Episode 495: Transform Stress to Work for You

Hello everyone, this is Rebecca Green for the Winey Plousa Podcast, and I am super excited today because I get to talk to the absolutely wonderful Dr. Rebecca Heiss. Rebecca, thank you so much for doing this with me today.

It is my pleasure. I'm so excited to have the conversation, Rebecca.

I have been so excited to meet this wonderful lady. I'm going to tell you why. She is a stress physiologist. Never in— I just told her I've been doing this for 5 years. I've never talked to a stress physiologist. So this is amazing.

Today's the day. Today is the day. Yeah, I'm excited.

She's also a keynote speaker, former high school science teacher who helps people transform stress from a burden into a superpower. Sign me up. Drawing from her research and real-world experience in classrooms, she equips parents, students, and professionals with practical tools to reframe life's challenges into growth opportunities. Her forthcoming book, Springboard: Transform Stress to Work for You, offers science-backed strategies to help families embrace stress as fuel for success. Holy moly, I love this.

I'm excited.

I don't know what this looks like, but let's find out.

Dive in. Let's figure it out together.

Okay, so first of all, let's talk about the inspiration. What inspired you? To look at stress as a superpower rather than a problem. Where did this begin?

Uh, um, I mean, listen, we can spend the rest of the podcast talking about where this begins because I, I truly believe that we often go into the field that we need the most. And I was always an anxious kid, uh, like high achiever, needed to, needed to push myself. And, um, and it created a lot of anxiety, a lot of control issues, a lot of a lot of fear, a lot of stress in my life, and I kind of fell into the field itself. Um, but the, the short version of a much longer story is that unfortunately my sister's partner was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and, uh, she had been somebody who was like a sister to me for 20 years. And when, um, when she was diagnosed, you know, look, we all have these moments in our life where the rug just kind of gets pulled out from underneath us. And I took a close look at my life and I realized that every decision that I made up to that point, I'd really made out of fear. Like it was just a safe path that I'd taken. And I decided in that moment that I was no longer going to allow fear to run my life. And that month I quit my job, sold my house, and divorced my husband. And like, not, not saying that's a good thing, not saying like that's the path that people should take. But it was, it was the right path for me, right? It was a, okay, I'm diving all in. And I actually began to use all of the research I had been doing in the lab on myself to really push myself through that time.

Okay, wait, tell me the 3 things.

A lot, right?

What were the 3 things?

Quit my job, sold my house, and divorced my husband.

I mean, those are like 3 of like the biggest stressors at one time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I tell you that I needed the work that I was doing in the lab, like, I needed it. And one of the reasons that I think I'm such an advocate for being a PR agent, I think, for stress is that I realized the power of it. And when we harness it, when we make it our own, we really can use it like Olympic athletes, you know, who are breaking world records at the point of pressure and stress. Rather than live our lives like it's a practice round.

Well, and there's like so many answers to this. This is probably like too hard a question, but like tell us how you got through that time. Like what practices were you doing? I can't even imagine.

Well, this is really the foundational moment for me in, in taking all of the research that I had been doing in the lab and bringing it into real life. And so I started to develop what I now refer to as my Fearless The Tiger Stress Formula. And essentially, I'll give you the, the very high overview. It's, it's 3 Ts. It's the tiger, the transfer, and the trajectory. So the tiger is recognizing most stressors are outside of our control, right? They're just coming at us. And our stress response is built for 3 minutes of screaming terror through a jungle, getting chased by a tiger, right? Like, that's what it's built for. But most things today aren't tigers. They're not like actual life and death situations. And so the first step is going, is this going to kill and eat me in the next 3 minutes? And if it's not a tiger, then I have an opportunity to use all of the energy that stress is giving me in a different way. So that's the transfer stage where we're transferring that energy and we're saying, yeah, we're saying, okay, this isn't life and death. How can I utilize this energy differently? Like, can I get excited about it? Can I decide this is an adventure, not an ordeal? And then the third step is that trajectory. Like, where do I, Now I've got my butterflies in alignment, right? Where do I wanna point them? How do I utilize this in a way that runs me toward the stress rather than trying to avoid it? Because that's where people get into the most, you know, trouble, I think, is trying to avoid the stress, which is always gonna catch you, my friends. Right? So running at it, taking those small steps into it is, um, okay. Yeah, it's how I got through.

