Ted Talk Rhetorical Analysis

Kelly McGonigal begins this Ted Talk with a confession: she’s been giving people the wrong ideas about stress. Kelly has been telling people for years that stress will kill them and that it is totally and completely bad for them. Based on a study, though, this information that stress is bad for you is largely incorrect. The study in question shows that high levels of stress doesn’t kill people; rather, their perception of stress is what kills them. The study revealed that people with high stress levels that didn’t believe stress is harmful had a lower risk of death than those with high stress levels that believed stress is harmful.
Typically, in a moment of stress, your heart will “pound” and your blood vessels will constrict. This state is not good for your cardiovascular system. Research indicated that people who believed stress can be beneficial, and not harmful, did not experience constriction of their blood vessels. Their heart was still pounding, but their blood vessels stayed relaxed, which is a much healthier state.
Later in the video, McGonigal goes on to describe the relation between the hormone oxytocin and stress. Oxytocin is a hormone that causes people to seek support, increases empathy, and makes you want to help people you care about. This hormone is released during stress. During a stress response,
The section covering Stress and Coping discussed the ideas that some stress can be beneficial, which is similar to the ideas presented by McGonigal during her talk. In addition, we also covered that adrenaline and different hormones are released during stress events, which is also mentioned during this video. This video also correlates with the coping portion of the lecture that discusses the benefits of social support when it comes to stress. The video goes deeper into this phenomenon, though, with the introduction of the science behind this coping