ‘health-risk’ lines of the above.

We’re often told about cortisol – this clever hormone converts sugar and fat into energy (preparing us for fight or flight) when we’re stressed, but it also gets a bad rep for causing low immunity, depression, weight gain, digestive issues, high blood pressure over the long term.

However there’s another hormone, DHEA, that gets waaay less press. DHEA is our superhero defence to the negative effects of cortisol – it speeds wound repair, boosts immunity, boosts brain function – and high levels are shown to reduce anxiety, depression, heart disease, neurodegeneration and other stress-related conditions.

Crum’s stress studies have shown that cortisol will always go up when we’re faced with a stressful trigger, however whether DHEA goes up too is dependent on our belief about whether the stress is harmful. If we believe stress is harmful we don't increase the protective enhancing DHEA that counteracts the effects of cortisol in the way we should.

Further longitudinal studies show that people who believe stress is helpful to them experience less health issues, less depression and higher energy. And when it comes to ageing – those with a positive view of ageing were shown to add an average of almost eight years to their lives and 80% less risk of heart attack. This blows my stress-prone age-fearing mind! If we can get our beliefs balanced, we can influence long-term effects of stress on our minds and bodies and even impact our longevity.

Our beliefs don’t just impact our hormones. They impact our behaviour too. Crum talks about how people who believe ageing is synonymous with failing health are also less likely to keep fit or eat well due to being resigned to this “inevitable fate”. People who believe stress is bad for them are less likely to allow the feeling of stress, and be more likely to bat it away with alcohol, unhealthy food binges, distractions. So belief plus behaviour is a double whammy.

On the contrary, people who have a mindful mindset are shown to naturally have more positive attitudes to stress and cope better with uncertainty.

Coming back to beliefs like:

Oh my god I’m so stressed!

I need to sort my stress out!

And now:

I’m getting old…

Soon I’ll be too old to…

Mindfulness teaches us to not believe everything we think.

To allow thoughts and feelings to arise, but not attach onto them, instead let them stay a while until they pass like clouds in the sky.

So next time you catch yourself having beliefs like these, ask yourself:

How would it feel to let this belief go?

How would it be to know that by letting it go you’re doing your health and happiness and positivity a favour? 🙂

Happy Monday 🙂

Love, Jo x

P.S. I could write about all these fascinating mind-body studies until the cortisol cows come home! If you’re fascinated by the science of ‘mind over body’, check out The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal,Cure, A Journey Into The Science of Mind over Body by Jo Marchant andIt’s All In Your Head by Suzanne O’Sullivan.