What Does Stress Really do to our Bodies?

before your alarm goes off. And I was reading this study from the University of lu back and they got some student volunteers to go to sleep, and they told them before that that they'd wake them up at either six in the morning or nine in the morning, and then they lied and with everybody up at six o'clock. So I'm guessing a lot of people who were told they'd wake up at six were like more awake at

that time, right, Yeah, that's exactly what happens. And the kids who were told they'd be getting up at nine were completely groggy and just out of it. But what's interesting is that they were monitoring their bodies the entire time. And so for the sleepers who were told they to be woken up early. Their stress hormones kicked in at around four thirty in the morning. You could actually see that their bodies were using stress to anticipate these early

mornings and prepare them for the early day. And so today's episode is all about stress. What does it due to our body and how can we use it for good and what are the best ways to relieve it? So let's dig in ai their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend man guest shot Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof glass raking this tiny zen garden. Oh it's so sweet, but he's breaking

pretty aggressively. Actually that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. I think you need to go a little easier, Tristan, but he is getting pretty zin with it and he's he's raking the heck out of this thing. Yeah, I know, I mean he does claim it helps them to relax. So I think we ought to support the man for today's show. Especially, we should try to keep an open mind to different approaches to dealing with stress, because there really is no one correct way to cope with it.

For for example, I was reading about the study from a team out of Australia, these neuroscientists from the University of Queensland, and apparently they figured out that when grass is cut, it actually inhibits our brain's release of stress causing hormones. So it turns out there's a good reason why people love the scent of fresh cut grass so much. It can actually help you calm down. That's pretty interesting. So that's our first tip pretty early in the day.

So if you're feeling stressed, just mow your lawn or get an air freshener that smells like mode lawn. And the truth is, there are a ton of other offbeat examples that you know are there to relieve our stress. But to start things off, why don't we talk about what stress is and what kind of effects that can have on our bodies? Alright? Well, since stress is something that's always been a part of life, obviously don't have a great origin story for this one, but the closest

thing might be the origin of the term. So I didn't realize this, but prior to the word stressed didn't mean like a mental or emotional strain. Until that point, it was just used to refer to the pressure applied to an object, you know, not to a prison's well being. So what changed in nineteen forty six specifically that that kind of gave it this new meaning. So there's this Austrian physician named Hans Celier, and that's the year he

first coined the term stress while describing his latest experiments. So, of course this comes back to a rat study, because we love rats studies on this show. But uh Celia had been monitoring the physical responses of rats that have been injected with different hormones and also different like tissues, and he found that the rats symptoms were identical regardless of what they had been injected with. And what became apparent was that the rats were responding to the trauma

of the experiments themselves. And and he called this trauma stress. So I'm assuming the stress that Selia witnessed was involuntary, like you know, a faster heart rate or an increase in blood pressure. I actually looked into this fight or flight response a little bit, and you know, that's the feeling that gets triggered in your body when the brain recognizes some sort of outside threat. So basically it starts when the hypothalamus sends signals to the pituitary glands and

the adrenal glands. What that does is it triggers the production of adrenaline and these other stress hormones like cortisol and epidephrin. And then a few things happen when all these chemicals are swirling around in our blood stream. So for starters are reflexes and senses are heightened so we can better deal with that perceived threat. The cortisol also pushes glucose out of our tissues and into our blood, and that gives our bodies this extra boost of energy

that you might experience if you're really really stressed. Yeah, so I'm always amazed by that sort of thing, like like we think of stress is such a negative and yeah, it's also this reaction that's supposed to help us deal with these life threatening situations, like if our ancestors had to like avoid running from a lion or something, that's

when stress kicks in and it's helpful. But obviously these sharpened senses don't always help us deal with the more benign things like trying to make a deadline or trying to give a public speech. And you know, for for someone like me, who is really used to avoiding public speaking. That sort of stress can be debilitating, Like doesn't it feel like overkill from the body to still be sending out all these signals? Yeah, it does, and the response to stress can be a problem when all that extra

focus and energy doesn't really have a natural outlet. Part of that is because the stress hormones actually begin to build up, and that not only keeps us on edge, but it also provokes all kinds of unnecessary responses in our bodies. For example, you know how stress can make some people feel nauseous or stick to their stomach. Well, that's because stress hormones push the blood away from the gastro intestinal system and actually redirect it to the brain.

