nowadays more and more workers report
feeling stressed
I can relate like most people I get
nervous when I'm being put on the spot
at a meeting or need to respond to my
editors criticism I'm about to go into a
meeting that I'm stressed about I have
to deadlines to me to learn how stress
at work affects our health
I am enrolling in a scientific
experiment big sigh of relief see what
the regrets there's a whole cascade of
physiological responses that occur under
stress and each of us differs in the way
in which we respond Columbia University
professor Richard Sloan in his lab
developed a unique way to measure the
impact of stress on our health can you
tell us about the experiment that I'm
going to be putting myself through in
the next week what we're interested in
is trying to understand the underlying
physiology of the experience of stress
throughout the regular day for seven
days I'll need to wear a small portable
heart monitor and fill out a
questionnaire on a modified iPod for
this study
Richard Sloan's lab has developed an app
that will prompt me to log my mood who
I'm with and how stressed I am 12 to 15
times a day with the combination of
these two sets of data we'll be able to
get a pretty interesting picture of how
your heart responds to a variety of
different circumstances under stress
glands above the kidneys release
stress-related hormones like adrenaline
which increases our heart rate we sweat
more and the way we metabolize food
changes our immune system goes into
overdrive and that can cause
inflammation this response is meant to
protect us against an infection that's
good as long as the response the
inflammatory response doesn't outlast
the challenge if our immune system is
overactive for too long it won't be able
to protect us against a cold or an
infectious disease is stressed always
bad no excessive stress is bad a certain
amount of stress can help us be engaged
and work better but chronic stress can
have a negative impact on our health one
of the classic cases of extended stress
is caregiving stressful work experiences
having
a work environment that is not
supportive having a boss who is
frequently angry or hostile critical as
another chronic stressor chronic stress
puts us at risk for developing a variety
of diseases it changes the way our
bodies release insulin the hormone that
regulates levels of sugar in the blood
and that increases the risk for
developing diabetes the prolonged
inflammation linked to chronic stress
can damage blood vessels and that can up
the risk of heart disease my job is
demanding the hours are long and I'm
curious to know how I'm coping this is
my first video entry and I've been
wearing the heart monitor now for
probably five hours logging and wearing
a heart monitor only added to my
everyday stress I had to make sure the
data and circumstances were recorded I'm
about to go into but the experiment also
helped me understand who and what
stresses me out and the impact of
confronting personal challenges knowing
that scientists were going to sit
through my data and made me work out
harder it also made me more conscious of
my work-life balance I am basically
going to go back to work seven hours
after I left the office it's Wednesday
night at 904 p.m. and I'm still in the
office 2:17 a.m. on Saturday September
it's July still why do I look like a
stress case in this data you don't
report a lot of stress over the
seven-day period when you were prompted
about whether you're experiencing stress
right now only 12 times did you report
yes to that out of about 70 or so
overall my cardiogram was perfectly
normal but even though I wasn't
consistently stressed all week
I remember moments when my heart rate
changed for instance when I had to pitch
a new project the heart monitor picked
up on that
brien are a long walk outside after some
weekend work helped me cope with stress
pretty relaxed for my heart rate it
meant that variability went up which is
good because stress usually does the
opposite for instance when I was getting
a story you ready to publish it felt
like a pit in my stomach
and my heart rate was still so are some
of the traps of stress of our own making
yes in a sense some are and some are not
I mean if you work in an incredibly
stressful environment because your
supervisors are nasty and you have
deadlines and you have relatively
limited control over your work
experience but lots of demands those
things you are really not of your own
making and it's generally much more
beneficial and more effective to change
the environment if it's at all possible
if changing environments or jobs isn't
an option then research suggests
reframing your experience or even
relaxation exercises might help reduce
the impact of chronic stress it was
reassuring to know my heart was
resilient to the challenges of my work
week or perhaps my workout balanced out
my stress you could argue that heart
rate variability as a measure of
resilience it's a measure of the
flexibility of the cardiovascular system
to respond to a challenge and that is
what resilience is from an evolutionary
perspective having higher levels of
heart rate variability gives you more
room to raise or lower your heart rate
in response to a challenge that you
might experience relaxing a little bit
more today I don't have a pressing
deadline hopefully no breaking news
there are many ways to improve our
resilience to stress science shows that
mindfulness exercises like yoga and
meditation can help sleep is important
also consider hitting the gym increasing
your cardio respiratory fitness is
associated with an increase in heart
rate variability as well cardiology
colleague of mine used to say the heart
is happiest when it dances
you