Cortisol Is Good

In Kelly McGonigal’s TED Talk, she discusses how we have been thinking about stress in the wrong way. While it is true that stress does have harmful health effects, a major deciding factor in the extent of those effects is our beliefs about stress. Studies have shown that people who experienced a lot of stress and believed it was harmful for their health had a forty-three percent increased risk of dying. However, people who experienced a lot of stress, but did not believe it was harmful to their health had the lowest risk of dying in the entire study. Their risk was even lower than people who experienced very little stress. In addition, thousands of people died prematurely in a year just from the belief that stress is harmful to you. While we commonly interpret the physical changes our body experiences during stress

The film “Stress: Portrait of a Killer” shows how dangerous if stress stay longer in our life that will can effect on our health in many different way. Today people have a hard time to turning stress off as they have to cope with their daily life. This film points out the effect of stress on our body. It will shrink our brain, add fat to our belly, and unravel our chromosomes. So if we understand how stress work can help us figure out ways to protect our health and avoid the danger of stress.

Stress is known to negatively impact health. Psychological responses, such as mood, emotion and coping, influence the way we perceive stress and the impact it has on the physiological response (Chida & Hamer, 2008). Past studies have used the hormone cortisol to test the stress response(Dickerson &

Everyone experiences stress in a different way: some shut down while others cry or become frustrated. Moreover, although a instinctual necessity, too much stress can definitely cause problems for one’s physical or psychological well-being. When I get too stressed, for example, my immune system drops which causes me to get sick sometimes even three times in a month. Other times, I just have to take breaks from my responsibilities to prevent myself from breaking down or becoming so exhausted that I cannot finish the task at

While it is an ethical act to protect animal rights and conduct experiments on the lowest number of animals possible, but rational conclusions that can be generalized to the whole population will need more experiments done on a bigger sample population of the species. Also the letter does not mention if all eighteen monkeys have been brought from one part of the globe or not, and if they have been raised in same conditions or not. If the monkeys had not all been under the same conditions before the experiments then chances are that they each one had different levels of cortisol in their blood.

How many of us have been stressed out this week and wished we could have prevented it? Levitin’s main idea is there are systems you can put in place that could prevent bad things from happening. I agree with Levitin because I believe there are many systems we could put in place to prevent bad things from happening. Like buying bottled water in case something happens to our drinking water. Gary Klein’s pre-mortem is looking ahead thinking of everything that could go wrong and coming up with a plan to prevent the bad things from happening. Making a decision in a stressful situation such as a financial or a medical situation could lead you to a quick decision without looking or reviewing the overall outcome. The effects of cortisol reduce logical thinking and begins to shutdown systems in our bodies. I will now discuss the first piece of evidence which is pre-mortem.

1.) Summary: Kelly McGonigal who is a health psychologist gives a thought-provoking lecture called “How to Make Stress Your Friend” at an official TED conference in June 2013. During the first part of the presentation, Ms. McGonigal confesses to the crowd that she been teaching about stress completely wrong, “Basically, I’ve turned stress into the enemy. But I have changed my mind about stress…” Ms. McGonigal emphasizes the point that people who view stress as not harmful (not their enemy), were less likely to die to people who view stress as their enemy; therefore, when people change their mind about stress, they can change their body response to stress to make them healthier. As the presentation gets further along, Kelly McGonigal states how oxytocin plays a huge role in controlling stress. This neuro-hormone, which is released during stress, motivates you to seek support, which is the reason why stress makes you social. At the same time, oxytocin acts

Levitin had said “we are supposed to believe in what doctors tell us to take.” Doctors are people who we trust in our everyday lives. But when we are sick and if they tell us to take something, most likely we are going to take it. With Levitin, he came up with a conclusion on whether someone should take something without thinking about the side effects. In this case he had used a drug that would help you lower your cholesterol whenever you are stressed out. But before taking it Levitin had explained the effect of the drug, which was you had a one and 300 chance of lowering your cholesterol. If you take a look at that fact only one person out of 300 will be helped, leaving 5% of the 300 with side effects which brings the total to 15 people the drug will harm. Levitin had explained that you are one of the 15 people that will be harmed. Overall it’s important to have a pre-plan about taking drugs that could potentially harm

performance on the task. Children with ASD are reported to show reduced stress responses to

Statins are drugs used in the treatment of many diseases including hypercholesterolemia, ischemic heart disease (angina, chronic heart disease and myocardial infarction), cerebrovascular accidents and peripheral arterial disease. Adults with a history of cardiovascular disease (CVD) or those with a 10-year risk of developing CVD should start statin therapy as a prophylactic measure. As a result of all these indications, statins are one of the world’s most prescribed drugs (1).

Even though more aggressive lipid lowering with potent statins in high doses can reduce rates of non-fatal events and need for interventions, the incremental mortality benefits are still vague, and their use is associated with a higher rate of drug related adverse effects.

The main indication for statins is to lower cholesterol, which in turn helps management in preventing cardiovascular and heart disease (1). Statins have also been hypothesized to prevent or treat other health conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, osteoporosis, prostate cancer, and rheumatoid arthritis; however the evidence is still quite low to justify statins being used for anything other then for the purpose of their cardiac benefits

On the surface, statins, a class of drugs, appear to be a no-brainer. They inhibit the enzyme that the body uses to create cholesterol, essentially slowing down the production of cholesterol in order to prevent a build up in the arteries and causing a stroke. Consequently, they are prescribed to those who have high cholesterol levels and are at risk of cardiovascular diseases. However, a variety of studies show that this medicine is not as simple as it appears. With the CDC reporting about 25% of Americans aged 45 and older taking a statin, the need to assess and communicate the various risks associated with statins is more dire with such widespread use. Although the drug effectively accomplishes its goal when it is prescribed to those who

I want you to read the following article,” How statistical deception created the appearance that statins are safe and effective in primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease”, David m. Diamond and Uffe Ravnskov; Expert Rev. Clin. Pharmacol. Early inline, 1-10 (2015)

“Stress is a silent disease” (Doctor Hobel). Over the years, stress has played a major rule in a large majority of people’s lives throughout the United States. When thought about, it is said to be extremely surprising as to how many people really have stress in each individual’s life. People do not consider what the reasons are for the feelings and emotions they experience. There are all different types of stress, and stress can do a lot to a person. Each person also handles stress in a different way. Some can handle more than others, because every single person’s body works in a different way. Stress has also been told to cause people to act out of character (Dr. David Posen). They often do not act the way they usually would while under