We all experience stress, but what is it exactly? And how does it affect our mental health and behavior? Join Bey and Kirsten as they explore the topic with two experts in the field. First, they chat with Dr. Jeremy Jamieson to understand how stress can impact decision-making and even be beneficial at times. Then, they dive into the science behind stress with Dr. Jenna Rieder, learning how it interacts with hormones in our bodies. Get ready to uncover the secrets of stress and how it affects us!
Links for Today’s Episode:
- Learn more about Dr. Jeremy Jamieson and his Social Stress Research Lab
- Learn more about Dr. Jenna Rieder
Transcript
Hello.
Speaker:Hello, and welcome to So Curious, presented by the Franklin Institute.
Speaker:I am Kirsten Michelle Cillis.
Speaker:And I'm the Bul Bey.
Speaker:We are your host for this podcast.
Speaker:Today's episode covers something that I'm
Speaker:sure we are all too familiar with, which is stress.
Speaker:Yeah yeah.
Speaker:We're going to be speaking with stress researcher Dr.
Speaker:Jeremy Jamison to try to figure out how we define stress.
Speaker:And then we'll talk to Dr.
Speaker:Jenna Ryder to learn about how stress and hormones interact.
Speaker:Now, Kirsten, what are you currently stressed out about?
Speaker:I'm always stressed out about writing new material, new jokes,
Speaker:Yeah Because you write jokes as a comic and
Speaker:then it takes doing them for like a year straight before they actually get good and
Speaker:where they're supposed to be, as you're like, good, solid material.
Speaker:I should write new stuff.
Speaker:And then I'm like, I'm not even going to be ready for like a year anyway.
Speaker:Why even do it? What are you stressed about, Bey?
Speaker:Similar things. I would say task management, and I'll put
Speaker:a song down and move to another song, and then I have to perform.
Speaker:I'm performing later today.
Speaker:In fact, I probably should be rehearsing, so I'm kind of stressed out about that.
Speaker:Right. Well, I'll be good.
Speaker:Well, maybe if we figure out what stress
Speaker:is, then it'll help us deal with stress theoretically.
Speaker:So that's where Dr.
Speaker:Jeremy Jamieson comes in.
Speaker:Thank you so much for coming onto the So Curious podcast.
Speaker:Can you introduce yourself and tell us about what you do?
Speaker:I am a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester.
Speaker:I studied stress and stress regulation,
Speaker:and so I'm very excited to talk about the topics here with you today.
Speaker:100%.
Speaker:So the first thing that we need to get out
Speaker:the way, please, please describe and define stress.
Speaker:Mhm. mhmmWhat is it?
Speaker:So I want to kind of back this up.
Speaker:When people hear the word stress, it
Speaker:carries such loaded meaning in our culture.
Speaker:And so I think a lot of what we're coming
Speaker:from is people coming from equating stress with what distress is to us.
Speaker:I'm a psychophysiologist.
Speaker:I study biological responses to stressors,
Speaker:mostly in the cardiovascular system and the endocrine system.
Speaker:And to us, we face stress.
Speaker:We just mean that you're facing any demands of change.
Speaker:There's something in your environment that needs to be addressed, and that's a
Speaker:stressor, and it lists stress responses in us.
Speaker:But stress to us isn't this unilateral negative thing.
Speaker:It has this multifaceted component to it.
Speaker:It can be positive, it can be negative, it
Speaker:can be approach oriented, it can be avoidance oriented.
Speaker:It's just any demand that we're presented with is stress.
Speaker:Mhmm. This is Mental health this season.
Speaker:That last one was about sex, love and relationships, right?
Speaker:You know that quote? It's like a famous one from some judge
Speaker:that's like, I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it.
Speaker:That's how I've always thought about something like stress.
Speaker:It's like, I don't know.
Speaker:I can't explain what stress is.
Speaker:I don't know how to say what is going on
Speaker:in me when I'm feeling stressed, but I know I'm stressed.
Speaker:Yeah. Jeremy let me know if I'm wrong.
Speaker:I was always told that stress is like, if
Speaker:something's being asked of you more than what you have.
Speaker:So if you have, like, three apples and someone's like, hey, I need five, you
Speaker:start to feel stressed because you don't have five.
