GROW Counseling
GROW Counseling
What is stress? An interview with Dr. Wendy Dickinson
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In this episode, we get to flip the interview tables on Dr. Dickinson and ask her all the questions about stress! What is stress? How does it affect us? How do we deal with it? Wendy and Michele dive in deep and walk through some helpful info and tips for all of us to utilize in these times of uncertainty!
Hi there, you're listening to the Grow Counseling Podcast. I'm Michelle Jones, your host for the day. Recently, I was able to sit down with Dr. Wendy Dickinson, and I asked her several questions about stress, what it is, how we deal with it, how it affects our bodies, and got some really great information that I wanted to share with you. So I hope you will tune in and listen to our interview. Without further ado, here it is. Okay, so let's talk about stress because I think it's something we are all feeling a lot more of lately. Tell us what stress is and why it's important for us to know what it is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we're living in one of the most stressful times in history. And you think about all of the things that we're bombarded with all the time, we're dealing with a lot of stress. Um, you know, stress happens when the demands, our perception of the demands or what's required of us, or something that's scary or dangerous exceeds what we think we have to cope with it, or what we what we see as our tools or resources in order to be able to manage it. So the more that our demands go up beyond the the resources that we feel like we have to manage it, the more that our stress goes up. Um, we I I always talk to my clients about kind of a scale, super simple but really effective green, yellow, red. You know, green is like a really great place to live in terms of a stress scale. Maybe it's um you think about being at the beach or you think about being in your happy place, um, you know, going for a walk outside in the sunshine. It's sort of just that like warm, fuzzy space where stress is low. If you think about yellow, it's obviously an increase from green, and then red is kind of this danger zone that we live in. So we know that over time, if you live in yellow and red, it takes a toll on a lot of things, but the stress just continues um to build up. And I would say most Americans live in like high yellow or orange most of the time. And so it doesn't take a lot to push us into red. Maybe there's a job change, or it could be something positive, like somebody gets pregnant, or you decide to move somewhere, but it adds an extra layer of stress, which pushes us into the red zone.
SPEAKER_01Something that I always think is interesting is that green, yellow, and red looks different for everybody because a move for someone might be really exciting and you know it's their happy spot, and a move for someone else may be traumatic and they don't want to do it. And so it's just like it doesn't seem like it's something that you can a one size fits all type of thing for how to be a green, yellow, or a red for everybody.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I think that's totally true. Um, you know, I one of the things that that's important to understand, and we can we can circle back to that perception piece because I think that's part of what you're talking about, is kind of how do we assess for stress. But one of the things that is important to understand is like stress does have a major impact in our in our bodies and our lives and our world. And over time, if we stay in stress, stress becomes crisis. And then if we stay in crisis mode, that eventually becomes a traumatic experience. So I think we kind of all walk around with this idea of like, oh, this badge of honor, you know, how how are you doing? Oh, I'm so stressed out. You know, it's kind of everybody's like first response is like stress out, it's you know, part of my life, I can't do anything about it. But the reality is unless we figure out how to manage that well and to keep it kind of in the green with maybe a bump or two into yellow, over time we're gonna go into crisis and then we're gonna experience trauma, which has some significant and long-term effects if we're not careful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that makes sense. So what do we do? What do we do when we're talking about stress and what what does it take for us to go from red to yellow or yellow to green?
SPEAKER_00So I think this is where it's super important to accurately assess what the stressor is. Because, like you said earlier, you know, it's not the same thing. I'm I'm kind of a little bit of a weirdo in that I like to move because there's a piece of me that's like, great, I get to go through my stuff, I get to get everything organized, I'm gonna, you know, kind of there's a lot of hope in like a new thing. Um, but but moving for other people is an extremely stressful experience. And so what might push me into yellow, because there are a lot of pieces or moving parts or things to figure out, might push somebody like to the very top of red because they it feels out of control, it feels different. And so it's interesting to look at something that's a similar event in people's life, but they respond to it really differently. And what we know from research is that largely that's based on how they perceive the event. Do they perceive it to be a really significant stressor, something really big that's really outside of their ability to manage? Or do they perceive it as something that they can manage and it's gonna take a little more effort, but it's not that far exceeding their um coping resources? So it's really important to be accurate when we're assessing what the stressor is. One of the things that I find so fascinating is that your brain actually doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's imagined. So it's one of the reasons that like if you're having a dream at night, you wake up, you know, you've been dreaming that somebody's chasing you, and you wake up and like the covers are all a wreck and you're sweaty and you're, you know, breathing hard, it's because your brain is actually responding biochemically the same way as if somebody was actually chasing you in real life. So, so when you think about the application to that, if you are telling yourself, if your brain is constantly perceiving that you're stressed out, that there's kind of this invisible monster chasing you, it's gonna keep releasing all of these stress hormones, preparing your body to run away. It's gonna keep your body in a state of stress, even if you're looking around going, yeah, there's no monster here, your body's still kind of responding that same way. So that's why it's really important to not just kind of be on autopilot and you know, kind of just roll with the flow and sort of try to push it out of your mind, but to really go, okay, how am I perceiving this? How am I assessing this stressor that feels like there's this monster that's chasing me?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I that's a great story because I I can't think of how many times I will wake up from a dream, either in the middle of the night or just in the morning, and I'm like, did I just divorce my husband? I mean, I can't tell you how many times we'll have a conversation and we're just like, I had a really bad dream last night. Really? It's so crazy. And it's just like, especially in the middle of the night when it feels like everything is just more scary and important, and you can just lay there and like, oh, what's happening?
SPEAKER_00Well, and I think that's a really good point because a lot of times when we wake up and we start accurately assessing things, we realize that we are okay. And that's true of stress too. I always tell my clients if you look around in almost every moment, you you take a breath and you ask yourself, am I safe? Am I okay right now in this moment? Usually the answer is yes. Now, that's not to minimize anything that could be scary or potentially difficult or you know, whatever in the future, but that's all in the future. Right now, in this moment, almost all the time we can say yes, or we can look for reasons that we're gonna be okay. And so I think that shift is super important so that we're focused on, hey, what's really true here? You know, not what I feel like I had in my dream or you know, what I'm I'm afraid of or what might happen in the future, but like what's true right now in this moment.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so why does our body respond that way to stress?
SPEAKER_00So the reality is that we are hardwired for survival. And if our body has to err on the side of preparing us for uh a battle or to run away from a tiger or to fight an invisible monster, it's gonna err on the side of being prepared versus not being prepared and maybe getting taken advantage of. So that that's a good thing because we want to survive. And on a very, I always call it like this lizard brain level, our primal most, you know, primal level of our brain, we're hardwired for survival. So when we perceive a threat, our body's gonna mobilize, the sympathetic nervous system's gonna take over. Um, you know, we're gonna do things like not digest food as well because our body's preparing for battle. And so it's gonna marshal all of the resources that it can, all of our blood sugar, you might notice your breathing changes or your chest gets tight or your hands start to sweat, and all of that's your body getting ready for battle. That's fine as long as we're running away from a tiger. And then when we've climbed the tree and we're away from the tiger, the battle is over and we can start breathing again. The problem is when we live constant 24-7 kind of news cycles where we're we're in stress all the time and we're constantly in this parasystem, the sympathetic nervous system is activated. It actually takes a long-term toll on our body. So, what we need to do is we have to figure out how do we disengage the sympathetic nervous system that prepared us for battle and engage the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the part that helps us recover from battle so that we're not constantly in this fight or flight mode.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's good. So, thinking through all that, what are the practical things that we can do to get to that point or to engage that, you know, when we're in a moment of thinking through what our finances are going to look like, you know, during this time or what the future is gonna look like for our children? Um, what what are some things that we need to be thinking through?
SPEAKER_00It's a great question. When you think about what you've seen on the Nature Channel or Nat Geo or whatever, and there's this animal chase, and then it's over, what you see are all the animals kind of lounging around, laying on the ground, cleaning themselves, sitting in the sun. So they've they've engaged in the battle, but then they take intentional time to stop and recover and regroup. And really what that's doing is it's discharging the stress, it's engaging the parasympathetic nervous system. On a human level, I would say it first of all, it's really, really important that we not be on autopilot and kind of just continuing to engage in all this stress, like moving from one stressful thing to another. Again, paying attention to even positive things can be stressful. So what we tend to think of is like, like you mentioned, like the financial issues or, you know, not knowing about what the job market's gonna look like. But it can also be moving from one, you know, having a baby, moving to a new town, taking a new job, all of those things, the stress really starts to pile up. So what I always recommend to people is a principle that we talk about in terms of being grounded. And if you think about being grounded, your feet are on the ground and your head's kind of looking around. So you're taken in from the kind of outside area, what what's really happening here? And it's it's like we were talking about earlier with assessing what's true and what's really um, instead of looking at what's outside of your control or what might happen, to look around and assess, okay, what can I do about any of these things? Or what do I need to let go of? So being really intentional to focus on what resources do we have. We can either decrease the stress in our lives, or we can increase our perception of the coping resources that we have to manage that stress. So one way to do that is to look around and see who's the support for me. Do you have a community? Do you have a support system? Do you have people that care about you that cause you to feel like there's more life in you in your world? Um, think about the the ways that you make yourself feel okay. Um, what are those stress-relieving activities? Going for a long walk, sitting in the sunshine, taking a bath, lighting a candle. They don't have to be monumental things. They can sometimes just be these little acts throughout the day. One of the things that I know I'm really sensitive to is lighting. So if I change the lighting in a room, if it's really dark and gloomy and I turn on the lamps or open the shades, like that makes a huge difference for me in the same way that it like if it's super, super bright, that that kind of grates on my nerves. And so it increases my stress level. So for me, just changing something in the environment helps, but you have to really be aware of what those things are so that you can make the adjustments. So staying positive, but focusing on what's going on right now and getting through this moment right now, instead of focusing on something that might be a week in the future, a month in the future, a year in the future. If you make good decisions right now, that's gonna lead you into good decisions in the future. And when you're grounded, you're a lot better at problem solving and seeing things for what they are and being creative about how you're gonna get to a good place. When we're stressed out, it becomes really hard to do that.