And that makes sense because it helps the brain better respond to threats. But there are side effects, and that's when this redirection agitates the microbes living in our gut, and that of course makes you feel sick at your stomach. So I definitely feel that loss of appetite from anxiety. But what's weirder to me is that even though stress can sap your desire to eat, it can also make you gain weight at the same time. And I didn't

realize this before. But as stress hormones like cortisols circulate through the body, they relay messages to our fat stores, telling them to generate as much energy as possible, and this call to action triggers the process called lippo license, which is basically when fatty assets called lipids are broken down and circulated through the body as a source of energy. Alright, so if the fat is being broken down, it seems like that what calls us to lose weight rather than

gain it. So how does this work? Yeah, I mean it should accept that these lipids also signal the brain to release more stress hormones, which basically tells the body to conserve its fat supplies. So it's kind of this negative feedback loop like as one professor of neuroscience explained. He said, cortisol causes lippo license to release energy, but stimulates the growth of fat cells replenishing it, which makes

it a double edged sword. And basically these mixed messages are also a big reason why stress can lead to obesity is as well as certain kinds of diabetes. Okay, I mean it makes sense. I've actually never heard that before. And when you were talking abou a weight gain. I just assume you were talking about like stress eating or other responses like that. Yeah, I mean that's interesting to me too. I find a bizarre because you know, I can't eat, but like other people tend to chow down

when they're stressed. And that's really because stress responses are highly individualized to our genetic differences, So you know, people can have widely different responses to the exact same stressor Yeah, and it is probably worth mentioning that while we know stress can make us feel sick, we aren't a hundred percent sure of the physiological reasons behind that. But scientists have made some headway on that over the past decade

or so. For instance, there was a study out of U c l A. This was back in two thousand and twelve, and it pointed towards the immune system as a possible answer to this. So the researchers had a group of a hundred and twenty two participants fill out questionnaires and they were answering questions about their activities over the last week or so, and including that was whether

each social encounter they had was positive or negative. And they also have participants undertake a whole series of these very stressful lab tests and before and after these tests, the volunteers had their salive attested and what they were looking for was, you know, indicators of inflammation called cytokinds, and these are products of the immune system. So cyto kinds are supposed to travel to the side of the wound or you know, something like that so they can

help fight off infection. So the researchers were trying to see if the stress would lead to a rise in these cyto kinds, and amazingly it did. After the participants engaged in negatively stressful activities things like arguments, their levels of cyto kinds went way up, which is pretty wild when you think about It's like our immune system is responding to an emotional or maybe a mental wound in the same way that it would a physical one. That's crazy. So,

I mean, are there any negative effects of this? Let like, have scientists figured that part out? Well? There definitely are. I mean the reaction can lead to some pretty major problems in the long term, including stuff like heart disease and even cancer. You know, because why can we mentioned These cyto kinds are looking for a wound to work on, and when they don't find one. They just keep circulating and inflame regions that really don't require their attention. Huh.

So is there any way to prevent these unneeded side of kinds from circulating? I mean, besides trying to avoid any of these stressful situations we put ourselves in. Well, I mean, that's pretty much the only solution. And this was actually the takeaway of the study. I've got a quote here from the papers author Shelley Taylor. She says, the message is that the flauntsom and jetsam of life predict changes in your underlying biology in ways that cumulatively

could have a bad effect on health. What this tells me is that people should be investing in socially supportive relationships and they should not court relationships that lead to a great deal of conflict. So don't hang out with enemies all the time, don't hang out with bad people. See, it's such sound advice we're providing. I also know from my own experience, I'm not always the best at evaluating my own stress levels. So it's actually something I looked into.

