Doctor Oz: The last little tip is a cool biofeedback device. It's a stress check. You can put your finger on there. put your thumb there. And just hold it for about ten seconds
Dr. Epel this is something you brought to our attention. Teach us about it a little bit.
Dr. Elissa Epel (UC San Francisco): To figure out how stressed we are, we need to look for the clues in our body-- our breathing rate, our muscle tension, but also our skin temperature. So when we are really stressed, we have vasoconstriction, no blood gets to the tips of our finger and our toes. and We feel cold and clammy. So this little thermal chip just measures our finger temperature. So you can see, this particular card tells you if you are stressed, tense, relaxed...
Doctor Oz: I'm tense
Dr. Elissa Epel: That's okay. We can change that by inducing the relaxation response. We can actually change our body stress level within minutes and warm up our fingertips.
Doctor Oz: This is a self test you can do at home.
Bottom line is if you're feeling stressed you can control your body's ability to respond to it.
The Stress Check card s, as seen on the Doctor Oz show, sell for under $5 or 20 for $35 and are available directly from the manufacturer, Futurehealth or on Amazon.com