SPEAKER_01I've gotten better about sometimes just pausing and taking a deep breath and going, okay, what is happening right now? What can I have some sort of control over? And if I cannot, can I go take a bath and deal with it that way?
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Take a break. I mean, you're really talking about just taking a break, which is a great stress-relieving strategy. You know, if things start to feel like they're in high yellow or headed towards red, take a five-minute break. Most things aren't gonna fall apart in five minutes, and then you're gonna come back a little bit clearer, a little bit more ready to deal with it, a little bit better at problem solving. Like it's just gonna make you a little sharper.
SPEAKER_01So it seems like when we're talking about all this, there's a lot of stuff that's happening in our mind and in our body. Is this having an impact on our health? What is this doing to our bodies, our future, our immunity, all the things that we think about right now?
SPEAKER_00Yes. The answer a hundred times over is yes. I think if you charted over time our increase in stress and you match that up with our increase in illness, there would be a one-to-one comparison. Stress has an immediate and negative and lasting impact on our immune system. And, you know, we've seen over the years a rise in autoimmune issues and, you know, um infections and all kinds of things that I think when times were simpler and we didn't have a million things bombarding us on in technology and to-do list and emails and text and notifications and all the things that cause my blood pressure to rise right now. Um, you know, we go, we throw back to my grandparents' generation where, you know, my grandfather would get up and then he would go and he was a farmer, so he'd plow the fields and you know, play with the dirt and you know, pick things and then come in and have lunch and then take a nap, and then he'd go back out again in the afternoon. And I I really think that it allowed our bodies to be able to rest and recover in a way that we don't get a break from now. And what we're seeing is that even the American Medical Association um has classified stress as a contributor to more than 75% of the illnesses out there. And the World Health Organization has identified stress as a number one factor in most of the illnesses that we're dealing with. So these major organizations are saying, hey, this is a problem. We need to pay attention to it. And again, we're kind of just on autopilot going, yeah, I'm super stressed out. Everything in my life is stressful and stress, stress, stress, but I'm just gonna kind of deal with it and you know, go on my way and wake up tomorrow and be stressed out. So I I wish that there was a way we could really wave a flag, a bright red flag, to say, hey people, this is this is an issue and it's ultimately something we can deal with. You know, we can change, like I said earlier, we can either decrease the stress in our life or we can take some intentional steps to increase our ability to deal with it. Um, but we have to do something. Otherwise, we're just I I think we're on a really bad path to having major compromised immune systems and seeing sickness and illness go way up.
SPEAKER_01I think about people who are sick or you know, who've been diagnosed with cancer or something. And so now they're dealing with the disease and they're dealing with the stress.
SPEAKER_00Right. And I I think that that comes back to this isn't a one-size-fits-all approach. You know, life is stressful sometimes, either for the for the good or the negative, the positive or the negative stress. I think it's really about being aware of what is it that I can do that brings my personal stress level down? Um, you know, what are the things in my environment that I can change that help me feel more grounded and less stressed? I also think about a principle called emotional contagion, which I like because we've, you know, kind of in in the recent world, we've been talking a lot about things that are contagious and washing our hands and hand sanitizer and all this. I want us to start thinking about from an emotional side about this contagion piece because there are people that we're around and we have conversations with and we walk away and we just feel warm and fuzzy and grounded and calm and life is better because we talk to them. And then there are people, and you all know who they are in your life, where the opposite is true. You know, you get a text and your blood pressure goes up just saying their name, or you start a conversation and then all of a sudden you're down a path where everything's filled with fear and anxiety and stress. And that is contagious. When somebody is anxious and fearful and angry, it's contagious. And unfortunately, the negative emotions are more contagious usually than the positive ones. And so I think we have to be really thoughtful about I'm not saying eliminate those people from our lives, but we have to limit the amount of contact that we have with them, or we have to think about when it's the best for us to have that kind of contact. Maybe it's not when our resources are low or we're tired or we've been through something hard. Maybe we want to be really strategic about when we engage those people so that we're protecting ourselves. So there's there's a lot of ways that when you start to think about how can I increase these coping resources, how can I take better care of myself? There are a lot of ways we can do that. I think one of the things that gets in the way is that people sometimes feel selfish or like they don't deserve it, especially parents, maybe even moms. Um, and I think we need to just start building each other up around that and going, hey, you know, gosh, you're talking about stress a lot. Like, what can I do to help you bring that down some? Like, what do you need? How can I help you with that? Um, I'd love to see the conversation shift so that we're talking more about how we help each other manage stress than just sort of this identification that we all have so much of it that we're overwhelmed.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for tuning in to my interview with Dr. Dickinson. It was a real pleasure sitting down talking with her, and we're excited to keep sharing this type of information with you to put resources out that can help you thrive in a time of uncertainty. You can find us at growcounseling.comslash resources, or just go straight to growcounseling.com and we'll point you in the right direction.