So, okay. So as parents, yeah. We want to, like, listen, I know they need to make mistakes and learn and grow.

I get it.

I try. We want to protect them. We want to protect them from stress. So it sounds like we need to teach them something else with the stress.

Yes. So yes, please, please, please, please explain that to us.

Tell us as parents what to do.

It's so important. And look, I understand the instinct and I know it's out of love. And this is, this is so natural. Most parents are like, I'm gonna try and protect my kid from all the things that are going to harm them. And it's the worst thing you can do because truly when they experience stress and they get through to the other side, it builds self-confidence. And the reality is you're never going to protect your kid from stress. And stress truly is what adds meaning and purpose to our lives. I mean, like as parents, you all know that one of the most stressful things you have ever done, I guarantee, is to have that kid. Right? Like, kids are stress bombs. And they're the reason that your life is so meaningful and purposeful. So rather than trying to protect or avoid or get rid of, which is a fight that I think, first of all, it's not, not something we can win. But I think instead, if we invite those tigers in, I call it inviting the tiger in for tea. I love that. We're sitting down with it. We're like, hey, you, I see you. You're not going to kill me. Let's, let's talk. Let's have a little conversation. And we can get curious in the moment with our stress and say, Why is this so stressful? Like, obviously there's something here that's important, right? Because really at the end of the day, that's stress is a barometer for how much we care. It's— that is true. Yeah. We don't, we're not getting stressed out over a shoe becoming untied. It doesn't matter that much, you know? So that's, yeah, that's the advice I'd give.

I will tell you when we dropped our son off at school, at college for the first time, recently and came home, I want to tell you how much I cleaned my house. My house has never— let me tell you, all that stress.

That's great. That's the trajectory you took. I mean, that's, that's a, that's just one way to use all that energy in a productive way. I mean, good for you. Good for you.

I had to do something. I had to do something with it, right?

You know, and I, I love that because truly what ends up happening most of the time is we get caught in inaction, right? We let our fears and our stress hold us back. And what you did there, I think that's a great example, is you channeled it. You're like, okay, I'm stressed, I know what it's about, and I'm going to point this along a trajectory that serves myself and serves my family, and I'm just gonna clean. I think that's super powerful. Take the action. That was beautiful.

I thought you'd appreciate that. I was like, oh my God, I have so much inside of me.

That's sweet. That's sweet.

So I think that we tend to say, I'm guilty. We tend to say, calm down, calm down. It's not so stressful, like minimizing the whole thing. Tell us why that's counterproductive.

I mean, you know why. You understand it, right? Like, imagine, Rebecca, you come to me and you tell me like how stressed out you are over something. It's like, and I'm, I'm your trusted friend and you're telling me this and I said to you, calm down. Like you have every right to punch me in the face. It, that is, that is such a, a cruel response. And yet it's the, it's the advice we give to ourselves all the time too. It's like, oh, I need to calm down. Okay. So one, it's mean because you actually can't control the stress response that you have. So two, recognizing that you can't control it, Like, I don't know about you, the last time I told my adrenal glands to not release adrenaline, they didn't listen, right? And so we're going to have this physiological response, and rather than trying to suppress it and calm down, which ends up stressing us out even more because we can't do it, and then we're like, oh my gosh, I'm failing. What is wrong with me? I'm broken. No, you're not broken. This is actually a feature, not a bug. Mm-hmm. So ride that physiological response up. That's fine. That's not the problem. The problem is that we measure emotions on two scales. One is the arousal level. So how heightened are we? We don't get to control that. So we're up here, but we, we do have control over is the interpretation of that. What does that mean? Does that mean I'm scared? Does that mean I'm excited? Does that mean I'm amped up? Does that mean I'm stressed? And that interpretation, that is actually within our control. So when we're feeling that, if we simply embody the idea and act as if we're excited rather than scared, and this is really important, the stress doesn't go away, right? It, it, it's still gonna sit in the back of your head and you're going, I'm just lying to myself. Why does this matter? Yeah. Lie to yourself. Because what we've seen and what all of the research shows is even stating, I'm excited, helps you to perform better, helps you to feel more confident. And then people around you will see that and they'll feed back to you that you're excited and that you're confident and you begin to feel it more. And so this is a, this is a cycle that actually really helps to build us up.

