SENA KAYASÜ (ARCH/III)
sena.kayasu@ug.bilkent.edu.tr

This week I will, yet again, talk to  you about something I’ve watched. Except this time, it’s not a movie. It certainly isn’t fiction.

The topic for this week is a 15-minute TED talk by a health psychologist, Kelly McGonigal, on “How to Make Stress Your Friend.” Personally, I’m not a great fan of self-help. I’m just not sure how much it’s going to change your life (or your day) to read a thick book on how to make yourself into a better you. However, I will say that once in a while, I come across that one short quote, opinion piece or video that actually reveals an idea original and simple enough that it can be explained in the initial 30 seconds I can tolerate the video. This video was one of those rare ones.

What McGonigal is saying is that as a psychologist, she’d always advised her patients that stress was the archenemy of health, bad for you in every way possible. Apparently, after ten years, she’s changed her mind. Now, scientists are working on studies showing that stress may actually be good for you.

Of course, too much stress is still going to kill you. Of course, you shouldn’t be going around looking for more of it. That’s okay, though, since I’m pretty sure that everyone who’s doing anything has plenty of stress (relatively speaking, since we probably adapt to our various levels of tension proportionally). What can make a difference is how you manage it and what you expect of it. This was an unsurprising development in the talk, since it’s where most self-help ideas find themselves going. It’s fair, though: you can’t change the world, you can only change yourself. (You might be able to influence the world around you. Maybe. If you’re lucky).

The scientific aspect of this begins with the hormone oxytocin. As a former MBG student and still an avid biology enthusiast, I’d heard of this hormone before. It’s rather a good one. Oxytocin is the birth hormone: it triggers labor and milk production in the mammary glands. It’s also “the cuddly hormone”; it’s released when you hug people, as well as during other positive, intimate interactions.

The macho guys out there reading this will be devastated to find out that it’s also released during times of stress. Yes, giving birth is stressful, but hugging someone usually isn’t. Missing the bus or a deadline is stressful (as is running away from a bear), but helping someone onto the bus can feel pretty good.

In all of the above examples, your body produces and releases oxytocin. It’s the yang to the yin of the conventional fight-or-flight chemicals: cortisol and adrenaline. When you’re in a stressful situation, your brain will flood your body with these two substances so that you breathe, think and run faster. Thanks to them, you react more efficiently and see your environment more clearly, so that you can evaluate all of the risks. Experiencing their effects isn’t particularly pleasant, unless you’re an adrenaline junkie and you like jumping off high places. Wait—even then it’s stressful. You just learn to enjoy it, or at least to see a different side of it.

Oxytocin is the other side of the coin. While you’re preparing yourself for fight or flight, oxytocin allows you to clear your head, dilate your blood vessels and seek help. You look for others around you who can help you. Humans are, after all, innately social creatures. Stress alone will kill you, because you’re worrying about it so much. But if you embrace its friendlier side, it’s really quite beautiful: the way to cope with stress is human interaction. It’s communication. Kind of poetic, in my opinion, especially when McGonigal says, “Stress gives us access to our hearts.”

To increase the magic of it, she explains how studies show that helping others also reduces stress. Interacting with your community and environment in a positive way balances out the everyday amount of cortisol with oxytocin. The latter hormone also helps to erode the fats that begin to clog the blood vessels in your heart after cortisol and adrenaline bottle them up in case you don’t get to eat for a while. Releasing oxytocin is the only way to save yourself from a heart attack after you’ve experienced a trauma. It’s a bit clichéd, but hey, if it’s backed by biology, I’m in.

If that interested you, and I hope against hope that it did, I have another talk in mind. This one’s called “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are,” by Amy Cuddy. Again, it’s nothing you haven’t heard before: just that feeling and acting powerful will cause you to become powerful. Lame, right?

Wrong. I advise you to watch it. Or, in case you won’t, I’ll ask you to do just one thing: try out her claim. Her suggestion, oversimplified by me, is: next time you’re going up in an elevator to get to a big interview or jury or presentation or whatever worries you, do a “power pose.” Stand tall, square your shoulders (basically like a soldier) and do NOT cross your arms. Expand your body, and keep the pose for two minutes, then release. If you “fake it” for two minutes, you can “make it” when on trial. If you do this enough times, apparently you can eventually “become” it. I’m gonna try it the next time before a jury, for sure.

After watching these two, though, I now want to hear a TED Talk about how to give TED Talks. The people who do them, although not always relaxed (in fact, they’re often so nervous that their voices are shaking, like Cuddy’s), deliver 20-minute speeches from memory—speeches that don’t sound particularly rehearsed. Maybe they have cues on the screens or something, but even so, the talks are composed of little jokes and casual remarks to such a large extent that thematic cues probably wouldn’t be enough to keep the speaker on track. I wonder what their secret is. It’s probably something new age-y, like “empower yourself.” Or, do a power pose.