How Your Stress Mindset Shapes Your Life | Lab Notes

Jamey (00:02.008)
Hey everybody, welcome to Next Door Neuro Lab Notes. So in this series, I'm going to break down concepts and ideas that come up in my longer format conversations and interviews and talk through how we can take these key insights and turn them into approachable, actionable, and sustainable habits that integrate into our day-to-day lives to improve not only our brain health, but our day-to-day wellbeing. So one idea for my conversation with Marcy Stout,

that has stayed with me since the conversation is this idea that stress is a choice. Stress doesn't have to be your enemy. And what Marcy highlighted was that leaders who thrive despite having heavy workloads, long hours, and lots of responsibility, which doesn't only apply to leaders, it applies to so many of us in so many ways, the ones that are successful, the ones that thrive, figure out how to be happy today.

They figure out and find moments that matter and find those moments of joy and happiness so that they can feel as though they're living a life with no regret despite putting a lot of time and effort into their career. And I think a big part of this, finding this mindset is improving our relationship with stress. So that's what I want to talk about today. And there's some fascinating work we're going to get to cover here. So most of us,

Think about stress as this big evil monster in our lives, something that is negative that needs to be avoided, something that is harming us. And if life could be good, life would be a life without stress. However, the research and the science shows that's not the case. There is a really cool study that I'll link in the show notes here that was done, gosh, 15 years ago. And it looked at a huge amount of individuals, 30,000 participants.

It's a large, large research study. And they asked them two basic questions. They said, how much stress have you experienced in the past year? And do you believe stress is harmful to your health? That's it. And so they took a look at these individuals and then they followed them for eight years and looked at something a bit morbid. They looked at how many of these people died.

Jamey (02:22.594)
So these are standard adults, but over the course of eight years, you'll get a large enough population. There's going to be some people who die during that period. And what they found was fascinating. They found that those individuals who perceived that they had had high levels of stress and that stress was harmful to them had a 43 % increased mortality rate over those eight years compared to people who said they had no stress in their lives. I don't know where those people are living, but...

So these individuals, high stress and stress is bad for you, you are more likely to die over eight years than if you don't have stress. That might not be surprising. But what was cool was those individuals who reported that they had high levels of stress, but that stress was not harmful, not necessarily beneficial, but not harmful, showed a 60 % decreased risk of death compared to those who said stress was harmful.

and a 17 % decreased risk of death compared to those who said they had no stress.

think about that for a moment. This means that not having stress in your life is a risk factor. That you need stress, but you need to think it's not bad for you in order to have the longest life. So some really fascinating research here. And what I hope you're thinking right now is, crap, what's my stress mindset? What am I thinking about stress? And if you're thinking that stress is beneficial and that's the way you naturally think or you've learned this over time,

Wonderful. That is perfect, but you might be thinking, how do I keep that? And if you're thinking, no, I've thought stress is detrimental my whole life. I have this negative stress mindset. Jamie, am I more likely to die? Is there any way to reverse this? Can I change my stress mindset? And the nice answer and the fortunate answer and the real answer is absolutely you can. And this is based in some really cool research done by a Stanford.

Jamey (04:26.318)
psychologist, her name is Alia Crum, and she has done wonderful work in this space. It's pretty new for the scientific space, but I think that this is really where a lot of stress research is going to go in the next 10, 20, 30 years, and it is amazing. So I want to tell you a little bit about this, and then we can talk about how you can utilize this to improve your life right now. So what Alia did was she grabbed

a bunch of the Stanford psychology students as research subjects, and she had them take a stress mindset measure. So this stress mindset measure basically gets an understanding of do you think stress is enhancing or do you think stress is detrimental? And she, at the beginning of the study, all the Stanford students were sitting kind of right in the middle at baseline, and then she showed them a three-minute video only showing real true information.

but she cherry picked the information. So half of the students saw a video that suggested stress is enhancing by only showing them evidence that stress is enhancing, it's all real. And then she showed the other group of students only evidence in their video that stress is detrimental. And so she took these two groups and then afterwards had them take this stress mindset measure. And of course, after watching the three minute video, the stress is enhancing group showed that their

stress mindset really increased towards the stress-enhancing perspective, whereas the stress-detrimental group showed that they had a more detrimental view of stress after watching the video. So the video worked. But does this really have an impact in their day-to-day lives? And this is where it gets cool. So here, what Alia did next was she took all of these students and she placed them into a mock interview for a job.

with faculty members that are trained to only be negative to these students. So the students know it's a fake mock interview, but they're trying to apply for this fake job and they are getting shut down by these faculty members. The faculty members are sitting there looking unimpressed. They're looking at them like they don't know what they're talking about. This is a stressful situation, especially when you're a young student looking at a, you know,