This is so good. I have to tell you, my family calls it nervous-cited.

And nervous-cited. Oh, I'm stealing that. That's great.

Yes, because we get so like amped up. But like, we don't want to, we don't wanna feel so nervous cuz we wanna perform like whatever it is, like the play or you know what, public speaking. So we're like, we're really excited and nervous, like together.

Nerve-sided. Is that what nerve-sided? Nerve-sided. Nerve-sided. Nerve-sided. That's brilliant. You're doing it. I mean, literally the Harvard research study was looking at people doing math problems, which is terrifying out loud in front of peers. And they made people sing and they hooked them up to heart monitors and watched their response. And they had people say either try to calm down, or the second group just acknowledged it like, I'm anxious, I'm feeling anxious. And the third group said, I'm excited. That's the only difference. And then they had a computer analyze their performance. So completely removed from humans. The people that had, that said, I'm calm, They scored about 38%. The people that simply acknowledged that they were a little stressed out, um, 53%. The people that said they were excited, 85%. So like massive shift in just the way you show up. And I think, yeah, the coolest thing about that is the people that were saying that, they didn't feel any more excited. They were just as anxious, right? The anxiety didn't go away. And I think that's so important for people to hear, because I get told all the time, oh, you're a stress physiologist. You must not be anxious. I'm like, oh, oh, honey, all the time. My whole life is an anxiety bubble, but I've used it. I, I've learned how to channel that energy.

Amazing. This is all amazing. This is so helpful.

Oh, good. I'm so glad.

Yes. Okay. So we're parents. Everyone listening is probably a mother. I'm sorry, there's probably grandmas, fathers, whatever.

But yeah, yeah, we're caretakers.

They stress, okay, our kids get really stressed, then tell me what to do to be the most helpful to them. What can I do?

I love it. I love it. First of all, I would say please model this in your own life. So when you feel stressed, acknowledge it and show it to your child. Like, Tell your child, I'm stressed. Here's what I'm doing with it. Here's how I'm going to utilize this energy. I'm going to choose to have an adventure, not an ordeal. Here's the smallest step that I'm going to take into the stress. Like, model it. When the child is actually having that moment of anxiety, the best thing you can do is listen. And this is so hard because we want to give advice. We want to say, listen, in a week this isn't going to matter, right? Like, especially when, when those kids hit the teenage years and everything just becomes this massively dramatic thing and you're going, you're not gonna remember this a month from now, that girl, right? But you have to remember their entire life is super short. It's really condensed into this small period of time. And so everything they know up to that point is, is this, this trauma that they're experiencing. So when we try and calm them down or say it's not that big of a deal, We're not understanding their perspective. And so being able to sit with them, listen, not say calm down, right? So sorry, that was, that was my ping and ding for the day. Get that outta the way. Um, not say calm down, but say get curious. Help them to get curious about it. Because one of my favorite facts is that curiosity and fear cannot coexist. There's literally no, no brain mechanism that allows for it, right? Because For 200,000 years, nobody ever had a tiger charging them and went, huh, wonder how fast it's coming. Wonder how many stripes it has, right? So when we can get curious, when we ask questions, when we encourage them to ask questions about what they're feeling and what, and help them to acknowledge what they're feeling and really identify that so that we can then help them transfer it and say, oh, this is, that, that has to be tough. I wonder. I wonder. By the way, my favorite way to start any sentence in this situation is, I wonder.

I'm going to remember that.

Yeah. I don't know. It could be. I wonder how it would feel. I wonder what we can learn from this. I wonder what this will look like in a month. I wonder how. Right? So just helping them to shift a little bit. And then the biggest thing is, is asking, would you like for me to listen or would you like for me to solve? And I, I am 100% guilty of this. I always want to solve. I'm like, well, here's the stuff you need to take. Here's the formula. Here's the thing. All you have to do is take this small step into the fear and trust me, it's gonna work out. Sometimes they just need somebody to listen. And you can come back and they're more likely to come back to you if at first you just pull back and listen.

