Stress is always attributed to a negative feeling and something that we must avoid at all costs. But stress is like a BOGO offer for daily life that no one asked for! No matter how much you try, you cannot avoid stressful situations, and that’s just the reality of the human condition.
But here’s some good news: you might be surprised to hear that there is something called “good stress”!
Also called eustress, good stress is the type of stress one might feel before or during a momentous occasion, such as the nervousness before a competition, the anticipation before a first date, or the anxiety when riding a roller coaster. Good stress causes your breathing and heart rates to increase, hormones surge, and you will feel excitement without fear or threat. This temporary change in your body allows you to get more energized and prepared to perform at your best. In fact, good stress is an essential part of our lives, and it can actually promote well-being – as opposed to bad stress, which is primarily harmful.
Many triggers for good stress allow us to feel more alive and excited. Stress can even enhance performance—but only to a certain point. Once that line is surpassed, it switches to being the opposite, so you must be cautious and aware of your limits.
How Can Stress Be Positive?
Here’s the thing—when you’re excited about something, you’re more likely to be alert, aware, and motivated. This helps improve your mood and ability to perform at your optimum. For example, choosing activities that excite you is a form of adding good stress to your life.
Benefits Of Good Stress
Boosts Brain Power
Low-level stressors are known to stimulate the production of neurotrophins, brain chemicals that help strengthen the connection between neurons in the brain. For example, exercise, a physical stressor, boosts concentration and productivity and leads to the betterment of overall health. Likewise, stress can improve memory power in a short period in some situations, like when taking a written examination.
Increases Immunity
When your body responds to stress, it prepares to fight off injury, threat, or infection. One way it does this is by producing interleukins, which are chemicals that regulate the immune system. As a result, good stress can provide a temporary defensive boost.
Promotes Personal Growth
Stress forces us to confront challenges and get out of our comfort zones. Only through such experiences can we learn about what we’re truly capable of! Good stress can lead to self-discovery and personal development as you understand more about yourself.
It Can Strengthen Relationships
During difficult times, we often rely on the support of loved ones. Stressful situations usually bring people together and help us feel more compassionate and empathetic toward one another. This unity can foster stronger bonds and deeper connections.
Makes You Resilient
Dealing with stressful situations naturally makes it easier to manage future stressful scenarios, too. Good stress allows you to develop a psychological and physical sense of control. It makes you understand and learn more about yourself, your limitations, strengths, and skills. When you know what you’re capable of, you can handle such situations better in the future!
Motivates You to Succeed
If it were not for deadlines hanging over our shoulders, some of us might never get any work done! Stress could be just what you need to help you get a move on and complete your tasks. And if you never found the motivation to do those difficult things, you’d never achieve anything in life. Consider taxing situations as challenges you can overcome instead of seeing them as impossible roadblocks.
Boosts Confidence
When you learn how to manage stressful situations, you naturally build self-confidence in your ability to tackle any crisis head-on. Good stress can strengthen you mentally and prepare you to handle life’s curveballs more confidently.
Ways To Incorporate Good Stress in Your Life
As you go through life, you will encounter many new changes, such as getting a job, moving to a new house, getting married, starting a family, etc. All these transitions can be immensely stressful, but often in a good way!
Not all the changes you’ll come across in life will be pleasant. You could lose your job or end your relationship, which causes an unsavory kind of stress. To protect your mental health and enhance overall well-being, it’s important to shift your perception of change. Rather than looking at it undesirably, consider it an opportunity for growth and new beginnings. This way, you can convert bad stress into good stress.
Here are some ways you can incorporate good stress in your life:
- Embark on projects that excite you and challenge your strengths.
- Explore new hobbies, skills, or passions.
- Engage in physical exercise to improve endurance, strength, and flexibility.
- Travel to new places, meet new people, and learn about different cultures.
At the same time, what one person considers good stress may be bad for another, so it varies from person to person. What one person experiences in a positive light can trigger despair in another, so much of it hinges on the individual and their personal biases.
In Summary
While good stress is beneficial, it’s also important to identify negative stress. If you feel like your stress is overwhelming, you’re no longer in control of a situation, and your health is affected, talk to a healthcare provider who can help you navigate stress.
Remember, even good stress can switch over to the dark side if you experience too much of it and don’t take steps to handle it. Since your body’s stress response is already triggered, piling on more of it without any measure of control could cause a cumulative effect that is detrimental.
As individuals, we must all try to understand our personal capacities and learn to take a step back when we know we’ve had too much. It might not be possible to avoid all forms of stress or filter the good from the bad in a neat pile, but what’s crucial is that we try to employ healthy coping mechanisms and prioritize relaxation so we can extract the goodness of the nervous energy that materializes from stress while avoiding all the bad!