And did you come across this, uh, the scientist named Stephen Cole in your research? I don't think so. It doesn't bring a bell. So Cole was basically bothered by our inability to measure our own stress. So he wondered, like, what if our brains automatic stress assessment doesn't translate to a conscious awareness of it? So are there actually subconscious signs that we're feeling stressed? Like things we might not even notice in ourselves. So that's exactly what Colin is.

Fellow researchers wanted to find out and and to do it they enlisted a hundred forty three volunteers and had them where these audio recorders for two days. And during that time the recorders would switch on automatically every couple of minutes, and they actually gathered over twenty thousand audio clips.

And from there the researchers transcribed the recordings and started picking apart the specific language, and in particularly they paid attention to these things called function words, which are pronouns and adjectives that I guess clarify meaning rather than providing it themselves. So you think about the opposite that, which is meaning words nouns and verbs. Those are words a speaker might liberally choose versus like the so called function words,

which are produced without thinking. And the idea is that maybe these function words could theoretically give you a glimpse of what's going on subconsciously, so where the research is able to link certain words to feelings of stress. Yeah, the study found that a volunteer's use of function words was much more accurate prediction of gene expression than even

like an individual self report about his or her stress levels. So, for example, participants who exhibited stressed out gene expressions talked less overall, but when they did speak, they used more intensifying adverbs such as like really, you're very or incredibly, and they also used fewer third person plural pronouns such as they are there. Alright, alright, I'm writing all these

down for later years. Well, I mean there's a reason like, like, according to the researchers, uh, we use they are they're less and and that's because people tend to focus inwards. And of course there's still much more research to do on all of this, but if these initial findings hold up, you could actually be a new way for doctors or even like your phones or your watches or your alexis to spot if you're stressed out and all that by

just listening to the words you use. That is pretty incredible and also a little bit weird to think about, but yeah, very interesting, and it reminds me there are actually a few other symptoms of stress that I wanted to talk about, and one of these is is whether or not it can really make your hair turn gray. Well, as someone whose hair has all turned gray since I've had kids, I'm very interested in who to blame for this. But before we dig in, let's take a quick break.

You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about all the different ways stress can affect our bodies, and Mango, I've got bad news for you. There's one thing stress doesn't do, and that's turn your hair gray. So I'm definitely a little confused by this because I look at Obama and George Bush and how their hair turned color like pretty soon after they got into office, and for some reason, our current president's hair has stayed the exact

same color. But are are you saying stress makes no contribute usian to these like Bonnie Rate streaks in my hair? You know, I've always wanted to tell you how much you reminded me of Bonnie Rate, So I'm glad you finally brought it up. But you know, despite what many people think, there's actually no clear scientific link between stress and going gray. And it turns out it's actually a person's genes more than anything else, that determine when their

hair turns gray. So why is the when like my kids started talking a lot and bossing me around, that's where my hair went gray. I think it's just getting older, man. I mean, it's the same thing for the presidents that you talk about, or or or most of our presidents. And you know, while we don't know the exact genetic reason why most people go gray as they age, we do know that it ultimately comes down to these millenno sites, which are these pigments cells that give hair its color.

So when you're younger, the cells work to fight off damaging compounds like hydrogen peroxide, and these would otherwise cause oxidation if they were allowed to build up on the scalp. But as we get older, our genes have a harder and harder time keeping that oxidation at bed, and so, according to one theory, as the hydrogen peroxide accumulates over time,

our melano sites start to die off. So you know, once our follicles begin to run low, on their only source of pigment, they start producing colorless or or gray hair instead. So I mean, I'm going to accept that answer, but but I also feel like, you know, these old wives tales have been going on for long enough that there has to be some validity, right, Like, is there any truth to any of it? Well, there actually is one thing that kind of redeems their tail, and and

that's because cellular strain that's brought on by oxidation. It is actually known as oxidative stress. And that's different from the kind of emotional stress that we've been talking about, though it's still somewhat connected. So this comes from Mary Seilberg of the Global Dermatology Institute, And as she says, a very strong chronic stress is known to increase oxidative stress, and there are studies that document correlations between extreme emotional

stress and increased cellular oxydatings. I got out you didn't let me finish your mango. So this is not to say that we gray every time that we fight with our children or spouses. That was what she said at the end of it. Well, well, family and work stress might not turn our hair gray. There is one thing that does lead to hair loss, because oddly enough, losing your hair is a coping mechanism when we're going through exceptionally hard times. So I do have my kids to blame.