So I have 3 teenagers. Yes. Oh my gosh.

Oh boy.

And I'm— I am definitely given like question limits. So I'm very careful with how many questions I ask. But I love the "I wonder." And you know, it's really interesting because they have told me that they just want me to listen. They have said that to me, like, just listen.

You know, that's really— first of all, congratulations, mom, because you've done something right there. You've created this space of psychological safety where your kids can tell you what they need. That's really powerful. That's really powerful. Yeah. So you're holding that space. Yeah. You're holding that space.

I'm trying.

Gosh. Look, to any parent out there listening, we know you're doing the best you can. Like, everybody is doing the best they can. Yeah. So give yourself that grace.

Oh boy.

Every day.

So, so you talk about a 3-minute worry dump. Can you, I mean, like, that sounds like amazing to me. Like, I need to do this every day. Can you talk about this?

It's my favorite 3 minutes of the day. So, um, I use it in 2 different ways. I have something that I call my disaster diary, and typically at the end of the day, I will open up my little diary and I'll turn to a fresh page and I just dump onto it. I set a timer for 3 minutes and I dump onto it all of my anxieties, all my stress, all my fear, all the things that are going to go wrong. I catastrophize. I let myself go to the worst places. And then when the timer dings, I feel better because I haven't tried to push it away or ignore it. I've brought all of those emotions from my limbic— from my limbic system where they— where they start, right, into my frontal lobe because writing requires us to consciously process. And so I put them on the page and now they don't seem nearly as scary. Um, this is also a technique I use often in the moment, so Remember, our, our stress response is built for 3 minutes of screaming terror. So trying to be logical or like offer advice. Yeah. In those first 3 minutes, forget about it. Like punch something, a pillow, not, not a person, right? Like appropriately. Let me, let me get clear. Like find a punching bag or, um, or run in place or get your heart rate up because you're literally trying to outrun the tiger as it were. Right. Get, get into your body, clench your fist, whatever you have to do to get through those first 3 minutes. And then your body begins to settle in and go, okay, I'm not dead. So this must be not a life and death situation, which means I get to, I get to choose now. How do I wanna approach this? Yeah. Okay. I, and, and I'll tell you, I do, I have to set a timer cuz I will stay stuck there. I will just continue to spiral.

Yeah.

And, and it's not really useful. At some point, all of that energy, I might as well put to better use. Tell the story that's useful to you. Right.

Well, so, like, as someone who, like, tries to manifest, like, I would be worried. Like, I want to get it out. I want to write it out, but I don't want to manifest all that stuff.

Yeah. Listen, I think here's the thing. I agree with you. But energy, energy understands, right? If you're just pushing it down, you're not getting rid of it. You're not getting— I think you're actually releasing it. It's like, it's like watching the cloud pass. Yeah. Right? You're going, okay, it's there. I acknowledge it. And it doesn't have to control me. I like that. And so, like, getting it out, I think, is more powerful than holding it and, like, repressing it because I don't want the universe to feel this. Just, it's gonna feel it. He's gonna feel it. We can't deny it.

It's there. Get it out. Get it out.

Get it out. I mean, if it's helpful, after those 3 minutes, take a look back and go, is this true? Is this true? What are some alternative stories that I can tell? Like, one of my favorite things to do is recognize that, you know, all of the things that I put down in my disaster diary, of all the things, maybe one has affected me for more than a year. Mm.

See?

Yeah. Maybe one. And really, it wasn't even that bad. It was just like, oh, this is gonna— this is gonna take some time. Okay. We can work through this. Yeah.

I love it. I'll, I'll do a worry dump. I tell my kids to do a worry dump because I think our kids need to do it. Right? I—

yes. My gosh. Make them. Force them. Yes. No, I agree. They're their own independent people, but, but giving them that opportunity. Like, even if it's, even if it's at the dinner table, hey, let's, let's set the timer for 3 minutes. We're gonna get all the garbage out and then let's have a wonderful family dinner. Let's, let's move on to like, what, what good things happened to you today? Um, you know, what's bringing you the most joy? Like shifting that tone is simple, but if we're always holding it in, yeah. Yeah.

