When Stress Becomes Bad

Video Transcript

"You now know that there is good stress and bad stress, let us talk about bad stress. if there were a sabertooth tiger in this room and I reacted physically that would be good, because it might save my life. If there were no sabertooth tiger in this room and all that happened was I did was open a letter with bad news and I reacted as if that there is a sabertooth tiger and it was going to kill me and eat me that would be a problem. Here is the problem, if i believe that this letter that I opened is dangerous to me in some way if I think it was to efftect my life if I think somehow it is going to cause problem that I might not be able to solve, then I might react as it were the sabertooth tiger. So there is no tiger in here but I am reacting as if there is. So what happens, my muscles gets tense, my blood pressure and my heart rate go up, I start to sweat my pupils dialate all of my body's chemical systems become unbalanced as if I am going to have to fight for my life. What is the problem with that. Well the problem with it is, all of this gearing up that I have just done, will not help me solve the problem that appeared in a form a note in an envelope. Pretty much no matter what that note is, if it is a math problem need to be solved, if it is a letter from somebody telling me that I have to deal with something there are no sabertooth tigers there, but here I am geared up to fight one. If I recognize that, I say wow wait a second I really do not have to tighten my muscle, increase my blood pressure in a sense, or unbalance my body because this is something that I have to think about and solve it. Then my body can relax,my mind can clear and I can go about solving the problem. If I continue to believe that I've got a sabertooth tiger in the room then my body will continue to react as if there is one and none of this change, none of these blood pressure physical things that change will help me solve that problem. I'll stay like this and the problem will not get solved."