No one gets a free pass when it comes to stress. We all experience it, and though chronic stress can take its toll on our health, there are situations when stress can be beneficial.
Ever felt clammy palms or butterflies in your stomach? In the moments before you walk into a job interview, ask someone out on a date, or step up to a podium to speak to a crowd, your stress response can kick in and create these physical sensations.
Dan Harris, host of the podcast recalls a case of the jitters before a recent TV appearance. He felt his heart rate pick up. 鈥淚n the seconds before I went on I was pacing around,鈥� he says, feeling nervous.
And the outcome? 鈥淭he appearance went great.鈥� Harris says he鈥檚 come to interpret some of the physiological aspects of stress as a good thing. 鈥淭here鈥檚 an empowering inner jujitsu move,鈥� he says, to reframe stress.
鈥淚nstead of telling yourself that you鈥檙e having crippling anxiety, you can tell yourself a more empowering story, which is, I鈥檓 excited!鈥� he says.
Your stress response can be your body鈥檚 way of preparing to rise to a challenge, explains , a psychologist at the University of Rochester. He studies how stress responses can be 鈥渙ptimized.鈥�
鈥淲e鈥檙e not passive receivers of stress,鈥� Jamieson explains. 鈥淲e鈥檙e active agents in actually making our own stress response.鈥�
Jamieson says the stress we feel during challenging situations can give us fuel to address the demands we face. For instance, as your heart rate increases, it can help deliver more oxygen to your brain and muscles.
鈥淥xygen is very good for helping us process information quickly,鈥� Jamieson explains. It can also help people perform.
Humans have long faced threats from predators, and our fight-or-flight response evolved to help us survive these dangers. But the kinds of stressors we face today have shifted. In modern times, some of our stress comes from challenges that Jamieson says can be viewed as 鈥済rowth opportunities.鈥� The job interview, the presentation, the TV appearance.
鈥淭o really innovate and do hard things, your stress response is there to optimize your performance,鈥� he says.
When it comes to stress, 鈥渃ontext matters,鈥� says researcher , a professor of psychology at Yale University. There are different types of stress responses and different types of stress.
She points to studies from Scandinavia, going back decades, that found stress hormones are linked to in students taking tests.
鈥淎 greater increase , [including] epinephrine, norepinephrine, the morning of the test was associated with better performance on that test,鈥� she says.
But here鈥檚 the challenge: Not everyone responds to stressors in the same way. Test anxiety is real for some people and it can work against their performance. Part of the equation is how well they know the material, or how well prepared they are to take the test. Another part is how they perceive stress.
Jamieson points to evidence that people can be taught to He and collaborators studied community college students who were preparing for a math test. When students were given information about the 鈥渇unctional benefits鈥� of stress before the test, they did better.
鈥淏y informing people of the benefits of stress responses in these settings, they latched on to the idea, I can lean into my stress, 鈥� Jamieson says, and use it to help do important things.
The students who were taught to 鈥渞eappraise their stress as a resource,鈥� not only performed better they had less text anxiety.
When good stress turns bad
So, when stress arises from a challenge or opportunity, it can be helpful in the moment. But, when your stress response stays activated during times you don鈥檛 need it, this becomes problematic.
Let鈥檚 say you have a big presentation, that鈥檚 still three days away. You鈥檝e finished the preparations, but anticipatory stress sets in. Just imagining yourself giving the presentation gives you jitters. You can feel a stress response amp up.
Your breath is shallow, or you feel edgy or irritated. If you use a wearable, such as an Oura ring or Apple Watch, it may show a low level of heart rate variability, which is indicative of more time in stress mode.
鈥淵our body is going into overdrive before you need it,鈥� Mendes says. And this can exhaust your physiological system. 鈥淚magine if you were sprinting across the savannah, trying to run away from a lion,鈥� Mendes says, but the lion isn鈥檛 showing up for three days! That isn鈥檛 sustainable.
It鈥檚 also unhelpful to fret about a performance after it鈥檚 over. 鈥淵our body no longer needs to be in overdrive,鈥� Mendes says, but worrying keeps the stress response activated.
This can lead to fatigue, moodiness and burnout. Chronic stress can make you feel as if you鈥檙e continually under attack. It鈥檚 linked to everything from an in heart disease to depression, headaches and sleep troubles.
All of this suggests that strategies to manage stress are key. We can鈥檛 avoid the tough situations life throws at us, but we can learn skills that boost our ability to manage and even bounce back and thrive.
Stress Less editors are Carmel Wroth and Jane Greenhalgh
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