Senior Analyst, Alec Weinstock decided to use his 2 Minutes to talk about a Ted Talk given by Kelly McGonagle. She is a health psychologist and professor at Stanford. Over the years, her lectures on stress management were often accompanied by the warning that stress will make you sick and do more harm than good. While that is somewhat true, it is the response to stress more that determines the level of health. In a typical stress response, your heart rate goes up and your blood vessels constrict, but if the stress is thought about in a more favorable light, then only the heart rate rises thus increasing cardiovascular health. The main takeaway is that we should all learn to view stress in a more positive light.
