Stress and Resilience: Elissa Epel and Dacher Keltner
Jun 13, 2021
auto_awesome
Researchers Elissa Epel and Dacher Keltner discuss stress, resilience, and the communal response needed for emotional challenges during the pandemic. They explore the impact of chronic stress on aging, power dynamics on health outcomes, positive emotions on stress resilience, transformative power of awe, human relationships, mind-body connection, and the importance of community and human emotions.
Chronic stress is a result of ongoing mental processes that prolong the effects of stressful events, leading to long-term bodily dysregulation and emotional health impacts.
Addressing chronic stress involves focusing on mental stress and uncertainty, emphasizing the need for communal responses for emotional well-being.
Immune response to stress, such as vaccination outcomes, is influenced by chronic stress levels and overall well-being, highlighting the importance of resilience-building practices.
Deep dives
Understanding the Impact of Chronic Stress and Resilience
Chronic stress leads to a full body dysregulation over time due to ongoing rumination and anticipation of stressors. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the chronic stress of uncertainty faced by individuals, impacting emotional health. Addressing chronic stress involves focusing on mental stress and uncertainty, acknowledging the need for communal responses for emotional well-being.
Exploring the Nature of Chronic Stress and Resilience
Chronic stress is a result of ongoing mental processes that prolong the effects of stressful events, leading to long-term bodily dysregulation. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated chronic stress due to the prevalent uncertainty individuals face, affecting mental health. The need to address chronic stress lies in understanding how ongoing mental stressors impact emotional well-being, highlighting the importance of managing uncertainty effectively.
Factors Influencing Immune Response and Stress Recovery
Immune response to stress, such as vaccination outcomes, is influenced by chronic stress levels and overall well-being. Stress recovery hinges upon providing the body with breaks and engaging in resilience-building practices. Simple strategies like taking breaks and practicing mindfulness can aid in stress recovery and positively impact immune function.
The Role of Telomeres in Understanding Biological Aging
Telomeres serve as biomarkers of biological age, reflecting the impacts of stress and overall well-being on cellular health. Factors like chronic stress, emotional support, and lifestyle choices can impact telomere length and cellular aging processes. Understanding telomere dynamics sheds light on how stress hormones and perceptions of stress can influence biological age and overall health.
Power Dynamics, Social Influence, and Health Outcomes
Power dynamics play a significant role in shaping health outcomes, influencing our physiological responses and behaviors. Factors like social status, subjective power, and objective power impact how individuals experience stress and their overall well-being. Social inequities, status relationships, and power dynamics can affect stress levels and health disparities, emphasizing the importance of addressing social influences on health.
Over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, people have faced unprecedented emotional challenges. Our guests this week are both experts in the relationship between physical and emotional well-being. Dr. Elissa Epel’s research includes the ways that chronic stress affects the process of aging. She’s a professor of psychology at UC San Francisco. Dr. Dacher Keltner studies the biological and evolutionary origins of feelings like compassion, awe, and love. He’s the director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. On May 10, 2021, the two discussed stress and how we can improve our resilience and response to it, and how the solution for pandemic stress should be a communal and not an individual one.
Get the Snipd podcast app
Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
AI-powered podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Discover highlights
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode
Save any moment
Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways
Share & Export
Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more
AI-powered podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Discover highlights
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode