Dr. Elissa Epel

speaker

631 appearances 3 recordings 2 series first heard Nov 2024 last heard 23 Jun

Dr. Elissa Epel’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.

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Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee · The Science of Deep Rest: How Relaxation Calms Stress & Slows Ageing with Dr Elissa Epel #668 · 23 Jun 2026 podcast

So the stress response in a young, healthy organism is...

a low baseline, a really high peak response, and a quick shutoff, that dynamic, flexible, let's mobilize energy when we need it, and then let's recover when we don't need it.

And that shutoff, of course, is hard when we carry mental stress.

So the acute stress response is beautiful and necessary, and that's how we adapt so beautifully to demands

And shifting up and down is so important, but we lose that ability to quickly downshift.

And when we're under chronic stress, we can't even upregulate stress response normally.

We get a blunted stress response.

So acute stress is a different animal.

Let's talk about normal daily acute stress.

It is our friend.

It is our body being excited and responsive and enabling us to really adapt flexibly to demands and perform well.

So that's the red mind state is that acute stress that's healthy and we have it every day.

Now, when we, of course, are having that too much or we're in these situations where we just can't let down, we are under chronic stress.

And of course, that's, as you've described in your book, where the wear and tear on biology, on telomeres and every other regulatory system happens, right?

When we can downshift from this acute stress response, we get into yellow mind state.

And that's where the majority of time is spent for most of us living in an urban stressful environment.

The yellow mind state is pervasive, moderate, sometimes invisible cognitive load.

So this is a subtle chronic stress state that we're used to.

That's the one we don't notice.

And so shifting out of yellow mind state to a healthy acute stressor like exercise or down to relaxation is really important.

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