Retrain Your Brain To Use Stress As A Benefit

Today I have some cool neuroscience tips to retrain your brain to handle stress as a positive, including the power of visualizing finger curls.

Did you know that the human brain receives about 11 million pieces of information every second from our environment but can only process about 40 bits per second?

Every single one of us experiences stress in our lives and the crazy part is that stress tends to hijack the thinking part of our brain up front and we switch to the reactive stress mode in the back, with an increased heartrate and breathing. All of this narrows our perspective, which kills creativity, we turn inward and have a tough time having compassion and seeing things from others’ point of view. In other words, stress affects our thoughts, emotions and behaviors in pretty drastic ways.

So the message most of us have received about stress is that stress is deadly, in fact it’s linked to the 6 leading causes of death, it negatively affects most of the organs in the human body and 70-90% of doctor visits are due to stress-related issues.

Just hearing all of this can create more stress, right?

But hold on! Not all stress is created equal! Science shows that some stress can actually be helpful. Moderate amounts of stress gets our brains moving and motivates us to get things done. For example, you find out some out of town guests are coming to visit in one hour. Stress kicks in and you work pretty fast to get the house cleaned up, right?

The research also shows that some stress can be helpful as it creates greater mental toughness, deeper relationships, increased awareness, new perspectives, a better appreciation of life, greater meaning and strengthened priorities.

So it’s important to step back and recognize that some stress can improve your productivity as a person and as a parent.

The key is learning to pay attention to our body stress signals and view it as a challenge, instead of a threat. Even slowing down and learning to think about the meaning behind the stress –all stress has meaning or it wouldn’t be stressful.

But how do we learn to view things differently? I’m glad you asked. Science shows that our brain receives about 11 million pieces of information every second from our environment, but we can only process about 40 bits per second. So we have to choose what to focus on and what to dismiss or ignore--but we are wired to focus on threats. So our reality and the stress we experience is basically only as stressful as we THINK it is.

So the more that we keep worrying about it and stewing about it, the more stressed out we become. So I can think about the negatives, with my 40 bits per second, or choose to think about more positives around me.

The brain is pretty amazing. Here’s a little experiment some researchers did to show the power of the brain on the body. First, hold out your finger and do this? Pretty simple finger curl right?

Well there were 3 groups of volunteers in this study. The group scheduled a time to come into the lab and pull a lever that measured their finger strength. Then they were instructed to do finger curls for 15 minutes each day, 5 days per week, for 12 weeks.

Volunteers from the second group come in, pull the lever yo measure their finger strength on day 1, then they are taken into another room and taught how to visualize finger curls. And they were assigned to visualize finger curls for 15 minutes per day, 5 days per week for 12 weeks. That one would be tough, right?

Well the third group of volunteers come in and measure their finger strength on day 1, then they are sent home (as the control group) and don’t know about the study.

Fast forward 12 weeks and the participants come back to the lab, one by one and pull the lever to measure their finger strength. It turns out that group 1, those who have been practicing, recorded a 53% increase in finger strength! Can you imagine walking around showing off your fat finger sausage!?

Well the control group comes in to pull the lever—remember they haven’t been doing anything, so no surprise, they didn’t increase their finger strength. Now group 2 comes in and pulls the lever. This group was instructed to visualize finger curls. Well they recorded a 35% increase in finger strength!

So this, and similar studies show that thinking about exercise activates the same area of the brain as real exercise! So what does this mean exactly? It means you can forget your gym pass, sell your treadmill and just think about exercise from now on! Ok, I’m teasing.

It really goes to show the power of the brain on our bodies. If we can improve our muscles in our bodies from thinking about it, just imagine what we can do when we experience stress!

When we experience stress, we can train our brains to pause, take some breaths, then tell ourselves that our heartrate is increasing and our breathing is increasing because it is preparing our body to engage in a task.

So remember, not all stress is harmful and when we do experience stress, slow down and learn to respond, rather than react. And...go ahead and give that exercising in your mind a try!

Take a moment and let me know what you think, leave a comment about what you do to process stress. Give this video a like and subscribe so you don’t miss any of these videos! And, if you have a topic on personal well-being or family life you’d like me to tackle on a video, let me know in the comments below.

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