That's not, that's not healthy.

We're not being authentic. Yeah. We're not being authentic.

My 13-year-old gets in the car after school and she just, like, vents it all out. And then the other day she turned to me and she said, I'm sorry, that was, like, a lot of negativity I just released.

That's, again, that's beautiful. She's, she's a, she has a safe space to do it. So parents, creating that safe space is huge. I mean, she feels permission to just, just vomit it. Great. There it is. It's now out there. And then having the self— as a 13-year-old, having the self-awareness to go, oh, that was a lot, wasn't it? And in response, I hope, you know, as parents, we go, yeah, good for you for putting it out there. It's a safe space. Continue to vent. Now let's see what power do we have over this? Are we— one of my favorite questions to ask, and I'll have to give a little bit of a background on this, but like, what strings are we allowing others to pluck in us.

Mm.

So, right, humans are incredibly emotionally contagious. And I talk all the time about if you take two violins tuned to one another and you put one in one corner of the room and the other in the other corner and you pluck the string on one, the other one's going to play the same note. And I think of humans very similarly, right? If we're coming in and we're plucking a string or we're allowing a string to be plucked by somebody else, um, we're resonating with them. And it's so powerful to recognize, wait, wait, wait, I have the ability to play my own music no matter what other vibrations are happening around me. But it's really easy to get caught up in that melody, right? To get caught up in everybody else's.

So easy. It's so easy. And I'm like, I was just happy 5 minutes ago.

So, okay, so this is a trick. This is actually a fun trick for people. Okay. And I say this with some hesitation, but look, it's helpful. Back in the day, I used to ask people to come into my lecture halls with a pencil in their mouth like this. Now, this is highly funded research. You could pay undergraduates to do just about anything. So we paid them to do this. And it turns out I'm hilarious if you have a pencil in your mouth. And the reason for that is because we think that emotions are created in a certain way. Like, we think we are happy and therefore we smile. But that's not fully it. We are actually happy because we smile. So think about this for a second. Yeah. Right? Now, I might be angry, and I am not saying to fake it till you make it. Like, feel your feelings. But if you need to get into this shift into this space of, okay, can this be an adventure? We're going to act as if we're gonna put a smile on our face. We're gonna throw our shoulders back and we're actually going to begin to feel that because our brain is looking to our body to go, what's going on here? Like I'm feeling my heart is racing. I'm starting to sweat. Is this, am I nervous? Am I excited? Am I nervouscited? Like what is the thing? And if our body is positioned like, open and excited and our smile is on, our brain gets the feedback that, oh, we're okay. This is an adventure.

I love this. Yeah, I love this because I just want to smile and laugh through my day and then it tells myself to be happy. I love this.

Yeah.

Telling this to my children.

Good, good. But I say that with caution, right? Because I never want anybody to be like, just smile, just smile, right? So yes, and it's a feel the feelings. And if you want to, when you're ready to, here's a way to come out of them.

Yeah. So you're a scientist, you're a former teacher. So let's use this for school. So tell us, teachers, we're not bashing you. We think you're wonderful. But what mistakes are schools making with handling stress?

