TED Talk: Kelly McGonigal, “How to make stress your friend”

https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend

 

In her speech, Kelly McGonigal talks about how the different ways in which we view stress or deal with it change the effects that it has on us. In the beginning of her speech, she cites a shocking study that followed thousands of people and how stress affected them. It showed that people who experienced high levels of stress were nearly 50% more at risk of dying. However, the shocking exception to this statistic was that it only applied to those in the study who viewed stress as harmful. For the people that experienced high levels of stress yet did not perceive it as unhealthy, they were actually at a lower risk of death than those who experienced low levels of stress. A similar study she cites talks about how helping and serving others also counteracts the possible negative health risks of stress.  

Based on these studies and this data, McGonigal advocates that we not avoid stressful situations, but view stress in a different light. Instead of viewing your increased heart rate or sweating from stress as an unhealthy response, think of it as your body adequately preparing you for the task at hand. This was a very intriguing perspective for me to consider because I could relate to the exact examples she was giving about our bodies’ natural response to stressful scenarios. I think the ideas she gives – backed by evidence – for how to positively harness the nature of stress is something that is genuinely life changing, or even life saving as she states in her speech. 

This speech did a great job expanding my knowledge of this topic of stress and how to handle it. I feel like I had a good understanding of some ways to lessen stress or ease it before, but this basically implies in my mind that it is purely negative and should be kept as low as possible as often as possible. This speech opened my mind to a new way of thinking about stress and how to make it positive and the use of evidence, data, and specific relatable examples made the speech very understandable and also convincing. 

I think Mcgonigal’s presentation style is great in this speech. She does a great job balancing the inclusion of data and evidence, relatable anecdotes and stories, and audience interaction to make her speech both trustworthy and convincing, but also engaging. I think the difference in this speech versus giving a presentation is that it is free flowing and continuous. There is no flipping through slides or reading bullet points. That being said it does include some aspects more traditionally associated with a presentation such as the use of visuals and audience interaction.