Summary of 'How to Make Stress Your Friend' by Kelly McGonigal

Kelly McGonigal is a health psychologist. She tells that stress can make someone sick. She tells about the study that made her rethink about stress. That study tracked 30000 adults in the United States, they started by asking people “how much stress have you experienced in the last year?”, “do you believe that stress is harmful for your health?”, and then they used public death records to find out who died. People who experienced a lot of stress in the previous year had a 43% increased risk of dying. That can occured for the people who believed that stress is harmful for their health. Stress is bad for our health. When someone changes his/her mind about stress, he/she can change his/her body’s response to stress. When the participants viewed their stress response as helpful, their blood vessels stayed relaxed, their health was still pounding.

Stress makes us social because in our brain has oxytocin it would fine-tunes our brain’s social instincts. It primes us to do things that strengthen close relationships. People who spent time caring for others showed absolutely no stress-related increase in dying.