How Some Stress Can Actually Improve Health | Dr. Elissa Epel & Dr. Andrew Huberman
00:00:00.000 | So how does one measure optimal versus accelerated aging?
00:00:07.260 | And why would it be that some stress is better than no stress when it comes to aging ideally?
00:00:16.100 | So having no stress means we're not really living, like we're not engaging in the gifts
00:00:23.080 | of life, which are inevitably have some challenge and risk.
00:00:27.780 | And let me give you an example.
00:00:29.680 | One study took elderly people who have retired and they, you know, society kind of labels
00:00:37.480 | them as you're kind of done with your meaningful work in life and you are pretty much not able
00:00:46.300 | to contribute to society.
00:00:47.300 | I mean, there's so many negative stereotypes that people then kind of embody and then live.
00:00:51.680 | And this program brought them to work in schools and tutor young at-risk students.
00:00:58.840 | And what happened to them is they went from feeling maybe safe and under-stressed to feeling
00:01:05.140 | challenged, but generative.
00:01:09.960 | They were feeling more purpose.
00:01:11.920 | They were feeling like they were growing and they were feeling like their day had more
00:01:16.760 | meaning.
00:01:17.760 | They had more relationships.
00:01:20.080 | They had these caring relationships with the students.
00:01:24.000 | The students had all sorts of issues and troubles, drugs and maybe not having lunch, poverty.
00:01:30.760 | And so they felt the stress of that, but they also saw how much they could help with their
00:01:35.560 | support and their tutoring.
00:01:37.520 | And in this study, they took images of the hippocampus and those who engaged in the program,
00:01:44.240 | particularly the men, actually had growth of their hippocampus during this program.
00:01:49.200 | So at any stage in life, we can be growing and challenging ourselves even in our much
00:01:54.780 | later years and growing our brain.
00:01:57.680 | And you know more than anyone, what does that hippocampal growth mean for their wellbeing
00:02:02.920 | and their cognitive function?
00:02:04.400 | Yeah.
00:02:05.400 | It's interesting that hippocampus, of course, a brain area involved in formation and recall
00:02:10.360 | of memories, mostly formation of memories, is super interesting because it's so plastic.
00:02:15.560 | It's so amenable to the addition of new memories.
00:02:19.280 | I think the most striking study to me is the one, and I should point out that most of the
00:02:24.720 | data say that the addition of new neurons is not the main reason for improvements in
00:02:29.000 | memory, but it is one of them.
00:02:31.900 | But Rusty Gage down at the Salk Institute did a study in the, I think the early 2000s
00:02:36.560 | where they took terminally ill people and these people agreed to have their bodies injected
00:02:41.520 | with a dye that would label new neurons.
00:02:45.120 | And then after they died, their brains were processed and they didn't die from the dye
00:02:50.160 | injection by the way, folks, they died from other causes, they were terminally ill.
00:02:53.920 | And what they discovered was that even in terminally ill and some of these people were
00:03:00.320 | quite old, those people were still generating new neurons, especially in the context of
00:03:06.980 | still trying to learn and acquire new information.
00:03:09.840 | So of course they're dead so they can't apply that information after that, but of course
00:03:14.080 | none of us can, right?
00:03:15.080 | None of the information that...
00:03:16.080 | But why not?
00:03:17.080 | Up to when you die, right?
00:03:18.080 | Absolutely.
00:03:19.080 | Absolutely.
00:03:20.080 | So one other example of this, my colleague Dave Almeida, he measures daily stressful
00:03:23.620 | events in huge national populations and a small percentage of people report no stressors.
00:03:29.660 | And so you wonder like what's happening?
00:03:31.520 | Are they not engaging in life?
00:03:32.720 | Are they really not having stressors?
00:03:34.880 | It looks like they are, it's not just that they're not getting stressed by things, they're
00:03:38.800 | not really going out and doing much.
00:03:41.720 | And what he found is that their level of kind of memory and cognition, their cognitive health
00:03:47.640 | was significantly lower.
00:03:49.920 | So you can imagine the hippocampal, you know, the lack of those neuroprogenitor cells, they're
00:03:56.480 | just not being stimulated.
00:03:59.240 | It's super interesting.
00:04:00.240 | I wasn't aware of that result.
00:04:01.240 | So I appreciate you sharing it.
00:04:02.480 | I almost have to wonder if it's like exercise where, you know, so many people, I think now
00:04:07.800 | everybody hopefully understands that exercise is going to lower blood pressure, reduce resting
00:04:12.480 | heart rate, improve musculoskeletal function and bone density, all that stuff.
00:04:17.660 | But that if you took a snapshot of the bodily response during exercise, blood pressure is
00:04:22.680 | way, way up.
00:04:23.680 | Heart rate is way, way up.
00:04:26.080 | Stress hormones are way up.