This is good to know. Well, for first, it helps to know the life cycle of our hair includes three phases. I'm going to talk through that, the last of which is this resting period called the telligent phase. And hairs in this stage are no longer connected to a blood supply,

which which means they're no longer growing either. Now, usually about eight percent of our hair is in this dormant stage at any given time, and this is all completely natural, right, Like, hairs in this telligent phase they put for around three months or so and then they guy of just fall out gradually as we go about our lives. Alright, So

then how does stress figure into this? Well, when people go through something that's emotionally draining, like illness, or or like the loss of a loved one, or even something positive but still taxing, something like childbirth, are our bodies will sometimes prompt much of our hair to enter this telligent phase prematurely, and it's actually the body's way of conserving energy to be used elsewhere during like a period of extended stress. All right, So let me get this straight.

Not only do you have to get through a tough time, but when you finally get to the end of it a few months later, all your hair falls out. I mean, it kind of feels like a raw deal. But you know, we've been concentrating on the negative here, which is a little uncharacteristic for us. But the truth is not all of stress's effects on the body are bad ones. They're

actually upsides to emotional or mental pressure. And you know, for one thing, experiencing stress better prepares us to handle it in the future, and the reason for that really comes down to mental conditioning. You know, whenever we encounter a stressful situation, our prefrontal cortex takes notice of this. And remember this is the part of the brain that handles executive functions that help us cope with different threats.

So the next time we're faced with a mild stress or that we've handled before, the prefrontal cortex is able to overrule those warnings and and that makes the stress much easier to bear than it was the last time. I'm actually glad you're pointing out how stress can make is more resilient because One of the things I found out this week is that having a well rounded view of stress can actually help you live longer. So why

is that? This is According to a study from when researchers asked about thirty adults in the US about their opinions on stress, and the participants were asked to report how much stress they had experienced in the past year and whether or not they believed that stress was negatively impacting their health. Then, eight years later, the researchers determined that high levels of stress had increased the risk of dying by but only in the people who had said

stress was making them less healthy. So what about the people who reported high stress levels but didn't think it was hurting them. I mean, that's the craziest part. Not only were those people less likely to die prematurely, they actually had the lowest risk of death of all the participants, including those who'd reported low stress levels. So it really

seems like stress itself isn't the problem. It's kind of how we think about it or deal with it that makes or breaks is Well, that sounds right, and of course there's a little caveat there. I mean, simply being exposed to stressful situation doesn't equip us to handle them better next time. I mean, if you get really stressed before presentation and then you crack under pressure, it's not like you're gonna feel stress free then next time you

have to give a presentation. And on the other hand, like if you overcome those anxious feelings and give a solid performance despite all that stress, then of course the next time you'll feel a whole lot less stress going up again. I mean, there's definitely no quick fix for stress. But like we've been saying, maybe that's not such a

bad thing. I mean, I think about the people from the study who reported high stress levels but didn't actually consider your problem, and I'd wager what they were experiencing is something called you stress or healthy stress. And this was another term coined by that scientists we talked about earlier, Hans Celier, and it refers to the range of us where people actually feel motivated or more productive. It was just fascinating to think about it. It makes sense. But

but what separates this good stress from the bad stress? Again,

it really comes down to perception. So like if if you think about like an employee who's been given a reasonable amount of work and a realistic deadline, then it's likely that person will feel engaged but not overwhelmed, you know, like the goal seems achievable, so they know that any stress they feel is temporary or you know, surmountable, and that usually results in motivation and focus rather than I guess what would be discouraging feelings, you know, when when