Speaker:You only have three.
Speaker:Is that accurate at all, or is that too basic?
Speaker:to 101?
Speaker:No, that's probably, like, a really good definition for what we call threat.
Speaker:So I come from a model called the biocychosocial models.
Speaker:It's a really long word. You break up.
Speaker:It's really just that our biology and our psychology is sort of all intertwined.
Speaker:Okay The way I think about stress, the way I
Speaker:think about do I have resources to address demands of face with that plays a direct
Speaker:role in the response we want to have in my body.
Speaker:Wow. So five apples.
Speaker:I only have three.
Speaker:You're saying the demands are there outweighing your resources.
Speaker:Okay. Anytime we say that, what we're telling
Speaker:our body is that I can't address the stressor.
Speaker:I don't have sufficient capacity to do this.
Speaker:And so your body is like, okay, cool.
Speaker:I'm going to help keep you alive.
Speaker:All the stress responses we have evolved
Speaker:originally to cope with physical stressors.
Speaker:So being injured, being beaten, these kinds of responses.
Speaker:So things like cortisol, which is the caterpillar of hormone, it does a lot of
Speaker:things, but among those functions, it's anti inflammatory.
Speaker:We expect inflammation.
Speaker:The body tries to, like, center blood in the cord.
Speaker:The expression cold feet.
Speaker:We have less blood flowing to our
Speaker:extremities, so our hands and feet get physically colder.
Speaker:Wow, is that what that means?
Speaker:Yeah And then in our brain, that means less oxygen going to our brain.
Speaker:It's not so great for cognitive
Speaker:performance, but if you were to get injured, most likely that's your arms and
Speaker:your legs, and so you're not going to bleed out.
Speaker:So all the changes that we're having, they're functional.
Speaker:And so the misconception is that the
Speaker:stress response, this threat type response, is maladaptive, but it was very
Speaker:adaptive in the context in which we evolved those systems.
Speaker:But there's another kind of stress, too, and you flip it, is that let's say I need
Speaker:three apples worth of resources to hear, and I have five.
Speaker:I have the resources to address that demand.
Speaker:If I'm presented with some demand that I
Speaker:think I can handle, we tell everybody, okay, I can handle this.
Speaker:Why is it cool?
Speaker:I'm going to then get all the blood to your brain, to your major muscle groups.
Speaker:I'm going to produce anabolic hormones, things like DHCA.
Speaker:That's a stress response.
Speaker:Like being excited, being challenged.
Speaker:These are stress responses, but we don't think of them like that usually.
Speaker:Usually what we just see with stress is like, the threat side of the spectrum.
Speaker:Wait wait wait, being excited is a stress response?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Your sympathetic nervous system is all sorts of activated online.
Speaker:That was going to be my next question, which is, is there good stress?
Speaker:What you said about cortisol?
Speaker:Bey and I are not doctors.
Speaker:We not even far from it. Far from it.
Speaker:But I know that something like cortisol gets released, like, if something
Speaker:physically happens to you right, to protect your body so.
Speaker:It's functional. We hear, like, a maladaptive.
Speaker:The stress response, if you like, are in physical danger.
Speaker:It's not maladaptive. It could help you survive.
Speaker:That's sort of why we have these systems.
Speaker:Many of the stressors we face in modern society, they're social stressors.
Speaker:It's about performing poorly, it's about flunking that job interview, it's about.
Speaker:Not having enough likes on your Instagram. Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, we've done research on that.
Speaker:We have to do a social media tab and we
Speaker:artificially give them more of fewer likes.
Speaker:So there's data backing this? Yeah, there's a lot.
Speaker:Social media is constant evaluation all times.
Speaker:And that's a stressing. That's stressful.
Speaker:Can you talk more about that?
Speaker:That is, like, really shocking, that
Speaker:social media is a distressing space and we spend so much time on there.
Speaker:Yeah, it's interesting. When you think of what social media really is.
Speaker:It's like a platform to evaluate each other and it's sort of like, keep tabs.
Speaker:And I mean, it's great for staying in
Speaker:touch with people, but also we compare ourselves to other people.
Speaker:People just naturally do this.