Oh my gosh, where do I begin? Um, first of all, we're not supporting the teachers enough. Let's start there. Let's start there. We're not equipping them with the tools that they need in order to help their students, uh, handle stress differently. I think the biggest thing is the health and wellness industry as a whole has provided one message for decades, which is stress is bad. You need to get rid of it. And there's many problems with that, including the fact that, you know, stress is the thing that actually allows us to recognize what's important. And if we're constantly running away from it, if we're constantly trying to get rid of it or avoid it, we're missing the things that are going to bring the most purpose and meaning to our lives. And, um, you know, I spent a lot of time talking about PTSD versus PTG. So everybody is familiar with post-traumatic stress disorder, right? Like, we've heard of that. It affects 8% of the population. Um, I'd make the argument it affects all of us, maybe not diagnosed, but I think frankly, growing up, going through school, dealing with the traumas of just day-to-day life, little t traumas, big T, we all are carrying that, right? The good news is there's PTG, and that's post-traumatic growth. And we don't talk about that as much. But there's an ability, I think, in particular, that teachers and educators have to help shape the stories of the youth that they're, that they're serving, which is when you, when you see somebody who is struggling, when you see that anxiety come up, the, the story meaning that, that is happening there, the way to create this meaning from that is to say, okay, how are you gonna grow from this? What, what good can come of this? And 50% of people who have experienced a trauma actually experience, without any coaching, experience post-traumatic growth, which means they feel closer to their communities. They feel more grounded in, in their own lives. They feel more connected to one another. They feel more in touch with a higher power, if that's something that, that people believe in. So, yes, it's a really powerful thing that I think gets missed a lot because we're constantly trying to push away the trauma instead of embracing it as part of life and, and helping facilitate these young lives to grow through it.

I mean, the traumas really suck. Like when you think about the stuff that we've all been through, everyone's been through stuff. So I totally agree with you. And when I think about the most meaningful moments in my life, they were the most— and they were so stressful. And like, I think about how it made me who I am today. So I try to remember that.

But yeah, they—

I mean, it's so, you know, it's so stressful.

Rebecca, this is the research. Like, in 2013, there was a study looking at what makes for a meaningful, purposeful life, right? And the number one correlate was stress. So past stressful events, current state of stress, even future worry and anxiety. And when I read that, I was like, even I was questioning it.

I was like, I don't know.

I feel like I could have a pretty meaningful life sipping Mai Tais on, you know, on an island somewhere. But I asked, I did some research and followed up on this because I was really curious. And I'm going to ask you this and your audience this now, because I think this is a fascinating reframe. I want you to think of a project or an accomplishment that you're most proud of. Mm-hmm. And then go back in time to when you were in the middle of that project. What was your stress level? And in recognizing this, right, like everybody's like 283, you know, the data are, are really clear. Incidentally, 4% of people said it was very low. I think they're liars. The vast majority of us were stressed out of our gourds. And I think that's so powerful because we're using this stress for good. We really are. It's just in the moment we have to recognize that this is meaningful. This is a barometer for how much we care. And helping our, our students, helping our children recognize that this is just your body preparing you to perform. It's not a bad thing, right? This isn't a, this isn't a bug. It's a feature. And we can use that. I think that's a very teachable moment.

I mean, you're reframing stress for all of us. I mean, really, like, really reframing it. I mean, you've helped me so much because even like my junior, you know, Ella's 16, and she's like nose to the grind, like all AP classes, working her buns off. And I'm like, oh my God, this is too much. Why are you doing this?

So look, I know, and I will say this last year I did research on this Gen Z, this new generation coming. Oh my gosh. Oh, and I sound like an old folk. Like, I feel like every generation does this. Like, I'm so worried about this. I'm so worried about this generation. They're stressed out of their gourds. I mean, I— yeah, I developed an entire course specifically for that generation because I'm so worried for them. And like, this message, I cannot get this out fast enough to more people, um, in— especially to parents. Like, it has to be just as stressful to you to watch that and, and know the, the fear and the stress and the anxiety that she's experiencing. But don't try and save her. Don't try and save her, man.

I have, I have to tell you, like, from when they were little to now, the way that we change as parents where you're like, step a little more back, step a little more back, let them feel a little more by themselves.

Yeah. Yeah. It's hard. It's really hard. It's so hard. And, and recognizing again, if you don't do that, they will not have the self-confidence when they do hit that roadblock and you're not there. You're not serving them, right? You're not serving them by saving them. And it is, I think it is just as stressful. And I wanna acknowledge this for the parents. It is just as stressful for you as it is for them. And I think we have to recognize and own that for ourselves and go, oh, this is actually more about me. So how can I, how can I step back and let them, let them handle it?

Oh, you're helping so much. You have no idea. I didn't know I needed this episode.

Good. That's, that's my job. That's my job.

So your upcoming book is called Springboard, correct? Let me go back.

It's officially out.

