Dr. Oz: Take Control of Stress

Dr. Oz offers advice for living healthier, happier and longer.

When Dr. Mehmet C. Oz, surgeon, best-selling author, entrepreneur, husband and father, talks about how to deal with stress in a healthy way, he’s speaking from personal experience. So we asked the expert: Since it is not possible—or even healthy—to completely avoid stress, what’s the solution? How can we deal with stressors without being constantly overworked in today’s fast-paced culture?

Here Oz offers insight and a few practical tips for dealing with stress so you live a happier, healthier and maybe even longer life.

Get Active
“Stress is a normal, natural part of life. When you have no stress, you’re almost certainly already dead. We are designed to withstand stress,” Oz says. “Episodic stress is in your best interest, which is why exercise is so good for you.” For busy women, exercise helps reduce the negative effects of stress in several ways.

Heart-pumping exercise forces your arteries open and triggers the release of beneficial chemicals into the bloodstream, one of which is nitric oxide, Oz says. “This very short-lived gas relaxes arteries. It’s one of the reasons your blood pressure stays low if you’re physically active,” he says. Even walking a half hour each day can be beneficial. Oz suggests incorporating exercise into daily activities. “Adjust your job so you have to take the stairs or walk at lunch, park farther from the mall; develop a routine of walking to work—or even part of the way to work,” he says. “It’s the small things that add up and make a big difference.”

Exercise also releases mood-boosting hormones like serotonin. No doubt you’ve heard
people talk about a “runner’s high” or feeling energized after working out. Not only does exercise get your blood pumping, but you get the benefit of natural, feel-good chemicals that help elevate your mood—which can help you deal better with stress.

Be Still
Another healthy way to get a handle on stress is to be quiet and give yourself a moment of total peace. “When you think about it, worry and fear—the big stressful events in our lives—are primarily issues of past or future. Very few of them are issues of now,” Oz says. “The biggest challenge I think people have is the inability to live in the moment. They don’t enjoy now.”

It can be difficult to turn off worries about future events. Concerns about college tuition for our children, impending layoffs or caring for elderly parents can weigh heavy on our minds. But for your physical and mental health, it’s important to take a timeout from all that worrying.

“Meditation is one of the ways to take you out of your mind and put you in the moment,” Oz says. “By getting into the moment, you have probably the best stress-reduction technique of all.”

Meditation is based primarily on taking deep breaths through your nose. “Your sinuses are the biggest source of nitric oxide,” Oz says. That artery-opening gas can help you control some of the basic “autopilot” mechanisms.

“You start with breathing, but ultimately you control heart rate and brainwave function. You begin to control how your body responds to everything—good and bad. And that’s an important insight, that you can control the body to that degree,” Oz says.

Stay Connected
The stress associated with job loss, litigation or other major life events can rob up to eight years from your life. “If you have a social network intact that can help you through difficult times, you can cut away three-quarters of the aging associated with stress related to major life events,” Oz says. “So from the pure aging perspective, you can go from losing eight years for bankruptcy to losing two years of life. It’s still a detriment; it’s not good for you, but you can cope.”

Staying connected to friends and family members also creates a backup system, Oz says. “Keeping people you love and who love you near you is a very important driver of healthy aging,” he says. “In the parts of the world with the greatest life expectancy, relationships are ubiquitously important. People who are lonely do not do well long term.”

So go ahead, plan a girls’ night out, a dinner date with your spouse, a play day with your family. It’s a great way to build and maintain connections and it will help you remember that people are what matter most.

Pursue Your Passions
Whether it’s your career or a hobby, find something you love doing. “You have to have passion in your life,” Oz says. “Give your heart a reason to keep beating.” Whether it’s photography, bungee jumping, sailing or volunteering at a women’s shelter, being passionate about something not only makes life more interesting, it gives you purpose.

If you or someone you love is retired or retiring soon, take special note of this bit of advice. “Retirement, we know, is correlated with shortened life expectancy,” Oz says. That’s because, many times our careers become our passion. When a person retires, finding a new sense of passion and purpose is incredibly important. “We should redefine retirement,” he says. “Retirement should mean that we’re shifting from one task to another. No longer are you an accountant; now, you’re an avid bowler or a world-traveler. You just happened to change vocations or avocations.”

Look for the Upside
Your levels of optimism and pessimism directly impact your ability to cope with stress also. “Your psychological outlook affects the neurological function of the body, and the neurological function has a direct chemical connection to your immunologic system,” he says.

Stress sends chemicals to the body that suppress immunity. When a person is pessimistic, she is likely to feel attacked or stressed more frequently, which can inhibit her natural ability to ward off or fight disease. “Your body is regulated by an autopilot system. That auto-pilot system is supposed to be able to undulate—to be able to go back and forth between being revved up and not,” Oz explains. “If you’re pessimistic, that auto-pilot system can fix itself in a very ‘on’ position. It never turns off anymore because you feel attacked. But if you’re optimistic, you allow yourself downtime—you allow yourself to breathe.”

When you start to feel stretched in too many directions, stop for a moment to clear your mind. Go for a walk, or better, go on a walk with a friend. Stress is inevitable, but how you cope with it and choose to learn from your experiences is up to you. SFW

Additional Reading

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• The Secret to Success—Anytime, Anywhere
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