Speaker:So Hayuan Lee is a collaborator of mine.
Speaker:She was a former student of David Jeger, one of my collaborators.
Speaker:David wonderful researcher at the
Speaker:University of Texas, hayeun at Yale in Singapore.
Speaker:And we devised this task where we created our own social media platform.
Speaker:It was very basic.
Speaker:And so we had high school kids basically write a little blurb about themselves,
Speaker:pick a little Avatar cartoon that's supposed to present them, and then they
Speaker:were linked up with other kids in their school, presumably, which they weren't.
Speaker:These were just random people that we created ourselves.
Speaker:And the blurbs talk about what you like,
Speaker:what you do, and then there's a little like button on the bottom of it.
Speaker:And what you do is you click like and you can read through people's posts.
Speaker:You can like other people's, but there's a
Speaker:little ranking system off to the side, and so we can rig it, so we can manipulate it,
Speaker:where either you get a lot of likes or you're at the bottom of that list.
Speaker:You get only a few likes.
Speaker:And so the idea is, it's not about whether you don't get likes, you're still getting
Speaker:some likes, just not enough compared to what we expect.
Speaker:And so we're seeing ourselves at the bottom of this list.
Speaker:It's like our place social hierarchy
Speaker:that's getting dented, and teenagers really care about that.
Speaker:And it was something that we found, like, really striking effects, especially for
Speaker:kids who were reporting being victimized at school already.
Speaker:And so people who are at the most risk
Speaker:were having the most detrimental effects as well.
Speaker:Correct me if I'm assuming too much, but talking about adolescents and teens,
Speaker:people are in the middle of their development, right?
Speaker:Their brain hormones, puberty, the whole bit.
Speaker:How does stress come into play?
Speaker:So, transition times are very inherently
Speaker:stressful because I'm going from high school to college, or I'm going from
Speaker:middle school to high school to new environment.
Speaker:There's new friends. Like, I don't have my same peer group.
Speaker:Teenagers are sort of hardwired to care a lot about social hierarchies.
Speaker:This goes back to our primate roots is
Speaker:that the time when you move up and down these hierarchies is during adolescence.
Speaker:And if you're at the top of those hierarchies, you get all the good stuff.
Speaker:When you're in those primary groups, the constant demands of seeking out
Speaker:evaluations of other people and comparing them to you, that's demanding.
Speaker:That is a stressor in and of itself.
Speaker:And so these teams who are sort of working through a lot of these changes, they're
Speaker:doing so in an environment that you're already elevating, like, base demand sort
Speaker:of higher than what you would see in typical adulthood.
Speaker:How do we relate to other people's stress?
Speaker:Like, if I am not stressed in someone's
Speaker:next to me, can their stress trigger my own?
Speaker:And why might people respond differently
Speaker:to similar situations or different situations of stress?
Speaker:Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker:There's been some interesting work on what
Speaker:we're calling it interpersonal motion regulations.
Speaker:For interpersonal er, we're really talking about how we change motion processes.
Speaker:So a lot of my other work, in addition to studying basic stress responses is we
Speaker:develop tools to regulate stress, help people regulate their own stress response.
Speaker:And a lot of those are based on motion regulation process models.
Speaker:So from James Gross and a lot of his collaborators.
Speaker:But with this contagion process, we've
Speaker:known for quite some time that if people are stressed, other people pick up on it.
Speaker:We call it linkage because it's sort of now I'm vigilant for what you're doing.
Speaker:So normally I wouldn't pay attention to
Speaker:this, but then all of a sudden you guys are acting weird and it's like why?
Speaker:So that whyYou're acting weird, bro.
Speaker:Yeah, I need to like I need to figure this out.
Speaker:And like, is this something that could be
Speaker:harmful towards me or is it something that could be detrimental to this interaction?
Speaker:Pure contagion wise.
Speaker:We did some work with Chris ovius, who's
Speaker:at the University of California, San Diego.
Speaker:And in that study, what we did is we had two people come in a collaborative game.
Speaker:So they was supposed to develop a product idea.
Speaker:So idea for like, the new bicycle system on a campus is what we were doing.
Speaker:Before they do this task, we have them in separate rooms.