It's officially out. It's transform— it's beautiful. If you're watching us, it's beautiful.

Wait, I gotta point this out because, I mean, it sparkles.

Oh, I'm all about sparkles. I am all about the sparkles.

I'm a nerd, but yeah, it's fun. It's a fun book.

I am a total book nerd, so that's really exciting for me. So tell us the message that you're hoping we're going to take away from your book.

I mean, the biggest message is what we've been talking about already. It is that stress isn't inherently bad. And one of the studies that I open with, because I think this is such a powerful one, is in 2013, we looked at 30,000 Americans for 8 years. And we asked the question, do you believe stress is bad for you? Right? And most people are like, yeah, duh, of course. And the results were terrifying because if you have high levels, levels of stress and you believe that stress is bad for you, you have a higher mortality rate, like significantly 43% higher mortality rate. Oh boy. That's the bad news, right? And I don't want to use fear to scare people here. But here's the good news. And this is, this is, this is why I think this is so important. If you have very high levels of stress, but you don't believe that stress is bad for you. In other words, you think of it as energy or as something that has potential to teach you. You have the lowest mortality rates of the entire study.

Wow.

Lower, in fact. Yeah. Lower, in fact, than people who had very little stress in their life. And so this idea that the way we think about stress is actually the more powerful piece. It's not the stress itself that's killing you, right? It's the way you interpret it. Crazy. And that is so powerful. So that's, that's why I wrote this book. It is, it is a book that helps to transform that mindset so that we are not dead people, right? Because we don't, we don't wanna be dead people. We don't wanna be get getting rid of stress. We want to be using it to serve us.

Amazing. So I don't want to— like, you've given us so much. Is there anything that you want to leave us with that I didn't ask you that you think we need? I feel like I asked you so much.

Yeah. You know what? There's one more piece. There's one more piece. You've done a great job, by the way. Thank you. There's one more piece, and I love this. One of my favorite discoveries in writing this book is there was a study done just last year looking at interventions, and these were workplace interventions. These are things that we typically try, right? Like meditation and massage and coaching and all of these things to try and mitigate the effects of stress. And what the study found was that of the 90 interventions, none of them helped. And I was— trust me, I was cheering for massage. I was like, please give me that excuse.

Come on!

Right? Like, give me the excuse. There was one exception, and the one exception was service to others. Oh, and this one, like, it makes me choke up a little bit because what my belief is that my story is your story and your story is my story. And we may not be experiencing the exact same stressor at the exact same time or at the exact same time of life, but we're all carrying stress. And when we reach out and help each other, we're not only helping that person, we're helping ourselves too. And that fits with the physiology as well. So we talk all the time about cortisol, about the main stress hormone. The other main stress hormone is oxytocin. It's the cuddle hormone, the togetherness hormone. It's really a hormone of courage that helps us to reach out and ask for and receive help. So I would say, you know, remember that receiving help And asking for help, especially in community around stress, is one of the most powerful things that you can do for yourself and everyone around you. You're actually serving them.

We all needed to hear that. Every single one of us needed to hear that.

Good.

Oh my goodness. Okay, so we want your book.

We want it.

We want to know where to find your book, where to find you. Tell us all.

Yeah, sure. So my book is anywhere books are sold. Please go ask your local bookstore for it. Or you can get it on Amazon, Barnes Noble, all the, all the places. You can find me on Instagram at Dr. Rebecca Heiss. You can also go to my website at rebeccahice.com, and there are courses there specifically for your teenager or for your young adults. I'll work on that elementary version in a bit, but that's gonna be my secondary piece. And, and honestly, what I'll say to your audience is I'm really accessible. Please reach out to me if you have questions or concerns. You can find my email on my website, and I will happily, happily do everything I can to help you.

Well, I cannot thank you enough. I can't even tell you how excited I was when I saw what you were going to talk about. I was like, oh boy, every single person in this universe needs you. So thank you. Thank you for spending time with us. Thank you for sharing your expertise. You're amazing.

Thank you. This has been a pleasure. Truly. Thanks, Rebecca.

This is Rebecca Green, and I want to remind everyone to spend every day laughing, learning, and loving.