Jamey (06:49.132)
revered perhaps or certainly influential and powerful faculty member. So these students are sitting here in this highly stressful situation. And if you've ever been in a job interview, you know how stressful that is. And what they did was they actually measured stress hormones in their body to understand how did the stress is enhancing group, the ones that are thinking stress is actually beneficial for me, differ in their hormonal stress response compared to those

that had the stress is detrimental mindset. Stress is harmful, stress hurts me. We need to avoid stress. And the results are fascinating. But before we can jump into the results, you have to understand a little bit about the hormones. But I promise you, it's not terrible. I promise you it's really reasonable and it'll make you think completely differently about stress. So most of us are familiar with one stress hormone, cortisol. So cortisol is the stress hormone we talk about

all about, it's the human version of glucocorticoids and cortisol levels rise when you're stressed basically. But cortisol has some unique properties associated with it. In general, it is a short-term focused hormone. It's all about mobilizing energy and suppressing long-term bodily functions. It supports your fight or flight stress response. So the idea here is,

If you're stressed, cortisol helps you focus on immediate survival and not worry too much about things that might be years or decades down the road because hey, if you don't survive this moment, then you're not gonna live that long to worry about how good your immune system is or whether your bones have repaired sufficiently. You need to not be in threat and not die.

And that's what most people think about for stress. But there is another hormone that most people don't think about, which is dehydroepiandrosterone. It's a lot, we're going to call it DHES, D-H-E-A-S. We're going to leave it at that. You don't need to know the name, but it's really a resilience stress hormone. And what DHEAS is all about is long-term functioning with stress. DHEAS,

Jamey (09:05.08)
fuels brain growth in response to stress. So we can learn from our stressors and understand how to avoid or adjust them in the future. And it can counter some of the effects of cortisol so they're less likely to be harmful in the short term. So some of the negative cardiovascular effects of cortisol can be offset to a degree by DHEAS. And what Alia Crum did at Stanford was she measured these two hormones

in those two groups of Stanford students. First group going through this terrible interview process that thinks stress is actually good for me. This is a good challenge. The other group, stress is terrible for me. This is awful. How could this be happening to me? Poor me, poor me, poor me. And what she found was both groups have a high level of cortisol during that period. Both groups are going through a short term, my gosh, this is terrible. This is rough.

interview process, but only the group that thought that stress was enhancing showed elevated levels of DHEAS, this resilience hormone. And this completely changes the profile of how stress impacts you. So here, how does stress impact you based on these two hormones in your mindset? So if you think that stress is negative for you, you're going to have a high cortisol type.

response. lot of cortisol, not so much DHEAS. What does this do? This impairs your immune system over time when you're chronically stressed. It can increase your risk of depression as well as of anxiety. So these students who think stress is negative and are going through this interview are more likely to have an impaired immune system be at risk of depression and anxiety if this type of stress continues. Whereas if you have

high levels of DHEAS in comparison to cortisol. So this is the student group that thought stress is enhancing. You have reduced risk of anxiety and depression, reduced risk of cardiovascular and heart disease, and reduced risk of neurodegeneration. So diseases that can harm the brain as you age. And so here, what an amazing study. A three minute video.

Jamey (11:28.462)
highlighting that stress is enhancing for you can help change not only the way you think about stress, but how your body hormonally responds to it. And if you're sitting here thinking, my gosh, Jamie, that's the craziest thing I've heard. This is amazing. Of course you are. But if you're sitting here also thinking, okay, what do I do with this? Let's talk about it. So the first thing that you want to do is practice more mindfulness.

Being more mindful day to day increases DHEAS levels. And this is in part because mindfulness helps reduce cortisol stress response. So DHEAS levels are higher relative to cortisol. The other thing you can do is get high quality sleep. If you can get seven to nine hours of sleep per night consistently, high quality sleep. So that means, you know, no alcohol, try to avoid screens right before bed, this kind of thing. That's been shown to increase your DHEAS levels.

moving your body is critical. So moderate to high intensity exercise increases DHES levels as well. And if you can focus your diet on nutrient dense and anti-inflammatory foods, so think cruciferous vegetables, as well as fruits that have high levels of polyphenols, so think brightly colored fruits. Really, it's what we've been told since we were kids, eat your fruits and vegetables. Those also boost DHES levels. So you can...

Shift yourself intentionally towards more of the profile of a stress-enhancing mindset through these four key mechanisms.

So what I hope some of you are thinking right now is, my gosh, this is so impactful. This is wonderful, but I'm still a little skeptical. Does this actually apply in the real world and not in some fake interview format? And this is where Dr. Crumb's work really expands into an area that is extremely impactful. So what she did was she took this work into the real world and she assessed this same concept with employees at a Fortune 500 company.

Jamey (13:35.919)
right after the 2008, 2009 financial economic collapse. And so she looked at these individuals, they're working at a major Fortune 500 company, financial company. They just laid off, I think it was about 60 % of their employees. And she's looking at the remainder of the employees. They are scared, they're overworked, they're struggling, they're not sure if they'll be laid off next. Very high stress, real world environment. And what she did was she gave them

two hours of this stress is enhancing training. So much longer than that three minute video the students saw, but after that two hour training, she left them for one month. Okay, how long does this last over the course of a month? If you think stress is enhancing, does it really make a difference over the course of a month in a high stress, very variable and unknown world at the time?