you feel like it's just too much to cope with. Well, that does make sense. And obviously not all stress is going to be healthy stress, I mean, sooner or later we have to deal with the bad kind. And well, you mentioned how working through distress can make you more resilient in the long run. Sometimes you just want relief from it, you know, absolutely, So let's check out a few offbeat ways to cope with stress. But before we do, let's take another quick break. Okay, well, so why don't

you go first? What's your favorite time tested way to distress? All right, So this isn't anything I've tried before, but I came across this study on acupuncture, and I've always been curious about acupuncture, and this study was from a few years back, and it it really shed some light on why the practice might be so effective at relieving

certain people's stress. Now, acupuncture is of course a big part of traditional Chinese medicine, and it actually dates back several thousand years, but for all that time, the treatment has largely been seen is really more of a placebo in the eyes of western medicine, and it seemed to work as a form of pain management, but you know, researchers weren't sure exactly why. So I've actually done a chorus of acupuncture for this arm injury I had, and I was really skeptical going in, and then I found

it really helpful. But I was also curious whether it was just like a placebo thing. But you're kind of saying that someone's cracked the case on why it might work. Well maybe, I mean, there was a team at Georgetown that took on this challenge back in two thousand and fifteen, and they found that acupuncture might actually work by suppressing some of those stress hormones that we talked about earlier.

So in humans, are central stress response is called the h p A and this stands for the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis, and believe it or not, this complex feedback system is linked to an acupuncture point on our shens of all things. Not Luckily, there appears to be a similar point on the pause of what else but rats, and so researchers were able to use them for a

study instead. And so first they stressed out the rats by exposing them the cold conditions, and then they tested how these cold rats responded to stimulation on that specific Paul point. So it turns out the acupuncture greatly reduced the activity in the rats hp A axis and it was blocking the production of stress hormones. And this is

much like the anti anxiety medication might do. So, you know, while there's still more research to be done, the evidence does suggest that acupuncture holds more water than many people give it credit for. Well, for those of you out there who have no interest in like poking yourself or prodding yourself before a big speech or game or whatever,

you can actually make do with stress toys. And this is anything from fidget widgets to paper clips too, stress balls to silly putty, even that little zen garden that Tristan's been raking the heck out of for half an hour, and he's he's only getting more aggressive, I know. But

the strange thing is it really works. So there's this pair of researchers from Polytechnic Institute at an n y U, and they've been doing a study on these kinds of objects, and they claim that stress toys function as quote, playful secondary interactions that are able to engage bodily movement, effective states, and cognition to support primary serious tests. I mean, that feels like a high salutant way to talk about paper clips,

but but I get it, and and I'm curious. I mean, have there been any studies just on stress balls, because it feels like there was a time when these things were the most popular thing in the world, Like you remember this, and everybody was giving away these stress balls. I know, I feel like I came back with three stress balls a week just from walking around campus or whatever. But uh, there's actually no definitive research on it. I did find one study that showed that brief distractions actually

help people concentrate. So you think about like checking your email or watching a short YouTube clip or you know, all that type of thing can serve as a mini vacation for your brain and it kind of resets your attention span, which makes sense unless you get back to work, and when you do, your focus is more readily there. But this is where the team from n YU comes in because, according to them, fidget widgets have an advantage

over these other kinds of diversions. And that's because stress toys are typically used just for the enjoyment of the experience itself. So with something like a smartphone game, like you might find relief from work, but you're also setting a new kind of goal as you're playing it, like you've got to beat this level or you've got to get this high score. And on the other hand, like when you're squeezing a stress ball, all you're doing is squeezing a stress ball, right, I mean it's something that's

done just as a simple form of mindless fun. Then it actually stands a better chance of relieving your stress than any of the other stuff we mentioned. But there's actually this other great study I have to bring up because it involves fake smiles. Fake smile, Sorry, we'll tell me about it. So you remember that episode we did on Exercise will back where there was this one study about how when you smile when you're running, it can

