How stress is killing us (and how you can stop it). | Thijs Launspach | TEDxUniversiteitVanAmsterdam
Summary
TLDRThis presentation delves into the parallels between fish, blissfully unaware of their aquatic environment, and humans, often oblivious to the stressors in their lives. It underscores the societal acceptance of a hectic, stress-laden lifestyle, leading to burnout. The speaker, a psychologist, uses data to highlight the prevalence of burnout, particularly among younger demographics, and its correlation with detrimental health effects. The talk advocates for self-care, mindfulness, and stress management as crucial skills to combat the adverse impacts of stress, empowering individuals to take control over their well-being.
Takeaways
- 🐟 Fish, like humans, often fail to recognize the most obvious aspects of their environment, suggesting a parallel where humans might overlook significant elements in their lives.
- 🏃♂️ The societal belief that a good life equates to a busy life is challenged, as the speaker points out the unrecognized costs of constant busyness and stress.
- 📈 The speaker conducts a live experiment to demonstrate the prevalence of burnout and stress-related impacts on sleep, diet, exercise, and leisure time among the audience.
- 📊 Data from the Netherlands' Central Bureau of Statistics in 2016 shows a significant percentage of the population experiencing burnout, with a notable spike among those aged 25 to 35.
- 🔍 The discussion highlights how stress can lead to serious health issues, including a weakened immune system, obesity, certain types of cancer, and even premature death.
- 💼 Work is identified as a primary source of stress, with increasing job complexity, overtime, and blurred boundaries between work and personal time contributing to the problem.
- 📱 Modern life's frantic pace, fueled by FOMO and constant connectivity, leaves little room for relaxation and increases stress levels.
- 🧠 The psychological impact of high self-expectations, such as the need for constant success and happiness, adds to the stress burden individuals carry.
- 🔬 Stress is an involuntary response to stressors, and the body's reaction prepares it for 'fight or flight,' a response that's outdated in modern contexts but still deeply ingrained.
- 🛑 Burnout is described as a state where the stress response system is damaged, making normally non-stressful situations feel overwhelming and leading to a prolonged recovery period.
- 🌟 The speaker emphasizes the importance of self-care, proper sleep, diet, exercise, and mindfulness practices as tools to manage stress effectively.
Q & A
What is the main comparison made between fish and humans in the script?
-The main comparison is that just as fish are not aware that they are in water, humans often fail to notice important aspects of their lives.
What are the two significant things in human life that are often overlooked according to the speaker?
-The two things are the belief that a good life is a busy life and the acceptance of even dangerous levels of stress as normal.
How does the speaker illustrate the prevalence of stress and burnout?
-The speaker uses a live experiment with the audience, asking them to raise their hands if they have experienced or know someone who has experienced burnout or if stress has negatively impacted their sleep, relationships, diet, exercise, or spare time.
What statistics does the speaker provide about burnout in the Netherlands?
-The speaker refers to statistics from the Central Bureau of Statistics in the Netherlands showing that burnout symptoms are around 15% among various age groups, with a significant increase in the 25 to 35 years old group.
What are some of the health issues associated with stress as mentioned in the script?
-Health issues associated with stress include a weaker immune system, obesity, diet-related problems, some forms of cancer, and even premature death.
Why does the speaker say our jobs are a significant source of stress?
-Jobs are a significant source of stress because they are becoming more complicated, require more overtime, involve extensive emailing, and blur the lines between work and personal time.
What is FOMO and how does it contribute to a frantic pace of life?
-FOMO stands for 'Fear Of Missing Out', and it contributes to a frantic pace of life by making people try to pack more activities into their day, leading to less opportunity for relaxation.
How does the speaker describe the physiological response to stress?
-The speaker describes the physiological response to stress as an involuntary physical and psychological reaction to a stressor, involving the release of hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, leading to increased heart rate, tense muscles, and other 'fight or flight' responses.
What is burnout and how does it affect a person's perception of stress?
-Burnout is described as a state where the stress response system gets damaged, making normally non-stressful situations seem very stressful.
What practical advice does the speaker give for managing stress?
-The speaker advises taking care of one's physical health by getting enough sleep, maintaining a balanced diet, exercising regularly, being mindful of alcohol and caffeine intake, and scheduling downtime. Additionally, practices like mindfulness and yoga can help train the brain to be more focused and tolerant of stress.
