Dr. Gabor Maté

When I was a busy and workaholic family doctor, literally, and I used to deliver babies and look after pregnant women, I'd feel terrible going on holiday with my family because somebody might give birth without me.

It's like, imagine somebody in the world is born without me.

How is that?

How did humanity survive all those millions of years?

But that voice in me that says, I'm committed to that patient.

I have to be there.

And in the sense of guilt that I'm actually looking after myself, that comes from that same belief that we're not enough unless we're doing something.

That lack of valuation of ourselves just for being.

Well, so stress, by the way, we Canadians can be proud of the word stress because actually it was coined right here in Canada in the way that we use it today.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, I know a lot of people don't.

It was coined by another fellow Hungarian of mine called Janos Johan Selye, S-E-L-Y-E, who was a physician and researcher.

who came to Canada in the early 20th century, just after the First World War, and he did his research on stress at University de Montréal in Montreal.

And he's the one that showed in a laboratory the impact of stress on diminishing the immune system, overgrowing the adrenal gland, which is the stress gland, and ulcerating the intestines.

And he's the one that, the word stress wasn't new, but the way he used it was new.

He's the one who established it internationally.

And the thing about stress is it's an essential response to life challenges.

If you're confronting a threat, you're better of a stress response, which means you'll have

activation of your nervous system in a good way, and it makes you more alert.

You'll have more adrenaline to give you more energy and strength to fight back, more cortisol that gives you more blood sugar to have energy for the challenge ahead.