Speaker:One person gets a lot of instruction about how to interpret their stress response
Speaker:when they're delivering these pitches to people.
Speaker:So they knew they got to pitch this idea to evaluators.
Speaker:Whoever won the pitch competition got like $200.
Speaker:But during the time when they were apart,
Speaker:one of the first we instructed them is that you're going to have the stress
Speaker:response and this is something that is not you want to get rid of.
Speaker:This is helping you stress is fuel.
Speaker:This is going to help you deliver a better pitch.
Speaker:It will help you be more engaged.
Speaker:The body heart is pumping hard, more blood is getting to your brain.
Speaker:That's really good.
Speaker:And so we're kind of going through all the benefits of what stress can be.
Speaker:And so rather than being stressed about
Speaker:being stressed and trying to get rid of it and damp it down, people like leaned into
Speaker:their stress response and used it as formative fuel.
Speaker:We've done those a few times in tasks
Speaker:where we can have them see stress as this useful adaptive tool.
Speaker:But the interesting thing was that they showed a better physiological response
Speaker:during this pitch period when they were presenting the idea.
Speaker:But their partners did too.
Speaker:Their partners weren't told anything about stress.
Speaker:They were given no regulations, instructions whatsoever that they showed
Speaker:more adaptive physiological responses to the pitch just by interacting with
Speaker:somebody who was thinking about stress in this positive way.
Speaker:And some follow up analyses, we figured out what was happening.
Speaker:It was when the person who was viewing
Speaker:stress as adaptive, they're presenting visually more positive aspects.
Speaker:People picked up on that and so they were in the stressful context.
Speaker:They showed this positive asset and that
Speaker:instilled a positive sort of stress response in their partners.
Speaker:It's pretty cool because we can see, maybe you can see benefits of these regulatory
Speaker:tools in people who aren't even the targets of the tools themselves.
Speaker:Yeah. So basically, if I'm hearing you
Speaker:correctly, yes to stress being contagious and also yes to calmness being contagious.
Speaker:Right. Do you think if people looked at stress
Speaker:differently as a whole that it would improve our mental health or do you think
Speaker:to a certain extent like we need the level of stress that we have?
Speaker:Can I say? Both?
Speaker:Yeah!
Speaker:So part of this is that stress to me and stress researchers, it's normative.
Speaker:So we can't innovate, we can't sort of
Speaker:push our boundaries and learn new things that's stressful, inherently stressful.
Speaker:We can't avoid those in our lives if we
Speaker:ever want to sort of push forward and actually do things.
Speaker:And so sometimes it can be uncomfortable.
Speaker:And I think some of this advice about getting used to being comfortable with
Speaker:being uncomfortable can be actually very helpful.
Speaker:And so sometimes we do need to take on
Speaker:these difficult challenges, these difficult stressors.
Speaker:And if we view our bodies there as sort of as our ally, it's there to help us.
Speaker:It's a resource for us.
Speaker:We have these stress responses for a reason, and we can optimize those in ways
Speaker:we need to, but it's really important that we don't always do that.
Speaker:There are stressors that are inherently very negative things like trauma, living
Speaker:in uncertain environment that may be dangerous.
Speaker:That's not like you can't reinterpret your stress there to sort of use it as fuel to
Speaker:push forward because that's a different kind of stressor.
Speaker:We can have the right tools in our toolbox, but knowing when to pull up the
Speaker:right tool to regulate stress in a certain way is important.
Speaker:Bay and I are both performers. Bey is a musician.
Speaker:I'm a stand up comic. Oh cool!
Speaker:And so I have noticed so much the longer I
Speaker:do stand up professionally, some shows I go in way too comfortable and I don't do
Speaker:well because I go up there like, this isn't like a high stake show, whatever.
Speaker:They already booked me. And that's when I do my worst work because
Speaker:I'm like, no, you need to be a little nervous.
Speaker:I'm consistently nervous and has stage fright every time I step on the stage.
Speaker:And after some time, I thought it would just melt away.
Speaker:But I kind of understood, like, oh, I'm always going to have this.
Speaker:And as you said, I kind of lean into it and it gives me a lot of adrenaline.
Speaker:You're working to the professions that are stressful regulation.
