The Surprising Benefits of Stress: How a Healthy Level of Stress Can Help You Grow and Thrive

Is all stress bad?

You might think the answer to this question is obviously ‘yes’, but you’d be wrong.

Too much of the wrong type of stress (Distress) can be bad for our health but stress can also be a positive force (Eustress), keeping us focussed and alert.

People often think stress is inherently bad but it is the normal physiological response to events that make you feel scared or threatened or upsets your equilibrium in some way.

When you sense something that you perceive as danger (physical, emotional or mental) your natural defences go into overdrive in a rapid and automatic process often called the ‘fight or flight’ response.

The stress response helps you rise to meet challenges, keeping you sharp and increasing your concentration when needed. However, beyond a certain point, stress stops helping and starts damaging your health, mood, productivity, relationships and your quality of life.

If you consider all the stressors that you have at any one time, it might look like this:

• Cost of living crisis and worries about money

• Delays commuting

• Feeling tired

• Inconsiderate manager at work

• Too much work

• Issues with children or childcare

• Car is making strange noises

The effects of stress are cumulative and add up something referred to your allostatic load.

Good and Bad Stress

So, as I said earlier, some stress is good and this is called eustress. Good stress pushes you out of your comfort zone in a good way, leading to growth and development. An example of good stress is exercise where you feel uncomfortable for a short period of time but feel good when you are done.

Good stress:

• Is short lived

• Is infrequent

• Is over quickly

• Can be part of a positive life experience

• Inspires you to action

• Helps make you stronger

Conversely, bad stress (or distress):

• Lasts a long time

• Is chronic

• Is ongoing

• Is negative, depressing and demoralising

• Is demotivating

• Breaks you down over time

The Stress Sweet Spot

Everyone experiences stress differently and each of us has a unique ‘recovery zone’. Some people ‘go with the flow’ and can adapt well to what others would perceive as highly stressful events. Other people crumble at even the slightest challenge or frustration they encounter.

There are many things that affect our tolerance to stress, such as:

• Our attitude and outlook — People with optimistic, proactive and positive attitudes are more stress resistant.

• Our life experience — Past stress can build us up or break us down, depending on when the stress happened and how powerful it was.

• Our genetic makeup and epigenetic expression — Some of us are genetically more “stress susceptible” than others.

• Our perception of control — Stress becomes most traumatic when we feel trapped. If we’re able to successfully fight or flee, we tend to recover better.

• Our natural personality type — If you have confidence in yourself and your ability to influence events and persevere through challenges, it’s easier to take stressful events in your stride.

• Our support network — A strong network of supportive friends and family members (which can even include pets) is a powerful buffer against the stress of life. Conversely, loneliness and isolation make stress worse.

• Our ability to deal with our emotions — If you can’t calm and soothe yourself when feeling stressed or overly emotional, you’re more vulnerable to stress.

• Our environment — Natural environments calm us down, as do secure and safe environments. Busy environments put us on edge. We also feel more relaxed in environments we think we can control, such as our homes.

• Our allostatic load — The larger the allostatic load the more it wears down our resilience and shrinks our recovery zone.

Stress Levels

1. If the stressor is too low and not enough to cause a reaction, then nothing will happen. You’ll go along the same as before, no better or worse.

2. If the stressor is too high or too strong and/or lasts too long, outpacing your recovery ability, then you’ll eventually break down.

3. If the stressor is within your recovery zone, neither too much nor too little, and doesn’t last too long, then you’ll recover from it and get better. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!

Balance the demands

We want enough “good stress” to keep us motivated but not so much that we break down and burn out. That optimum zone depends on your allostatic load, as well as how you perceive and respond to it. Remember, this is your individual stress zone — nobody else’s.

And remember that the allostatic load is everything: mental, physical, emotional - that email from the boss… your sore ankle… the fence that looks like it will fall down any minute… your car breaking down… the argument with your partner… everything goes on to the “stress pile”.

To manage stress, we must do two things:

1. Learn to balance our life demands, workload, exercise and nutrition

2. View these events as an achievable challenge or an interesting problem to solve, rather than some insurmountable obstacle

What does all this mean for you?

• All stress — life, work, family, financial, training, good, bad — fits into one bucket, creating your unique allostatic load. To stay healthy, lean, and fit, you must manage this load. Find the strategies that work best for you and practice them on a regular basis. And keep in mind that what works best for you at this particular stage of your life may not work for you in other stages. Be willing to evolve your strategies as your life, and allostatic load, evolve.

• Just as important as your stress load is how you respond to it. View stress as a challenge or an interesting puzzle to solve. Roll with the punches and have a Plan B (or C, or D). Stay open, flexible, and creative. This attitude helps you handle your allostatic load better and mitigate the potential harm it could cause you.