00:04:27.520 | Cortisol is through the roof during a hard workout and immediately afterwards.
00:04:31.040 | And yet that sets in motion a series of adaptations that brings you to a better place most of
00:04:35.240 | the time.
00:04:36.240 | So I wonder if stress is the same.
00:04:37.600 | Is there any evidence that short bouts of stress provided that they're managed well,
00:04:43.840 | meaning that we don't spend the next 24 or 48 hours ruminating on the stressor, but that
00:04:48.880 | we're able to move through the stressor and resolve it in some way, that that's actually
00:04:52.480 | beneficial for us because of the mobilization of energy stores and maybe even changing our
00:04:58.400 | threshold for reacting to stressors in the future?
00:05:02.360 | That's a great question.
00:05:03.560 | And it's one that I have been chewing on for a while because we know as you said that physical
00:05:09.720 | stressors, when they're short and repeated, like high intensity interval training, they
00:05:14.880 | are promoting not just aerobic fitness, but stress fitness.
00:05:19.640 | People feel less rumination, less depression, less anxiety.
00:05:22.940 | So they're kind of tuning up the nervous system.
00:05:25.760 | What about psychological stressors?
00:05:28.240 | And we know two things.
00:05:30.720 | So one is I do think that there is a level of engagement with moderate stressors that
00:05:37.040 | when we are used to them, we get fit and our stress resilience builds, meaning we're less
00:05:43.320 | threatened by them.
00:05:44.560 | So let me go deep into that.
00:05:47.920 | Two people can approach the exact same stressor and one person is having a pretty overreactive
00:05:55.040 | stress response where they basically are feeling their survival is threatened.
00:05:59.520 | So it's high cortisol, high vasoconstriction, and blood pressure goes up equally in both.
00:06:05.520 | But the person who's feeling super threatened, either their survival or their social survival
00:06:11.200 | of their ego, their blood pressure went up because of the vasoconstriction.
00:06:15.360 | The other person who is viewing the same stressor as I can do this, this is a great challenge
00:06:20.920 | and opportunity, I have what it takes.
00:06:24.160 | Those types of thoughts generate a different hemodynamic response, which is actually more
00:06:29.320 | cardiac output, so blood pressure is going up, but in this healthier way, more oxygenation
00:06:34.160 | to the brain, better problem solving, they're able to maintain this positive outlook.
00:06:38.960 | So we've measured the threat challenge response in many lab studies and we know lots of things.
00:06:43.820 | So if you're having more of the challenge response, at the end of it, you're less inflamed.
00:06:48.840 | So just in the lab within an hour or two, we see that they didn't trigger all that pro-inflammatory
00:06:54.120 | response and their telomeres tend to be longer, which is a measure we can talk more about.
00:06:59.120 | But basically, it looks like they have a slower speed of aging.
00:07:06.360 | That is super interesting.
00:07:07.360 | You call this a stress challenge response?
00:07:11.240 | So we could call this kind of a two, to be really simplistic, two types of psychological
00:07:18.360 | stress response, feeling threatened, like you're going to fail, you're embarrassed.
00:07:24.360 | That social pain response, we know well, that feels terrible, but also that huge stress
00:07:29.400 | response when we feel it in our stomach, our heart is pounding.
00:07:34.880 | It's just an over-exaggerated response.
00:07:37.500 | That response biologically is different and the thoughts that go with it are different
00:07:42.440 | and we recover a lot slower.
00:07:44.240 | And then there's the challenge response, which is more of that kind of activated, excited
00:07:52.080 | response.
00:07:53.520 | And the beauty is that there are lots of studies out there done by emotions and social psychologists
00:07:59.480 | that tilt people toward the challenge response.
00:08:02.620 | We can actually promote that challenge response.
00:08:05.240 | And so when you asked about like, is it good to have a repeated stress response?
00:08:10.080 | Yes, if it's manageable, then we're kind of building the muscle of stress resilience.
00:08:16.880 | What are the sorts of things that people I can do in order, including me, I should say,
00:08:23.560 | can do in order to wage that challenge response?
00:08:28.360 | Is this purely based on mindset?
00:08:30.440 | Like instead of saying, why me?
00:08:33.040 | Why this?
00:08:34.040 | Why now?
00:08:35.040 | I can't believe this is happening.
00:08:36.040 | Is it a mental pivot to, okay, this is a great opportunity for growth.
00:08:41.720 | I don't know how I'm going to manage this, but I'll manage this.
00:08:46.280 | You want to stop me.
00:08:47.280 | You got to kill me type of mindset.
00:08:49.640 | Is that the switch that then the body follows?
00:08:52.840 | Because this is an interesting instance where most all the stress mitigation work that my
00:08:59.280 | lab does is focused on using the body to control the mind.
00:09:01.840 | But here we're talking about the mind controlling the body first and then the body following
00:09:05.840 | suit, which I find equally fascinating.