Speaker:Things work the best on people like that because that intuitive knowledge that you
Speaker:need to have some degree of activation to do well because that means you care.
Speaker:That's what that is.
Speaker:The Eastman School of music here at the
Speaker:University of Rochester, it's sort of a really well known music school.
Speaker:Students come to me and we're talking
Speaker:about, well, there's a problem with beta blockers.
Speaker:So beta blockers, they prevent cortisol from binding to beta, two big receptors.
Speaker:So it's blocking the physiological responses that were happening with stress.
Speaker:So we can take these things that we don't have the physiological stress response.
Speaker:We have all the psychological things going on that's still negative.
Speaker:But the feedback that they were getting in their performance reviews so in their
Speaker:final exams are like, literally performances.
Speaker:Was that the music sounded flat, so it sounded like you weren't engaged with it
Speaker:because you basically took a medication to block your body's response to stress.
Speaker:Wow. What!
Speaker:I found that fascinating.
Speaker:No, me too.
Speaker:Adrenaline, it really does affect you physically.
Speaker:Like, you're almost like leaping out of
Speaker:your skin and you kind of need that punch of energy to hit that note.
Speaker:Light a fire under you
Speaker:Yeah yeah to do that thing.
Speaker:Yeah, well, so this is amazing.
Speaker:Thank you so much for joining us. So awesome!
Speaker:You have any final thoughts that you want
Speaker:people are listeners, to take away from your work what you're doing?
Speaker:Yeah, I think just keep an open mind about what stress can be like.
Speaker:Some stress certainly can be harmful for us.
Speaker:Too much of it can sort of wear us out and burn us out.
Speaker:But being mindful about sometimes it's normative.
Speaker:And we do need to engage with difficult
Speaker:things, and that doesn't mean that you can't handle it.
Speaker:Your body's response sometimes is there to help you.
Speaker:I think if people thought stress could be
Speaker:helpful and none of my stress regulation research would be meaningful because it
Speaker:would already work, we didn't need to tell anybody anything, it would be great.
Speaker:I would love it if none of my research matters anymore.
Speaker:If you could just stop stress as something that could be beneficial for them.
Speaker:No, but your research does matter.
Speaker:And we want to say thank you so much for coming on the So Curious podcast.
Speaker:Thank you. Thank you for being here.
Speaker:Hey, Bey, do you ever wonder whether this planet is even going to exist in 30 years?
Speaker:I do.
Speaker:It can be overwhelming to think about how
Speaker:to deal with some of the biggest problems we're facing.
Speaker:Our friends over at the Franklin Institute
Speaker:talked to some of the sharpest minds working in science and technology, though,
Speaker:and I got to say, I think 2050 is going to be pretty cool.
Speaker:So check out the road to 2050, a new
Speaker:docuseries from the Franklin institute at fi.edu.
Speaker:So essentially, if I got this, it's that stress is sometimes a good thing?
Speaker:Yeah, I think it's one of those things where we look at stress and other mental
Speaker:states as like negatives or in a negative light, but really it's like, oh, yeah, we
Speaker:are just biological animals and creatures that just kind of respond to our
Speaker:environment, so it doesn't always mean it's a negative thing.
Speaker:You could be excited and getting ready and getting prepared and planning and all
Speaker:these different things, and a lot of those things are stress motivated.
Speaker:Okay, well, then let's find out more about
Speaker:what goes on in the body when we're stressed.
Speaker:We are going to be joined right now by Dr.
Speaker:Jenna Rieder.
Speaker:Jenna, welcome to the show. Dr.
Speaker:Rieder, can you introduce yourself and tell us what it is you do?
Speaker:Sure. I'm an assistant professor of psychology
Speaker:at Thomas Jefferson university and the college of humanities and sciences, so I
Speaker:teach some classes about research methods and health psychology.
Speaker:And my research is focused on stress that
Speaker:includes both normative stress, like stress that all of us experience from time
Speaker:to time, and also more extreme stress, like traumatic stress.
Speaker:Your work focuses on the stress system and
Speaker:how it works, like you said, for trauma, exposed or chronically stressed people.
Speaker:In your research, in your line of work, how is stress defined?