Outlines
🐟 The Unnoticed Aspects of Life: A Comparison Between Fish and Humans
The speaker begins by drawing a parallel between fish and humans, highlighting how both can be oblivious to certain important aspects of their lives. Fish, despite being acutely aware of their surroundings, do not realize they are in water. Similarly, humans often fail to notice significant elements in their lives. The speaker points out two such elements: the belief that a good life equates to a busy life and the acceptance of high levels of stress as normal. The talk then shifts to the increasing pace of life and the psychological impact of stress, including burnout. An interactive experiment is conducted with the audience to gauge their personal experiences with stress and its effects on various aspects of life, such as sleep, diet, exercise, and leisure time. The speaker presents statistics on burnout from the Netherlands, emphasizing the prevalence across different age groups and the significant increase in burnout among individuals aged 25 to 35. The talk concludes with a discussion on the serious health implications of stress, including weaker immune systems, obesity, certain types of cancer, and even premature death.
📈 The Causes and Consequences of Modern-Day Stress
The speaker delves into the reasons behind the frantic pace of modern life, identifying multiple factors contributing to stress. Work-related stress is highlighted as a significant source, with jobs becoming more complex, longer hours, and increased use of electronic communication blurring the lines between work and personal time. Additionally, the fear of missing out (FOMO) and the pressure to maintain an attractive, successful, and happy image contribute to the constant feeling of being busy. The speaker explains the physiological response to stress, describing how the body's fight-or-flight mechanism is triggered by stressors. This response, once a survival mechanism for physical threats, is now activated by modern stressors like deadlines and social pressures. The speaker points out that the prolonged exposure to stress can lead to burnout, a state where even minor stressors feel overwhelming, and emphasizes the importance of managing stress to prevent burnout.
🧘♀️ Coping with Stress: Self-Care and Mindfulness Techniques
The speaker offers practical advice on managing stress, starting with the importance of self-care. Recommendations include getting adequate sleep, maintaining a healthy diet, regular exercise, and moderating caffeine intake. The speaker also suggests scheduling downtime to relax and recharge. Breathing exercises are introduced as a method to reduce stress in the moment, and the audience is guided through a brief mindfulness exercise to illustrate its calming effects. The speaker concludes by emphasizing the importance of developing stress management skills, such as mindfulness and meditation, to improve focus and tolerance to stress. The talk ends with a call to action, urging the audience to take control of their stress levels to prevent burnout and improve their overall well-being.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Stress
💡Burnout
💡Fight-or-Flight Response
💡Mindfulness
💡Adrenaline and Cortisol
💡FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)
💡Work-Related Stress
💡Self-Care
💡Caffeine
💡Expectations
Highlights
Fish are remarkably aware of their surroundings but are oblivious to the water they live in, drawing a parallel to how humans often fail to notice important aspects of their own lives.
The speaker suggests that humans are often unaware of the impact of constant busyness and stress in their lives.
A good life being equated with a busy life is a common misconception that contributes to increased stress levels.
Dangerous levels of stress are becoming normalized, even though they can have severe health implications.
The audience is engaged in an experiment to assess the prevalence of burnout and stress-related impacts on various aspects of life.
Statistics from the Netherlands show a significant percentage of the population experiencing burnout symptoms, with a notable increase in the 25 to 35 age group.
Stress is linked to a variety of health issues, including weaker immune systems, obesity, certain cancers, and even premature death.
The frantic pace of life is attributed to multiple factors, including job complexity, overtime work, and the constant accessibility of work through technology.
Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) contributes to a packed daily schedule, leaving little room for relaxation and increasing stress.
Psychological factors, such as high self-expectations, also play a role in the constant feeling of being busy and stressed.
Stress is an involuntary response to stressors, which can range from health concerns to work-related pressures.
The body's fight-or-flight response to stress is a physiological reaction that has evolved from our ancestors' need to survive in the wild.
Modern stressors are less physical and more psychological, but the body's reaction remains the same, leading to prolonged stress exposure.
Burnout is described as a state where the stress response system is damaged, making normally non-stressful situations seem very stressful.
The speaker emphasizes the importance of self-care, including sleep, diet, exercise, and mindfulness, as a means to manage stress effectively.
Mindfulness exercises are introduced as a way to train the brain to focus and increase stress tolerance.
The choice to manage stress is presented as a critical decision that can significantly impact one's health and well-being.
