- Nowadays, more and more
workers report feeling stressed.
I can relate.
Like most people, I get nervous
when I'm being put on
the spot at a meeting
or need to respond to
my editor's criticism.
I'm about to go into a meeting
that I'm stressed about.
I have two deadlines to meet.
To learn how stress at
work affects our health,
I'm enrolling in a scientific experiment.
(sighs)
Big sigh of relief.
Let's see what the week brings.
- There's a whole cascade
of physiological responses
that occur under stress.
And each of us differs in
the way in which we respond.
(gentle music)
- Columbia University professor
Richard Sloan and his lab
developed a unique way to measure
the impact of stress on our health.
Can you tell us about the
experiment that I'm going
to be putting myself
through for the next week?
- What we're interested
in is trying to understand
the underlying physiology
of the experience of stress
throughout the regular day.
- [Daniela] For seven
days, I'll need to wear
a small portable heart monitor
and fill out a questionnaire
on a modified iPod.
For this study, Richard Sloan's
lab has developed an app
that will prompt me to
log my mood, who I'm with,
and how stressed I am
12 to 15 times a day.
- With the combination
of these two sets of data
we'll be able to get a
pretty interesting picture
of how your heart responds
to a variety of different circumstances.
- [Daniela] Under stress,
glands above the kidneys
release stress-related
hormones like adrenaline,
which increases our heart rate.
We sweat more, and the way
we metabolize food changes.
Our immune system goes into overdrive,
and that can cause inflammation.
This response is meant to protect us
against against an infection.
- That's good, as long as the response,
the inflammatory response,
doesn't outlast the challenge.
- If our immune system is
overactive for too long,
it won't be able to
protect us against a cold
or an infectious disease.
Is stress always bad?
- No.
Excessive stress is bad.
- [Daniela] A certain amount of stress
can help us be engaged and work better,
but chronic stress can have a
negative effect on our health.
- One of the classic cases of
extended stress is caregiving.
Stressful work experiences,
having a work environment that is ...
not supportive, having ...
a boss who is frequently ...
angry or hostile, critical
is another chronic stressor.
- Chronic stress puts us at risk
for developing a variety of diseases.
It changes the way our
bodies release insulin,
the hormone that regulate
level of sugar in the blood,
and that increases the risk
for developing diabetes.
The prolonged inflammation
linked to chronic stress
can damage blood vessels,
and that can up the risk of heart disease.
My job is demanding, the hours are long,
and I'm curious to know how I'm coping.
This is my first home video entry,
and I've been wearing
the heart monitor now
for probably five hours.
Logging and wearing a heart monitor
only added to my everyday stress.
I had to make sure the data and
circumstances were recorded.
I'm about to go into a stressful meeting.
Hopefully it'll go well.
But the experiment also
helped me understand
who and what stresses me out
and the impact of confronting
personal challenges.
(sighing)
Knowing that scientists were
going to sift through my data
made me work out harder.
It also made me more conscious
of my work-life balance.
I am basically gonna go back to work ...
seven hours after I left the office.
It's Wednesday night at ...
9:04 p.m., and I'm still at the office.
2:17 a.m. on Saturday, September ...
It's July.
It's July.
Do I look like a stress case in this data?
- You don't report a lot of stress.
Over the seven-day period
when you were prompted
about whether you were
experiencing stress right now,
only 12 times did you report yes to that
out of about 70 or so.
- Overall, my cardiogram
was perfectly normal.
But even though I wasn't
consistently stressed all week,
I remember moments when
my heart rate changed.
For instance, when I had
to pitch a new project,
the heart monitor picked up on that.
I'm sitting in Bryant Park.
A long walk outside
after some weekend work
helped me cope with stress.
I feel pretty relaxed and energized.
It's really nice to be outside.
For my heart rate, it meant
that variability went up,
which is good, because stress
usually does the opposite.
For instance, when I was getting
a story ready to publish,
it felt like a pit in my stomach,
and my heart rate was still.
So are some of the traps of
stress of our own making?
- Yes, in a sense.
Some are, and some are not.
If you work in an incredibly
stressful environment
because your supervisors are
nasty, and you have deadlines,
and you have relatively limited control
over your work experience
but lots of demands,
those things aren't really
not of your own making,
and it's generally much more
beneficial and more effective
to change the environment
if it's at all possible.
- [Daniela] If changing
environments or jobs
isn't an option, then research suggests
reframing your experience
or even relaxation exercises
might help reduce the
impact of chronic stress.
It was reassuring to know
my heart was resilient
to the challenges of my work week,
or perhaps my workout
balance stopped my stress.
- You could argue the
heart rate variability
is a measure of resilience.
It's a measure of the flexibility
of the cardiovascular system
to respond to a challenge,
and that is what resilience is.
From an evolutionary perspective,
having higher levels of
heart rate variability
gives you more room to raise
or lower your heart rate
in response to a challenge
that you might experience.
- Relaxing a little bit more today.
I don't have a pressing deadline.
Hopefully no breaking news.
There are many ways to improve
our resilience to stress.
Science shows that mindfulness exercises
like yoga and meditation can help.
Sleep is important.
Also, consider hitting the gym.
- Increasing your
cardio-respiratory fitness
is associated with an increase
in heart rate variability.
As a cardiology colleague
of mine used to say,
the heart is happiest when it dances.
(gentle music)