Speaker:The way I define stress is as a reaction that we have to something that we perceive
Speaker:as threatening or negative, and that reaction has different dimensions.
Speaker:There's the cognitive aspect, like what we
Speaker:think, such as I feel stress or I can't handle this.
Speaker:There's the emotional component.
Speaker:There's a behavioral component.
Speaker:Like maybe you check your inbox again and
Speaker:again, or you avoid something that you find stressful.
Speaker:And then finally there's the physiological
Speaker:dimension, and that's what happens in our bodies.
Speaker:What is stress, or what are stress systems?
Speaker:Can you define stress systems for us? Sure.
Speaker:So there's actually two main stress systems that act in a coordinated fashion.
Speaker:The first system is something that
Speaker:responds almost immediately as soon as we encounter a stressor.
Speaker:That's the sympathetic nervous system.
Speaker:You might have also heard of the system
Speaker:referred to as the fight or flight response.
Speaker:And so this is something you feel in your
Speaker:body, but the response starts in the brain through increased signaling of a chemical
Speaker:called norepinephrine that leads to changes in the periphery.
Speaker:And those are the sensations you feel, like increased heart rate.
Speaker:Maybe your breathing becomes more shallow and also more rapid, and greater blood
Speaker:flow is distributed to the muscles, especially in your lower limbs.
Speaker:All of which is helping you deal with what
Speaker:your body presumes is an emergency situation.
Speaker:Then the second system that responds as
Speaker:well, that one is a little bit slower, but it's a more sustained response.
Speaker:And that's the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis.
Speaker:We can call it Hpa axis.
Speaker:That's the one that produces Cortisol.
Speaker:You mentioned that it happens and it starts in the brain.
Speaker:Is there a way to control that at the
Speaker:moment of feeling that stress, or should we just kind of develop a better
Speaker:relationship with it, listen to that and go with it?
Speaker:How would you describe, for better mental health, listening to that response system?
Speaker:Yeah. So there's a couple of stages at which you
Speaker:can act, I would say, like that very initial reaction in the brain, like that
Speaker:almost knee jerk response you kind of can't control, but you can change the way
Speaker:you're thinking about the situation in the moment.
Speaker:And that could quickly shut activity in the straw systems down.
Speaker:For example, you could reframe your
Speaker:perspective of the situation, like thinking about something in a way that is
Speaker:either positive instead of negative, or simply less negative.
Speaker:Now, your research focuses on stress and how it interacts with the body.
Speaker:And I was saying right before we got on
Speaker:the mic that basketball players have, like, large calves because they jump and
Speaker:they run and they shoot the ball constantly.
Speaker:Is there a way that stress physically shapes and forms the human body.
Speaker:Like if. You have chronic stress?
Speaker:Yeah. Am I going to hunch over all the time if
Speaker:I'm stressed out or my shoulder is going to lock up?
Speaker:I don't know. How does stress interact with the body?
Speaker:Yeah. So it can show up in these different ways,
Speaker:and really it affects so many different organ systems.
Speaker:For example, stress can negatively impact immune function, as you said.
Speaker:It can impact your physiology.
Speaker:That kind of posture that you're describing, I mean, I think some of it is
Speaker:kind of set up by the way we work, like looking at a screen or sitting at a desk.
Speaker:And it kind of is like a natural way that you kind of orient.
Speaker:But you're right. It also happens in response to stress.
Speaker:And that kind of response additionally impacts your breathing.
Speaker:It's harder to take, like, a full diaphragmatic, engage in belly breathing
Speaker:when your body is oriented in that way to the best of your ability.
Speaker:If you can recognize that and try to counter it, then you also will protect
Speaker:yourself against, say, that impact on breathing.
Speaker:Talk to us about the research into this
Speaker:hormone that I'm going to butcher in just a second.
Speaker:Is it estradiol? Estradiol?
Speaker:Estradiol. Close enough.
Speaker:Yeah. I said thatFill us in.
Speaker:Estradiol is the most prominent estrogen
Speaker:that's present during the reproductive years.
Speaker:And like other steroid sex hormones, it's
Speaker:produced by something called the hypothalamic pituitary Gonadal axis, which
Speaker:probably sounds just like the other axis I mentioned before.
Speaker:It has a lot of the elements in common.
