Sometimes stress can be good.
What?!
I know. We are constantly being told that stress can be harmful. It can wreak havoc on many different systems in our bodies such as our cardiovascular, digestive, and immune systems. It can disrupt our sleep, memory, and mood. It can accelerate aging.
Unremitting stress is definitely NOT a good thing.
I spend a lot of time talking about how to manage and reduce physical and emotional stress by paying attention to diet, exercise, sleep, and thought patterns.
However, it is important to understand that stress can sometimes be good. It might just depend on your perspective.
We can all feel overburdened by the stresses of daily life – all the “I have to” tasks that make up the nitty gritty of our days.
What would happen if you changed that feeling of “I have to” and reframed it to “I get to”?
Perhaps instead of feeling the drudgery of the activity you would start to feel excited, or grateful or some other inspiring emotion.
Sometimes stress can come from feeling that we are not up to the task at hand. That is a different kind of overwhelm – one that often comes with self judgement and even self flagellation.
But in these situations we can learn from psychologist and researcher Carol Dweck, author of Mindset. Dweck studies how people cope with failure. She identified two opposing mindsets that she labeled as fixed and growth.
In the fixed mindset people believe that the qualities needed for success are inborn, fixed and unchangeable. Failures and setbacks are outgrowths of our innate abilities, reflections on us, and there isn’t much to do about them other than sulk.
However, those with a growth mindset believe that success is born out of commitment, dedication, and hard work. Brains and talent are just the starting point. In her words “this view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.”
So how is this connected to stress?
Adopting a growth mindset can allow us to shift our perspective and see challenging situations as opportunities for growth.
Finally, sometimes what we interpret as stress is actually the stirring of desire to work toward a goal not yet achieved. I would call this tension, not stress.
And we all need a certain degree of tension in our lives. Victor Frankl argued that human beings should not aspire to a tensionless state of equilibrium but rather strive and struggle for a worthwhile goal. In his words:
“…mental health is based on a certain degree of tension. The tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become”
So stress can actually be positive – it can allow us to see the world differently, can allow us to learn and grow and it can allow us to become more of who we are meant to be.
It all depends on how you see things.