And when she came back one month later, she saw that those who had this training showed reduced negative health symptoms over that month, specifically around anxiety and stress. They reported having improved satisfaction with their health. And at work, they were shown to have more new ideas, better sustained focused, a better ability to be engaged, as well as increased levels of collaborations with their coworkers. So here, what we are seeing

is that believing stress is detrimental can increase the likelihood of dying, whereas believing stress is enhancing is protective. That a stress mindset can be manipulated and fostering a stress-enhancing mindset can improve your physical health, your mental health, and your work performance. So what I'm hoping you're wondering right now is, awesome, Jamie, I'm convinced. How do I do this? How do I improve my stress mindset?

So let's talk about that.

Jamey (15:37.529)
So when we think about how to improve your stress mindset, there are four key things that you need to know and that you need to do. The first thing is learn that stress can be enhancing. Wonderful. By listening to this, you've done that way more than three minutes the students have gotten. The second thing is reframe stress as a performance enhancer. The third is acknowledge the growth potential of stress. And the fourth is leverage stress for meaning and purpose.

So let's talk about each of the ones you haven't already done. So, reframing stress as a performance enhancer. Instead of seeing stress as harmful, what you want to do is recognize that stress, and this is all backed by the science, actually sharpens your focus. It releases certain neurotransmitters in your brain that help you focus and help you boost your mental energy, as well as enhance your performance if you can channel this correctly. And so when you start feeling stress,

increased heart rate, that adrenaline rush, rather than seeing that as a negative, start viewing that as tools for performance. So, my body is ramping up to give me everything I need to succeed. So an example would be before a big presentation, big meeting, instead of thinking, I'm so nervous, I'm so nervous, I'm so nervous, reframe those same feelings as this energy is gonna help me perform my best.

I am on top of things. I am aware. I am alert. I am energetic. I am not going to run out of energy and fall asleep during this presentation, which is important. The second thing is to acknowledge the growth potential of stress. So stressful situations are opportunities. Stressful situations are opportunities to develop new skills, to build resilience in the face of challenge, and to strengthen your character. And reminding yourself of this goes a long way.

And it can be really hard to do this in the moment. So what I suggest you do, and it's something that I often do, is in moments of calm, or when you're thinking about this but you're not actively stressed, reflect on past challenges where stress fueled your growth. And challenge yourself to think, when was a moment in my life that I grew meaningfully that didn't involve stress and challenge? I've never been able to think of one that really

Jamey (18:03.36)
matched those criteria. Every time I've ever grown in my life, whether it's professional, whether it's personal, it's been because, or it's been alongside, stress. So here, if you're starting to feel a lot of pressure at work, big deadline coming, a lot of work to do, instead of thinking, this is too much, this is unfair, why me, poor me, reframe it as this challenge will make me more adaptable and skilled. And then finally,

leverage stress for meaning and purpose, and to recognize where meaning and purpose are in your life. So the mantra that I always come back to when I'm really starting to feel stressed that really backs me off the ledge is, I stress because I care. I stress because I care. Because the only things in life that we truly do stress about are the things we actually care about. Why does traffic make you stressed?

because you are late for a job that you care about, or to pick up a family member you care about, or to get home to the people you love, or to get to an activity that you are interested in. And so yes, traffic is traffic no matter what, but if you can reframe this as, the only reason I'm stressed about this is because I care so much about my job, all of a sudden you're not having a woe is me moment, you're having a moment where you're recognizing meaning in your life.

because the morning commutes worse than normal. And so here, an example would be if you're a parent trying to balance work and family, and you're constantly thinking, I'm overwhelmed, I'm overwhelmed, this is too much. Start reframing this as the stress that I feel comes from my deep commitment to both my career and family, both of which bring me joy and fulfillment, meaning and purpose.

and all of a sudden you've positively reframed your stress.

Jamey (20:03.116)
And so when you find yourself under a lot of pressure or feeling overwhelmed, use this two minute wellness technique. And again, don't go more than two minutes, set a timer, but stop and ask yourself or remind yourself of three things. Number one, this stress is giving me the tools I need to succeed. Number two, I'm growing because of this challenge. And number three,

I stress because I care. My life has meaning and purpose. So what my challenge is to you as we wrap up this first next door neuro lab note session is choose one of these exercises, focusing on the tools you need, focusing on the challenge helping you grow, focusing on stress associating with meaning and purpose and try practicing it regularly.

Think about this a couple of times a week or daily if you can, and then start to try to implement this in small stressful situations like traffic, like when your child isn't doing what you think they should be doing, whatever it might be, and practice the skill in lower risk, lower stakes environments so that when the stakes are rising, when the importance is rising, you've practiced this skill.

and can implement it in moments of chaos and stress. I hope you found this helpful. Come back for more next door neuro interviews as well as lab notes. And I can't wait to see you next time.