Is (some) Stress Good for You?
November 4, 2021
Is Some Stress good for you?
The short answer is Yes! In this episode, Rob explains how to make the stress of everyday life work for you.
Connect with Rob Bee:
- Website: https://theartofhealth.fit/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-bee-a...
Rob Bee is a father, grandfather, and former professional musician; Rob is a graduate of Yale in the Science of Wellbeing, has an Arts degree, and runs an Art Gallery. He keeps himself slim, trim, and happy without weird diets or difficult exercise regimes, but by doing a few simple scientifically proven things every day (and if you'd like to do the same, he'll show you how).
In this episode, Rob talks about Grit, Resilience and SUPER-Resilience.
If you'd like to try Rob's Breakfast of Brilliance (it's inflammation-busting brain and body food!) - you can download the recipe here:
http://breakfastofbrilliance.com
Transcript:
Hi, Rob, here from the art of health question is stress good for you? It's a great question today. I'm going to talk about three things. I'm going to talk about grit Then I'll talk about resilience, and then I'm going to talk about super resilience. Firstly, grit, grit is a great skill to develop, especially, when you've got a positive goal, something that you want to achieve in the future that is going to benefit you, and it's going to benefit the people around you and other people. You need some grit, for example, for personal fitness. You know the the benefits of that - you're going to feel better. You have a better body shape, and when you feel well and better, you'll be able to help those around you to feel well and better too it's infectious, but you need some grit to carry on with that training to keep doing it regularly.
- Website: https://theartofhealth.fit/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-bee-a...
Rob Bee is a father, grandfather, and former professional musician; Rob is a graduate of Yale in the Science of Wellbeing, has an Arts degree, and runs an Art Gallery. He keeps himself slim, trim, and happy without weird diets or difficult exercise regimes, but by doing a few simple scientifically proven things every day (and if you'd like to do the same, he'll show you how).
In this episode, Rob talks about Grit, Resilience and SUPER-Resilience.
If you'd like to try Rob's Breakfast of Brilliance (it's inflammation-busting brain and body food!) - you can download the recipe here:
http://breakfastofbrilliance.com
Transcript:
Hi, Rob, here from the art of health question is stress good for you? It's a great question today. I'm going to talk about three things. I'm going to talk about grit Then I'll talk about resilience, and then I'm going to talk about super resilience. Firstly, grit, grit is a great skill to develop, especially, when you've got a positive goal, something that you want to achieve in the future that is going to benefit you, and it's going to benefit the people around you and other people. You need some grit, for example, for personal fitness. You know the the benefits of that - you're going to feel better. You have a better body shape, and when you feel well and better, you'll be able to help those around you to feel well and better too it's infectious, but you need some grit to carry on with that training to keep doing it regularly.
Every day, it's not easy. You can easily fall off, but if you've got some grit, you'll carry on and it's stressful. Another example would be, um, having a sales job, being a salesperson, um, you know, the benefits of, of selling whatever product you're selling, the person who's, who's buying it from you. They're going to benefit from, from having whatever it is. You're going to benefit by doing the sale because you'll earn some money from it. Keep the roof over your head. everyone benefits from making sales, but you need some grit, some determination you have to be able to, get in front of those people regularly. You've got to be able to cope with rejection sometimes as a salesman. So it takes some determination and grit.
Learning a musical instrument. There's another example. You've just got to keep doing it and doing it and doing it and eventually, wow, it sets you free. It's wonderful thing. I'm a musician - I know about these things. So the longterm benefits of having grit of carrying on and being persistent with something, when you've got a goal that benefits you and other people - the the benefits of doing this, we know are good, but here's the rub. It's stressful. It creates stress in your life.
How do we deal with it? How can we make that stress work for us and not stop us from carrying on? Here's a couple of ideas. I would say that resilience is the most important quality that we need to develop in order to get over that stress. And in fact, make it work for us. I'll tell you what I mean in a minute, resilience is an engineering term. It applies to a material that has been put under pressure - stressed, and then when the pressure or the stress goes away, it returns to its original shape. So, resilient material returns to its original form. So for example, a tall building that it might move a bit in the wind. It swayed to one side in the wind, but when the wind stops, it's designed, it's a resilient building. It stays up, it goes back to where it should be - upright. A ball, rubber ball. Here's a rubber ball. If I throw this at the floor, oh, you didn't see that, but it bounced. I wonder if you can see - did you see that? It bounces. but what happens is when it hits the floor, it, it changes shape, squashes. And then, it returns to its original shape because it's resilient.