improve your endurance. Yeah, I remember that one, but it's it was only if the smile was like truly genuine though, right, Yeah, so apparently fake smiles are actually good for something else. So this is an experiment I actually paid a witness, but researchers used chopsticks to manipulate participants faces into one of three expressions. Like they use the chopsticks to press their faces into like a neutral expression and a standard smile, and then the so called genuine smile, where it also

pressed the muscles around their eyes. And once their expressions were set, the volunteers were asked to complete a series of stressful multitasking activities. All will continue to hold the shopsticks in place. See this is where I'm jealous of scientists, because even if you didn't actually believe there was something you could find for this, you could just say, like, we're trying to study for this for science, so I'm gonna stick some chopsticks in your face and move your

face around. But I'm with you. I want to see this experiment too. But I'm curious here, like how was their stress level monitored or was this really just some elaborate hoax like I said, to get, you know, to get to be able to press these chopsticks into people's faces. No, it was a real thing. And researcher was actually tracked the volonteers heart rates through the experiment, and they also had each person give a self report of how stress

they felt at different times. And in the end, the people who maintained the neutral expressions had the highest heart rates of all the participants. And granted, the people with the genuine smiles were the most relaxed and gave the most positive reports, but even the people who were forced with standard smiles, they responded more positively than those who didn't smile at all. I mean, that is pretty amazing. So I'm going to try that the next time I'm

stuck in traffic. I'm gonna keep some chopsticks in my glove compartment and then when I get stressed, I'm just gonna pull them out and just shove them into my cheeks. Well, I don't know if that will make you feel better. If it's definitely gonna make me feel better, alright, Well, I do want to talk about one other aspect of stress, and that's the fact that it's on the rise in our country, according to a two thousand seventeen national survey.

This was conducted by the American Psychological Association. The US is currently undergoing a statistically significant increase in anxiety. And this is the first time since the annual survey launched back in two thousand six, so we're talking over a

decade now. And that may sound vague enough to not worry about it too deeply, But when you couple that with research from Harvard and Stanford Business schools which report that health problem stemming from job stress end up killing about a hundred and twenty thousand people each year, you know, it becomes clear pretty quickly that we can afford for stress levels to get much higher. I mean, it's literally

killing us. Yeah, it's hard not to worry when you hear stats like that, which is another problem in itself,

because even stressing about stress is bad for you. I read about the study back where over seven thousand civil servants in London whereas to rank how much they thought their stress level affected their overall health, and then nearly two decades later, the researchers took those answers and compared them alongside a list of participants who wound up having fatal or non fatal heart attacks in the years since

the servant And this is where things get weird. So The Atlantic reported on this a few years later, and this is how they summarize the findings. Eight percent of the participants had reported that stress affected their health either a lot or extremely and by the end of the study, those same people were over twice as likely to have suffered a heart attack as those who believed it didn't impact their health at all. This was independent of how

much stress they actually experienced. So while psychological, biological, and behavioral factors are all probably in play here, the takeaway is simply that if you feel like stress is killing you, there's a good chance it is. I mean, thankfully, they're all kinds of effective ways to manage stress, and it's much harder for some than others, but people turn to things like exercise and controlled breathing as well as chronic

stress treatments like therapy and you know, even certain medications. Yeah, and I also want to circle back to something we talked about near the top of the show, which is that idea of investing in socially supportive relationships. There's actually a good deal of evidence to suggest that a lot of the stress we feel today is made worse by

some of the more isolating aspects of modern culture. So you know, if this world has you feeling anxious, I'd recommend indulging in some good old fashioned camaraderie because you know, while other people are often a major cause of stress in our lives, in some cases, they can also be a way to relieve it. Yeah, it's definitely true. And if all else fails, get yourself as in garden. All right, why don't we start the fact off? So here's when to kick this off. You don't want to separate a

cow from their best friend cow. According to research from north Hampton University, when cows are penned in with their best cow friends, a pallid they've grown up around, their heart rates and stress levels go down. But when they're putting a pen for thirty minutes with a cow stranger, they get more stressed out, which you know sounds silly, but the Boddy system is relevant to farmers because that