Transcripts
fish are remarkable creatures they're
acutely aware of their surroundings they
can smell predators for miles away and
they know the availability of food or
potential mates and yet there's one
thing fish are not aware of what's that
they're in water right so I think there
are certain similarities between fish
and us people I think human beings also
don't notice some of the important
things and until our lives and I want to
talk to you about two of those things
one is a good life is a busy life and
the second is levels of stress even
dangerous levels of stress are
acceptable and they are normal so our
lives are getting more busy than ever
and part of this we like right we feel
productive we sort of like the frantic
pace as well there's never a dull moment
and we like that about it but there are
as a psychologist I can see a different
side to the same coin
which is stress and Eve even unhealthy
amounts of stress that are becoming
normal for us today so let's do a little
experiment can I have some house lights
on as well so let me see you okay let me
ask you some questions yes there you are
so the first one is raise your hand if
this applies to you are you affected by
burnouts either personally or by someone
else close to you who among you that's a
fair amount okay so next question the
stress have a negative impact on the one
of the following things right sleep rule
among you Wow let's loss okay diet okay
amount of exercise that you have okay
and the amount of spare time that you're
having your life
okay that's most of you basically so the
next one the million-dollar question who
among you would think that they would be
a happier person if they'd only be less
busy or less stressed in life
okay wow that's a lot of you so let's
let us look at another sort of point in
this one and let me walk you through
these figures I think you might know
them these are burnout symptoms in the
Netherlands like from the Central Bureau
of Statistics in 2016 they're split by
age groups and by sex as well so you
have the light blue those are the males
and dark blue are the females and I
apologize it there are in Dutch but
there you can see the sir I'm sorry the
age groups is 15 to 25 25 to 35 etc
right so what you see here and I can try
to yes okay so one of the first thing to
notice is that apart from pensioners and
well high school students and sort of
college students as well the amount of
burn out is about 15%
this is lifetime prevalence and another
things to notice is that 25 to 35 years
old there's significantly more burnout
so this is a problem and this is a
problem if you think that most people
don't really even get to the stage of
burnout but are stressed in their lives
and years for years and years and years
right so a couple of the different
things that are associated with stress
are a weaker immune system obesity and
other diet related problems even some
forms of cancer some types of cancer and
even in some studies premature death so
serious serious stuff so there are a
couple of things well for me the
question is why right I'm a psychologist
I like to investigate stuff so why are
we at this frantic pace well it turns
out it's not one thing it's multiple
things it's a lot of things so let's
start by our jobs it's one of the most
obvious places to look for a
work-related stress so our jobs are
getting more and more complicated we
work more overtime than ever we are we
spend an average of two plus hours
emailing every day
often on top of a regular workload and
the boundaries between our working hours
in our spare time are crumbling because
we can access our email and our stuff
from home right so that's our job then
our daily lives are getting more and
more frantic as well so we suffer from
FOMO which I'm sure you know FOMO right
fear of missing out which means that we
put all kinds of different activities
and we try to put it in a limited space
of our day which means that we live on a
frantic pace and that we sort of lacked
the opportunity to relax in between as
well well to add insult to injury as the
previous speaker talked about as well we
are addicted to these things which take
up every spare moment that we do have so
that's bad stuff and also between our
ears we get busier as well so there's a
psychological psychological elements at
play
for example the expectations that we
have about ourselves so we need need
ourselves to be attractive fit healthy
financially successful socially
successful and happy all of the time
every day right or else we feel like
losers so that's a bad thing so our
expectations are really playing us on us
as well so let's take a step back and
look at what stress really is because
we're talking about this for a little
bit so yeah stress by textbook
definition is an involuntary physical
and psychological response to a stressor
so a couple of things to notice here
it's something you don't choose to be
stressed you get just get stressed it's
something that happens in your body and
it's something that happens in your head
right and it's always always a response
to a certain stressor well what could be
stressors well these things so health
concerns
family conflicts doing a test Hawk
basically speaking in public is well
it's up there with the most stressful
things according to some people
demanding social lives work-related
stress stress or
and everything it's it entails right
it's deadlines difficult conversation
with clients or customers it's your boss
the pressure to achieve FOMO we've
talked about it never-ending to-do lists
who has those yeah me as well
right okay devices that continuously
want stuff from you even at times that
you are well would be unavailable right
so these things are potential stressors
so what happens when you encounter a
stressor
well this somewhere in your brain like a
couple of centimetres in here and your
hypothalamus one heart a couple of
hormones are excreted which initiates
chain reaction ending here at your
adrenal glands on top of your kidneys