Speaker:And it's for that reason that there is a lot of overlap between the kind of system
Speaker:that produces stress hormones and the system that relates to estradiol levels.
Speaker:So how can estradiol impact someone who is exposed to extreme stress?
Speaker:I mean, I imagine it makes it significantly more impactful.
Speaker:Is that correct?
Speaker:Estradiol can impact cognition and mood, really, for anyone.
Speaker:And there are regular fluctuations in
Speaker:Estradiol that happen in people who are menstruating.
Speaker:And those little changes in estradiol can relate to changes in how people feel.
Speaker:And for somebody who has symptoms of a
Speaker:clinical condition, it can affect their vulnerability for symptoms.
Speaker:So my work was focused on women who were
Speaker:trauma exposed, and we found that fluctuations in their estradiol levels
Speaker:were related to fluctuations in the stress related symptoms they were having.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:And so I'm glad you brought up the connection of menstrual cycles and stress.
Speaker:Right. Because myself, growing up, that's always
Speaker:something you hear of, like, oh, it's possible your period is late because
Speaker:you're stressed, or it's something people say a lot.
Speaker:And I've never been sure how much of that
Speaker:is just like an old kind of rumor or how much of that is actually based in science.
Speaker:Yeah, I know that's true.
Speaker:And that's kind of like describing the other direction, like the way stress can
Speaker:impact estradiol or, like, the reproductive system.
Speaker:You're right. It can be tied to, for example, missed or
Speaker:late menstrual periods in girls who are around puberty age.
Speaker:Really severe early life stress can actually hasten the onset of puberty.
Speaker:And it can also be tied to things like fertility problems.
Speaker:Definitely a lot of connections. Right.
Speaker:But going back to that hormone, was it estradiol?
Speaker:Is this, like, new discovery?
Speaker:How much do we know about this?
Speaker:Is this like no, we've been talking about this for decades.
Speaker:But tell us more about that.
Speaker:Yeah, so, I mean, people have known about
Speaker:the hormone and they know how it's related to reproductive system function.
Speaker:I think a lot of the work that
Speaker:specifically ties it to clinical symptoms is somewhat newer.
Speaker:That's really kind of true for both
Speaker:studies with humans and studies using animal models.
Speaker:So with rodent models, they have something
Speaker:called the estra cycle, which is like the analog to the menstrual cycle.
Speaker:And for years, a lot of aspects of stress
Speaker:system function were specifically studied only in male rodents to control for
Speaker:variation or compounds created by the estracycle.
Speaker:So as a result, we don't know as much about the effects of the estracycle
Speaker:because that's what people were trying to control for.
Speaker:In humans, there is like a growing body of literature that connects it to, again,
Speaker:these aspects of, like, cognition and mood and potentially clinical symptoms.
Speaker:But for PTSD, at least historically, most of the work has been with men.
Speaker:And that's simply because a lot of early PTSD research was about combat related
Speaker:trauma, which was predominantly men and ty.
Speaker:Again, the theme of season three mental health.
Speaker:You talked about reframing as an approach to kind of, like, manage stressors.
Speaker:Are there any other things that you can advise us on in terms of managing
Speaker:stressors as they relate to stuff happening in our body?
Speaker:Yeah, so I think some good strategies for
Speaker:coping with stress, the one I told you about so far, it's basically like you
Speaker:change your mindset and you let that lead to a change in physiology.
Speaker:But it can be hard to adopt that positive mindset when you're really stressed.
Speaker:Just change your mind.
Speaker:Yeah, right.
Speaker:Other things you can do are more you kind of target the physiology directly, and
Speaker:that can lead to a change in the way you're feeling.
Speaker:So, for example, you can do breathing exercises.
Speaker:We know that when we're stressed, we tend
Speaker:to breathe in a more rapid and more shallow fashion.
Speaker:So you just do the opposite.
Speaker:You take really deep mindful breaths where
Speaker:you're kind of breathing in fully breathing with your diaphragm.
Speaker:And especially helpful for breathing
Speaker:techniques is a focus on lengthening the exhale.
Speaker:You also can engage in exercise, and I think everybody knows that exercise is
Speaker:good for stress, but the reason is not always obvious.