00:09:09.080 | So are there some specific mental scripts that people follow and are we all able to
00:09:15.960 | follow those scripts?
00:09:17.520 | Yes.
00:09:18.520 | To some extent, we control the script.
00:09:21.200 | We can use that script to prepare ourselves going into a stressful situation and we can
00:09:26.760 | use it at any point during the stressor.
00:09:28.840 | So some of us are just wired to have a big threat response period.
00:09:33.040 | Maybe it's epigenetics we've inherited.
00:09:36.360 | Maybe it's early trauma that has shaped us to have this exaggerated emotional response
00:09:41.800 | and yes, we and others have found that.
00:09:43.880 | Trauma sensitizes our emotional stress response so that we are feeling more threatened.
00:09:49.460 | But that's okay because that's the part we can't control and we just have to have a lot
00:09:53.280 | of self-compassion and awareness that okay, this is what I do.
00:09:58.920 | My body reacts like this, but what happens next?
00:10:03.200 | That's when we can start to use those statements, self-comforting, self-compassion, distancing.
00:10:09.600 | There's all sorts of statements that allow us to then recover more quickly.
00:10:15.360 | So when we want to shift from a threatened response to a kind of challenge response,
00:10:22.080 | or I should say, are there any data that dictate whether or not we should keep those statements
00:10:30.320 | in our head, write them down, say them out loud?
00:10:33.240 | I guess what I'm trying to do here is trying to get to a little bit more of the meat of
00:10:36.800 | the actionable since a lot of our listeners I think will be, as I am, very excited about
00:10:43.320 | the idea that a mere shift in our mentality about stress can give us the opposite outcome.
00:10:48.360 | I mean, before you were talking about vasoconstriction and inflammation and all these bad things,
00:10:54.160 | to put it lightly, and then in the challenge response to stress, getting the exact opposite,
00:11:01.240 | more vasodilation, more resources used, and more positive effects on the brain and body.
00:11:06.280 | So if you can recall from the papers, if not, that's fine, but I'm just curious what those
00:11:12.680 | specific tools might be.
00:11:14.920 | Every statement you said, Andrew, is good.
00:11:17.640 | It's a good one.
00:11:18.640 | The whole trick here is that people need to find the strength statements, the stress shields,
00:11:24.920 | I call them, that fit them, that feels right, and that they believe.
00:11:28.880 | And so I list a bunch of options in chapter three, which is called be the lion instead
00:11:35.440 | of the gazelle.
00:11:36.480 | So the lion and gazelle are both high blood pressure, high stress, and the lion's chasing
00:11:41.200 | the gazelle, but the gazelle's having this total threat vasoconstriction response because
00:11:47.120 | she might die, lion might get dinner, right?
00:11:50.520 | So it's needing to mount the stress response because it's so excited to get the tasty dinner
00:11:55.800 | for the next few days.
00:11:57.680 | And so the lion is having that challenge response.
00:12:00.880 | And so we can remind ourselves, be the lion.
00:12:04.240 | It's not that we're always lion or gazelle.
00:12:06.120 | We get to shape that.
00:12:08.240 | And so some of those statements are, well, let's say right when we're going into it,
00:12:13.360 | list your resources.
00:12:14.360 | Why have you ever dealt with any situation like this?
00:12:17.720 | Remind yourself of past successes.
00:12:19.960 | Remind yourself of someone you can call or text or feel supported by.
00:12:24.920 | Remind yourself that this outcome is not going to affect your life in 10 years or five years.
00:12:29.720 | That's a distancing kind of perspective taking.
00:12:33.520 | So there's all these strategies, and you got to use what works for you.
00:12:37.720 | Telling yourself, I got this.
00:12:38.840 | I can do it.
00:12:39.840 | I can get through it.
00:12:40.840 | I have what it takes.
00:12:42.200 | Those are all good shields.
00:12:44.560 | And another set is some of us feel really stressed out by stress.
00:12:49.140 | Like once we feel our heart racing, that leads to, oh no, this is bad for me.
00:12:56.320 | And so rather than getting stressed by stress, we actually want to remind ourselves that
00:13:02.320 | this stress response is empowering.
00:13:05.240 | This is going to help me cope.
00:13:07.920 | My body is excited.
00:13:09.920 | My body is doing just what it should right now.
00:13:13.520 | So that reframing in studies by Wendy Mendez and others, my colleagues who do this reappraisal
00:13:19.640 | research, they have basically trained people to view stress as positive.
00:13:24.480 | During the stressful situations in the lab, people do better.
00:13:28.840 | They perform better.
00:13:29.840 | They feel more positive emotion.
00:13:31.520 | They problem solve better.
00:13:33.140 | They recover more quickly.
00:13:34.800 | So pretty powerful stuff.