excreting both adrenaline and cortisol
and under the influence of adrenaline
adrenaline and cortisol bodily changes
happen so like this your your heart rate
starts to rise your breath rate it goes
up your muscles tense your resources go
to your arms into your legs you get some
tunnel vision as well and some panicky
feelings so why would this happen does
anybody know surviving yes it sort of
prepares your body to do one of two
things right
fight or flight this is the this is the
famous fight-or-flight response so this
is how we still react when when
confronted with danger so this stems
from a different time right this stems
from the time when we were not hunting
for job opportunities but hunting for
our food and in which we are foraging
not for our lunch at the cafeteria but
foraging for berries and in the forests
right and the likelihood of encountering
a difficult or dangerous situation was
way higher than it is now so the
likelihood of encountering for example
one of these things was way higher so
this poses a problem because our
cultural evolution
so if went way faster than our physical
evolution so in different circumstances
now we are faced with the same system
only we don't meet that many Tigers
anymore right except in zoos but the
Tigers that we do meet are in these kind
of circumstances
so it's deadlines its job interviews its
conflicts with your bosses etc but our
body still reacts in the same way still
reacts in this way as if it's a tiger
so to add insult to injury here we
stress about different things about a
multiplicity of things and also we
stress for way longer and we know that
elongated exposure to stress is a really
bad thing and it leads to all sorts of
problems and it can eventually lead to
burnout so what's a burnout burnout is
basically one of the definitions is this
system getting damaged so that the
things that you would sort of normally
wouldn't find and find very stressful
you'd now think are very stressful so
that's a burnout it's a bad thing to
have it cost you a couple of months to
in recovery basically so that's the bad
news the good news is that you can do
stuff about this and I think that being
able to deal with stress effectively is
going to be one of the most important
skills that you have in the workplace
later on so what can you do well it
isn't that difficult baby basically so
one thing you can do is take care of
yourself which sounds like a huge cliche
but it is really true one thing you
should know about stress is that it
often presents as a cognitive problem so
yeah so you worry about something you
worry about you being in a certain
situation and what you should do but
actually your physique how you are
physically has a lot of influence and
fluence on that so if you feel fit you
deal with stress
better and you feel less stressed so
taking care of yourself entails the
following couple of things well get
enough sleep which but what is enough
sleep well about eight hours seven or
eight hours a night regularly so at a
regular going to bed and waking time so
the next thing is take care of your diet
which is eating a lot of veggies and
nutrients and not as much sugars well
have some regular exercise as well which
helps for your stress tolerance be
careful with alcohol drugs and those
type of things because they can sort of
influence your stress tolerance even in
the long run and be careful about your
intake of caffeine who among you have
have drunk more than say five cups of
coffee today
okay that's you're a healthy group so
that's a couple of you yeah okay
a caffeine really really messes with
your hormone balance and the last thing
is schedule some time in your week out
of any activity so that's time you
schedule to do nothing at all like veg
on the couch integrate stuff think about
stuff right so these are the basic
things another thing is this breathe so
this is a nice place in the presentation
because I can hear you all you okay so I
want to do an experiment again I want to
invite you to close your eyes and just
breathe regularly in through your nose
and out for your mouth
so what you can try to do is to elongate
your outward breath
well and as you're sitting there with
your eyes closed anyway I'd like to
invite you to pay attention to how you
are breathing at the moment to your in
words and outputs breath the way the
breath comes into your body and exits
maybe you can even detect a sort of a
rising and a falling sensation that goes
with that
so the next thing I want you to do is to
shift your attention to how you are
sitting at the moment so your bodily
sensations so it's your feet on the
floor
it's your back in the chair just notice
and if you get distracted by a thought
just bring back your attention that's
fine so the next thing I want you to do
is to notice that sounds that are going
on that you can notice now
and to shift your attention to the
thoughts that are occurring right now in
your head what kind of things are going
around in your head at the moment
okay and then at your own pace you can
get back to room okay right so I sort of
seduced to seduce you to do a small
mindfulness exercise we know that
certain types of activities like
mindfulness can train your brain to
focus more and to be less to be more
stress tolerance so it boosts your
stress tolerance mindfulness is one of
those things Yoga is another of those
things sometimes some types of
meditation or deep work types of
activities always to train your brain to
be more focused so again we're faced
with a choice just like with last
speaker I think the choice is real and
you have to make it and it's an
important choice and a choice is this
you either deal with stress or stress
deals with you stress is inevitable in
our daily lives but you can change the
way you relate to stress and that's
really a really important thing and you
can start by doing some of the things
I've talked about today and I think this
would be a really really good plan thank
you
[Applause]
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