If it’s the season to be jolly, what are you waiting for?
Looking forward to Xmas? Or are you already stressed-out, just thinking about it? If so, you might be very interested to discover some surprising facts about stress and health.
30 000 adults in the USA were asked:
- How much stress did you experience in the last year?
- Do you believe stress is harmful?
Then they were tracked for 8 years. The results? Only those who experienced a lot of stress and believed stress to be harmful to health had a 43% increased risk of dying! But don’t you go stressing about this now! The others in the study, including the people who experienced a lot of stress, but didn’t worry about it, got away scot free! And in any case, even if you are a bit of a worrier, fortunately you can change your body’s response to stress, as psychologist Kelly McGonigal explains. See below. She urges us to see stress as a positive thing. Just in time for Christmas folks! Have a good one. 🙂 
How to make stress your friend
Kelly McGonigal
The Science of Happiness
For those of you interested in such things, cognitive researcher Nancy Etcoff talks here about the science of happiness:
- The ways we try to achieve and increase it
- Some surprising effects on our bodies and
- The fact that happiness isn’t related to our real circumstances.