“Stress is natural,” says Alia Crum, an assistant professor of psychology at Stanford. “Stress is inevitable when you’re living a life that’s connected with things you care about. And learning how to embrace it, learning how to work with it is really what helps us thrive and grow and perform at our highest level.”

In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, lecturer and podcast host Matt Abrahams talks with Crum about her work as the principal investigator at the Stanford Mind & Body Lab, where she is studying how people can benefit from stress. “There’s a whole side of stress that shows that it can have enhancing qualities on our cognitive functioning, our physical health, and on how we behave and interact with others,” she says.

Think Fast, Talk Smart is a podcast produced by Stanford Graduate School of Business. Each episode provides concrete, easy-to-implement tools and techniques to help you hone and enhance your communication skills.