How to make stress your friend | Kelly McGonigal

Do you want to live longer? Do you want to deal better with stress. Listen to this talk by Kelly McGonigal to find out how.

Stress. It makes your heart pound, your breathing quicken and your forehead sweat. But while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case. Psychologist Kelly McGonigal urges us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction: reaching out to others.



So what should you do to live longer and be able to deal with stress. You should do the following  3 things.

1.Rethink your view to stress from being bad to something good that is making your body energised and ready for action. Stress actually has some benefits as it releases oxytocin which:
      i)Makes you more social.
     ii)It is anti-inflammatory
    iii)It repairs your heart

2.Care for others

3. Go after meaning in your life.

Rethink you view of Stress

Your belief changes your world and now has been shown to save your life.

An 8 year study of 30,000 people showed that people who did not view stress as harmful had the lowest risk of dying.

Another study analysing people under a stressful situation (the social stress test) would have blood vessels constricting normally but they wouldn't constrict if they viewed stress as a sign that their body was energized and preparing to meet a challenge. So you should think of the stress response as helpful, as it is preparing you for action.

Makes you social

Oxytocin is a neuro hormone. People don't realise it is a stress hormone pumped out by pituitary gland. It has been called the cuddle hormone. It makes you crave contact, seek support, increase empathy and make you help people.

Anti-inflammatory
Oxytocin is anti -inflammatory

Strengthens you heart
Oxytocin helps heart cells regenerate and heal form any stress induced damage

Caring for others

A study of 1000 adults with ages ranging  form 34 to 93 showed that people who spent time caring for others showed absolutely no stress related increase in dying. Caring created resilience

Go after meaning

Go after meaning is more important than avoiding discomfort.

The puzzle of motivation | Dan Pink

Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don't: Traditional rewards aren't always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories -- and maybe, a way forward.

Have you heard about the candle problem, devised by the psychologist Karl Dunker in 1945 or the work done by the economist Dan Areily?

The experiments they did show a surprising fact about motivation. People think it is all carrots and sticks but maybe it's not.

There is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does. Here is what science knows. One: Those 20th century rewards, those motivators we think are a natural part of business, do work, but only in a surprisingly narrow band of circumstances. Two: Those if-then rewards often destroy creativity. Three: The secret to high performance isn't rewards and punishments, but that unseen intrinsic drive-- the drive to do things for their own sake. The drive to do things cause they matter.

Find out more in this amazing talk.

Why we do what we do | Tony Robbins

Tony Robbins discusses the "invisible forces" that motivate everyone's actions

He talks about:

What is your motive for action? 

What is it that drives you in your life today? Not 10 years ago.Are you running the same pattern? Because I believe that the invisible force of internal drive, activated, is the most important thing. I'm here because I believe emotion is the force of life

What makes the difference in people's performance?

If you don't have the money, but you're creative and determined, you find the way. This is the ultimate resource

What are we directed by?

We are directed by what what we target and  our  model of the world  

We have six needs.  Your lead system tilts you in a certain direction. The needs are:

Personality
1. Certainty
2.Uncertainty surpirses
3.Significance - feel important ,unique and different
4..Connection and love

Spirit
5.fulfillment - grow to have something to give of value
6.Contribution

If you were to die

If  you were going to die, who would you call, what would you say, what would you do?

Explore

Explore your web, the web in your head -- the needs, the beliefs, the emotions that are controlling you, for two reasons: so there's more of you to give, and achieve, too, but I mean give, because that's what's going to fill you up. And secondly, so you can appreciate -- not just understand, that's intellectual, that's the mind, but appreciate what's driving other people. It's the only way our world's going to change

What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness | Ro...

What keeps us happy and healthy as we go through life? If you think it's fame and money, you're not alone – but, according to psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, you're mistaken. As the director of a 75-year-old study on adult development, Waldinger has unprecedented access to data on true happiness and satisfaction. In this talk, he shares three important lessons learned from the study as well as some practical, old-as-the-hills wisdom on how to build a fulfilling, long life.

These Are Arnold Schwarzenegger's 5 Rules for Success

From Kindergarten cop to the terminator. Transform your life by following big Arnie's 5 success secrets.

1 Vision 

Find your passion

2 Think big

If you are going to think you might as well thing Big.

3 Ignore the naysayers

In fact your liabilities can be your assets 

They initially said he was too big to be an actor. 

They intially said his Austrian accent would never work in Hollywood. 

Later on they said if they didn't have Arnold they would have had to build someone like him for Conan. When they made Terminator, James Cameron said  the "I'll be back line" became so famous because of Arnold's crazy accent. 

4 Work your ass off 

Arnold had a job, did acting classes after then did English classes.

5 Dont just take, Give somthing back

 "if not us, who ? if not now when?"

The secret to living longer may be your social life | Susan Pinker

The Italian island of Sardinia has more than six times as many centenarians as the mainland and ten times as many as North America. Why? According to psychologist Susan Pinker, it's not a sunny disposition or a low-fat, gluten-free diet that keeps the islanders healthy -- it's their emphasis on close personal relationships and face-to-face interactions. Learn more about super longevity as Pinker explains what it takes to live to 100 and beyond.

Start with why -- how great leaders inspire action | Simon Sinek | TEDxP...

Here is an amazing, inspiring and thought provoking talk by Simon Sinek: Start with why - how great leaders inspire action
Why is your purpose, it is your reason for doing what you do. Now imagine if you could find 100 whys. (reasons.) How powerful would that be. The more whys that you can discover, the more powerful that you will become. Why (purpose) is the first cornerstone of your success talisman. The more whys (reasons), the more power. One why gets the ball rolling, but you need to find as many whys as you can.