It bounces back. So it's about bouncing back. What I'd like to talk about now is super resilience. Now super resilience is when that ball actually bounces back further after it's had its shape changed. So instead of just bouncing back the same or not quite as far, it'll go further. Nature is full of super resilient systems. A great example of that is trees. Trees that grow where they are exposed to lots of stress, to winds and storms and they're exposed... They have stronger limbs and they have deeper and stronger roots. If a tree is, grown artificially in an artificial environment with no wind and just constant light and that sort of thing, the roots don't develop. The slightest bit of stress and it'll fall over. So nature is full of super resilient systems and we are a super resilient system.
It's a wonderful, wonderful thing. Super resilient systems. Don't just go back to their original shape. They get better. They get stronger. It's fantastic. You become, more resistant to disease. You become happier. There's a thing called PTG post-traumatic growth. Everyone's heard of PTSD post-traumatic stress disorder, but more than twice the number of people who have trauma, actually experienced growth rather than the disorder. Anyway, that's a whole other video for another day, but we are naturally designed to be super resilient, a super resilient system. Let me give you a couple of examples, muscles.
When you put your muscles under stress, if you lift some weights, I do every morning, only for a couple of minutes, a couple or five minutes. You can feel it hurts. It feels - it's difficult to do. Do it every day, keep doing it. And what happens is when you then rest, (that's something really important. I'm going to talk about in a minute) when you rest, that muscle, actually you've heard it a bit, but it grows back stronger. It grows back bigger. You can physically see it. You can see the different shape of your muscles work. If you persist and have determination and grit at carrying on. So, we are super resilient systems. What's another example. Learning a musical instrument is difficult. You've got to make yourself do it sometimes, especially if you've got a gig coming up, you're under pressure. You're under stress, but by doing it, you'll, uh, you'll get better and everyone will benefit you benefit you'll be able to express yourself more freely and the audience will benefit from your beautiful, singing and playing.
The salesmen, by having that grit and determination, he makes everybody better. His customers are better and he is better off, literally better off. So how do you deal with that stress? This happens all the time and it's so easy to think, oh, well, I'm not going to carry on. It's too difficult.
Here's two tips. Two good tips to help you deal with that. The first is recovery. Recovery is virtually everything. Um, when you're being persistent and determined and having grit, you need recovery time, just like your muscles need recovery time. So if you're under pressure from a sales manager and you've got this to do and that to do, and so much is coming at you - take breaks. I've done this today. when I'm working on something and I want to really focus on something, I use a system called 55, 55 30. So I focus and concentrate 55 minutes and then I have a five minute break. And during that five minute break, I walk out of the room, stretch my limbs, do something different, change channels, think about something else. I'm not still thinking about the work that I'm doing. Then I go back to it for another 55 minutes or 60 minutes. And then I have a half hour break and a proper break. Uh, maybe get a cup of coffee, maybe go for a slightly longer walk or walk outside, go and walk for a mile, come back and do it again. 55 55 30. Now, by doing that, you're allowing your mind and your body to recover and you get much more done in those four hours of focused work than you would in just sitting down - trying to work for four hours, trying to concentrate - whatever you're doing four hours, we need to recover.
So you need to take breaks. Recovery time is so important. So whatever you're persisting at, whatever you're determined to finish, take breaks, take breaks, go for little walks outside during your Workday. You'll make a fantastic difference. So the first thing I'm talking about here to beat the stress of having grit and making things happen in your life is to have recovery time. That's number one. The second thing is this. When you are making a change for the better in your life, you need to keep your expectations low and your commitment high. So, success, your success, in the medium to long-term depends on you lowering your expectations in the present moment and for the future and increasing your commitment to achieving that. So, lowered expectations and increased commitment. If you can do that and take breaks in your day, you're going to fly. You're going to succeed. So I'm going to finish this little talk about resilience, super resilience, and recovering from stress with this beautiful poem. I'll read it. It's By Douglas Malloch, famous poem.