we all know what it feels like to be
stressed out before a big presentation
you might get sweaty palms and
butterflies in your stomach
okay think but let's say your stress is
more constant like a toxic work
environment that fills you with dread
scientists are learning more and more
about how stress affects the body and it
turns out that some stress might
actually be good for us we tend to think
that stress is a bad thing but actually
it really matters what type of stress
we're under Alyssa studies how stress
affects the cells in our body and
whether it can actually speed up the
aging process there are basically two
types of stress chronic and acute
typically we experience bursts of acute
stress let's say you're taking a big
test cortisol the stress hormone pumps
and deer bloodstream an extra oxygen
flows into your brain your heart beats
faster and your palms get a little
sweaty once the test is over your
cortisol levels drop and your body goes
back to a more balanced State
researchers found that small amounts of
acute stress is actually a good thing
during that recovery from stress all
sorts of processes happen in the cell
that make us healthier your cells clean
up debris and produce special proteins
like what happens after you exercise
this helps our cells stay young and
healthy
chronic stress on the other hand is a
totally different story this type of
stress is ongoing like if you're
constantly worried about paying the
bills
the body is in a constant state of
vigilance and this type of stress can be
dangerous to your health
Alyssa studied a group of caregivers who
are under the constant stress of caring
for a chronically ill child she wanted
to know if this stress made them age
faster she teamed up with UCSF Nobel
Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn to
study the caregiver cells specifically
their telomeres telomeres are the
protective caps at the end of our
chromosomes
they protect our DNA from danger and
naturally get shorter with time so
they're a really good way to measure a
person's health and age but even though
they shorten overtime not everyone's
telomeres shorten at the same speed for
several years the researchers measured
the lengths the caregivers telomeres and
they found a direct correlation between
the number of years spent caring for
their child and decreased telomere
length but when they took a closer look
at the data they found that shorter
telomeres weren't caused by how much
burden was in the caregivers life but
how stressed the caregiver felt it
wasn't being a caregiver per se that
predicted one's telomere length but
whether someone felt overly stressed by
life so the caregivers who felt
particularly high levels of stress from
their life had significantly shorter
telomeres these caregivers had what is
known as a threat response that's when
you see stress as a danger to your
well-being your body stays on high alert
and it takes a long time to get back to
a regular state caregivers with longer
healthier telomeres had a challenge
response to stress this means that you
see stress as an obstacle to be dealt
with you still have a spike at cortisol
but you're able to recover from stress
quickly so the way you react to stress
matters a lot and sometimes just
recognizing how you respond can help
alleviate stress we believe that a lot
of stress that people carry around is
unconscious so nothing might be
happening and they might even say they
don't feel stressed but their body has
been conditioned to stay on high alert
their nervous system is vigilant they're
not in restorative mode but when we
become aware of our thinking where of
our thoughts and our typical responses
we can actually take away the power they
have over a body living a more healthy
life isn't about avoiding stress it's
about engaging with life by exposing
yourself to short-term stressors that's
the spice of life and our body responds
to that by activating and recovering in
a super healthy way how do you deal with
stress let us know in the comments and
be sure to check out our other video on
why the brain fixing
on negative thoughts and what we can do
about it