Heart disease is Australia’s leading killer for both men and women. Every 10 minutes we lose an Australian to heart disease. The impact of long-term stress on the heart can be debilitating and there are a myriad of ways you can manage stress - some of which are on one of our previous blog posts here. Most of the time we view stress as being “bad”. We view it as something that is telling us that something is “not quite right”. It is activating to the point where it can make us feel overwhelmed. However it does not have to be viewed as being “bad”. Stress is our bodies way of sending us a warning to “do something” about whatever it is that is making us feel stressed. When these alarm bells ring, we can often get confused in thinking that if we spend a lot of time thinking about the things that are stressing us out then we are problem solving, when in actual fact we’re not. Problem solving a stressful situation is not about spending hors and hours over thinking. Problem solving involves embracing stress and rising to the challenge of whatever the problem is as opposed to avoiding. We need to learn ways to make stress our “friend”.
In doing research about how to convey the message of making stress your friend for this blog, I came across this really awesome You Tube video (below) where psychologist Kelly McGonigal shares insights on how to embrace stress. Basically the premise of her message and research is that when you are feeling stressed - reach our for support and connect with helpful people around you because when you reach out and connect with others your body releases a hormone called Oxytocin which begins to repair a lot of the damage that is done by the stress hormones of cortisol and adrenaline. So to protect our bodies and to care for our hearts, we need to reach out and connect with meaningful and trustworthy people.
If stress is something that you’ve been wanting to manage better then get in touch with our team here at MWG to make an appointment by calling us on (03) 9882-8874.
This blog was written and prepared by Dr Celin Gelgec - Senior Clinical Psychologist and Director at Melbourne Wellbeing Group.
To donate for heart research visit “Wear Red for Heart” here.