Speaker:One of the reasons that exercise is so
Speaker:good for stress is when you're confronted with a stressor, your body responds in
Speaker:such a way that it prepares you to react in a physical manner.
Speaker:Your heart rate has increased, your breathing changes.
Speaker:You have a lot of blood flow going to your
Speaker:muscles, especially in your limbs, like your legs in particular.
Speaker:And all of that is really going to help
Speaker:you if you need to, say, escape from a burning building.
Speaker:But most of us, when we're really stressed
Speaker:out and our bodies are primed in this way, we do absolutely nothing with that energy.
Speaker:Like, we sit in our seat and we. Ruminate.
Speaker:So exercise instead is like, let's let
Speaker:your body kind of complete what it prepared for.
Speaker:Any last thoughts that you want to share with the listeners about stress hormones?
Speaker:Your work? Sure.
Speaker:So I think there's two misconceptions about stress that are important to dispel.
Speaker:The first one being this idea that stress
Speaker:is just all in your head, so it's not really important.
Speaker:And if you're a strong person, it shouldn't impact you.
Speaker:And that's totally not true.
Speaker:Like, the effects of stress, it affects many aspects of physiology, and the
Speaker:effects are tangible and you can't just suppress your response.
Speaker:That doesn't work at all.
Speaker:In fact, it's been linked with more negative health outcomes.
Speaker:And the kind of other misconception is essentially like the opposite end of the
Speaker:spectrum, this, like, fatalistic notion that stress is just going to wreak havoc
Speaker:on our bodies and there's nothing we can do about it.
Speaker:There are many coping strategies that work for different people.
Speaker:It's really just important to be able to kind of look at the strategies you're
Speaker:currently using, figure out if they're working and if they're not, to be kind of
Speaker:open minded and flexible enough to try something new.
Speaker:Oh, my gosh. Dr.
Speaker:Jenna Rieder, thank you so much for coming on a so curious podcast.
Speaker:We really appreciate you. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker:And thank you for the work you do. We love it.
Speaker:Thanks so much again for having me.
Speaker:It was great being here.
Speaker:Thank you again to Dr.
Speaker:Rieder for coming on the podcast.
Speaker:All right, we talked plenty about stress today.
Speaker:So Kirsten. Yeah.
Speaker:What do you like to do to de-stress?
Speaker:I never even thought about that, Go to bed.
Speaker:I love being in bed.
Speaker:I love sleeping because it's like a little mini coma with intention.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think for me, it's definitely the comic book store.
Speaker:Ooh I didn't know that about you.
Speaker:Yeah, but it's one of those things.
Speaker:I don't even make a lot of purchases.
Speaker:You just kind of walk through and it's busy enough to distract you from anything.
Speaker:And I kind of, as an adult, rediscovered.
Speaker:It's kind of weird to say, but baths.
Speaker:No, baths are yeah. Oh, my gosh.
Speaker:That's so true. That's like the stereotypical de-stress
Speaker:I've been showering for years,
Speaker:like an idiot, wow.
Speaker:I can't believe it. Awesome.
Speaker:Well, then be sure to join us next week
Speaker:and look at how technology can affect our mental health.
Speaker:For better or for worse, technology is
Speaker:really evolving as part of treatment and therapy.
Speaker:Make sure you subscribe wherever you
Speaker:listen so you don't miss an episode of the So Curious podcast.
Speaker:Not going to want to miss. Come on an episode.
Speaker:This podcast is made in partnership with Radio Kismet.
Speaker:Radio Kismet is Philadelphia's premier podcast production studio.
Speaker:This podcast is produced by Amy Carson and Emily Cherish of Radio Kismet.
Speaker:This podcast is also produced by Joy
Speaker:Montefusco, Jayatri Das, and Aaron Armstrong of the Franklin Institute.
Speaker:Head of operations is Christopher Plant.
Speaker:Our assistant producer is Seneca White. Our mixed engineer.
Speaker:Here is Justin burger.
Speaker:And our audio editor is Lauren DeLuca.
Speaker:Our graphic designer is Emma Seeker. I'm the Bul Bey.
Speaker:And I'm Kirsten Michelle CIllis. See you next week.