stress can actually decrease the cow's milk production. All right, So you know how people who are stressed sometimes want to sleep away that stress, Like even the stress of a big argument can make you sleepy sometimes. Well there's a reason for this. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania stressed out a bunch of round worms, and then they found that there's a gene that helps repair damage DNA by making them sleepy, and that helps sedate them when

they were stressed. And according to the Atlantic, the idea is that some types of stress and due sleep occur because the body maybe trying to patch up its genes. Huh. That's fascinating. So, for no particular reason, I looked up celebrities and how they relieve stress. So Keanu Reeves has a very Buddhist approach. He has too much money, and worrying about your bank account can cause stress. So his advice is to give lots of your money away and

live simply, mostly out of a suitcase in hotels. If selling everything and living in a hotel doesn't calm you down, you can also follow Kendall Jenner's approach. She says, my way to the stresses to either listen to music or talk to my sister Courtney Kardashian, which is good advice. I I'm going to talk to Courtney the next time I'm stressed too. Yeah, I'm glad we're turning to Kindle

and Kianu for our stress relief ideas. Oh well, here's something I didn't realize financial stress can hurt you physically. This comes from Eileen and Chawa public policy professor at U v A. She and her team analyzed over thirty thousand households and they found that those with higher levels of unemployment were more likely to purchase over the counter

pain killers. So they looked into it a little bit more and set up these experiments where they discovered that simply thinking about financial insecurity was enough to increase your pain. I'm going to quote Scientific American here. It says people reported feeling almost double the amount of physical pain in their body after we're calling a financially unstable time in their life, as compared with those who thought about a

secure period. They also conducted an ice bucket challenge where they prime kids to feel anxious about their future employment prospects and saw that their pain tolerance was less than those who weren't stressed about their financial futures. I mean, that's crazy, and it doesn't make you wonder if the opioid epidemic in Sompard is related to like financial stress

and economic uncertainty. It's really interesting. So here's one I really like, and it comes from discover So the scientist Barry Marshall realized that ulcers weren't caused by stress, which is what everyone thought forever. He believed they were caused by this bacteria H. Pylori. But he couldn't convince any mainstream gastroentrologists, and he couldn't prove his point with labmies either. But because he was prohibited from experimenting on humans, he

did the only thing he ethically could. He used himself. So he pulled H. Pylori from the gut of a sick patient, put it in a broth, and drank it, and before long you developed signs of an ulcer. And the good news is that because it's bacterial, it can actually be treated with antibiotics instead of the distressing things that doctors have been recommending. And even better for him at least, Marshall won a Nobel Prize for the efforts. Wow,

all right, well, here's a quick one. When forest or overcrowded squirrels will boost their stress hormone during a pregnancy, and that leads to faster growing squirrel pups, which of course increases their chance of survival. That's fascinating. So here's one I just learned the day that South Korean kids

take their college entrance exam is particularly stressful. It's an eight hour exam and there are all sorts of traditions around it, like underclassmen will actually form these cheering squads to greet the test takers at the exam locations and uh the stock market opens an hour later, as do most businesses. Most parents can be found in temples or

churches just praying away the day. But the biggest indication of how much stress is going on is that South Korea actually cancels all flights on that day, so the skies are completely quiet while the kids are concentrated. I have to say, of all the facts that we've shared today, that one actually makes me the most stressed just thinking about it. But I will say, I'm looking over at Tristan, I'm seeing him raking his zen garden, and it's making

me calm down a little bit. Sopemengo. I don't know about you, but I feel like, for the first time, we should actually give Tristan the fact off Trophy for Tristan. The listeners, if we have forgotten any great facts about stress, feel free to pass those two us. We love to hear from You can email us part Time Genius and How Stuff Works dot com, or you can call us on our seven fact hotline that's one eight four four pt Genius, or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.

But thanks so much for listening. Congratulations Tristan, Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Christa McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy mixy sound thing. Jerry

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