Show 1009: The Upside of Stress (Archive)
The People's Pharmacy
Joe and Terry Graedon
4.6 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 30 June 2016
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Stress is bad for our health, isn’t it? It has been linked to everything from psoriasis to asthma to heart disease. It may even make us more susceptible to cancer.
Is the Emphasis on Stress Reduction Misplaced?
It is no wonder, then, that wellness advocates emphasize stress reduction, whether it is yoga, meditation, a walk in the park or petting a dog or cat. There is nothing wrong with such practices; but what if we could utilize stress to overcome problems and live healthier lives instead of allowing it to undermine us? What is the upside of stress?
Dr. Kelly McGonigal has studied stress responses and says stress can help us perform better in challenging situations. Learn how to handle it to your best advantage.
This Week’s Guest:
Kelly McGonigal, PhD, is a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University. She is also a fitness instructor and a meditation teacher. Her books include The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It. Her most recent book is The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It.
Her website is www.kellymcgonigal.com
To follow her on Twitter: @kellymcgonigal
Listen to the Podcast:
The podcast of this program will be available the Monday after the broadcast date. The show can be streamed online from this site and podcasts can be downloaded for free for four weeks after the date of broadcast. After that time has passed, digital downloads are available for $2.99. CDs may be purchased at any time after broadcast for $9.99.
Read Dr. McGonigal’s book and listen to her interview on the CD with our Listen & Read offer.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Joe Graydon. |
| 0:02.3 | I'm Terry Graydon. |
| 0:03.8 | Welcome to this podcast of the People's Pharmacy, where we bring you the stories behind the health headlines. |
| 0:10.2 | This podcast is brought to you by Redux Industries, makers of utterly smooth body cream. |
| 0:16.0 | 800-345-7339 on the web at utter cream.com. |
| 0:31.2 | Stress has been linked to negative health consequences from asthma to heart disease. |
| 0:36.6 | Can stress be our friend instead of our enemy? |
| 0:39.7 | This is the People's Pharmacy with Terry and Joe Graydon. |
| 0:50.3 | We've heard that stress is bad for our health. It can trigger asthma, alter our immune system, and perhaps even increase our risk of developing cancer. We've been encouraged to practice stress reduction. But what if, instead of fighting stress, we learned how to make it our ally? Dr. Kelly McGonigal is a psychologist who has turned stress on its head. She maintains that handled properly, stress can help us perform better in challenging situations. |
| 1:16.6 | Coming up on the People's Pharmacy, the upside of stress. |
| 1:20.2 | Why stress is good for you and how to get good at it. |
| 1:25.5 | First, this news. |
| 1:30.6 | In the P's pharmacy health headlines, butter should no longer be demonized. |
| 1:36.2 | That's the conclusion of a new study from researchers at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. |
| 1:42.7 | The investigators reviewed nine studies, |
| 1:45.9 | with more than 600,000 subjects in 15 countries. They were able to assess butter consumption, |
| 1:52.6 | which ranged from about one-third of a tablespoon to roughly three tablespoons daily. They also |
| 1:58.8 | analyzed the data to see whether butter increased the risk of cardiovascular |
| 2:02.5 | disease, diabetes, or death. Perhaps surprisingly, there was no association between butter |
| 2:08.7 | consumption and heart disease. If anything, butter seemed to reduce the risk of diabetes |
| 2:14.3 | marginally. We can't make cause and effect inferences from this analysis. |
| 2:20.0 | It does suggest that butter might be more neutral in its consequences for health than its |
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