How stressed are you feeling right now? For many of us, this is a particularly frantic time of year, with Christmas shopping, family dynamics and concerns about Covid adding to our day-to-day pressures. But the good news is that, while it’s true that chronic stress can be bad for your health, researchers are discovering that stress itself is not an exclusively negative sensation — by harnessing it in the right way we can turn it into a positive force.
Any stress is the result of an imbalance between the challenges life throws at us and the resources we have to deal with them, says Jennifer Wild, an associate professor in the department of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford and the author of Be Extraordinary. “When we are juggling an ever-increasing to-do list with limited amounts of time we are likely to feel stressed at some level,” Wild says.
But researchers have identified different types of stress and say that, while too much negative stress, or distress, such as dealing with a divorce or death, is more challenging and draining, there is also “good stress”, called eustress — the type you might experience while preparing Christmas lunch or hosting a drinks party — and that can bring a wealth of benefits.
“With all stress there is a sweet point and to a degree it can have a positive influence on our lives,” Wild says. “Studies have shown that we thrive on some stress and that it increases energy and motivation levels, helping us to get things done.” As part of our stress response, adrenaline courses through our bodies, an evolutionary response to trigger the fight or flight response that primes us to confront or escape a threat. Blood flow increases and cortisol, the stress hormone, triggers the release of glucose for an energy boost. And the short-term physiological responses are largely positive. “It means we are more alert and energised, think a little clearer and react more sharply,” Wild says. “Some stress is very important for normal daily function.”
Studies from the University of Freiburg in Germany have shown that, unlike chronic stress, which grinds us down, short bursts of acute stress can result in us being more sociable, friendly and co-operative. Psychologists at the University of California showed how moderate levels of brief stressful events caused stem cells in the brain to proliferate into new nerve cells that, when mature two weeks later, improved mental performance. Others have shown that everyday life stresses can help to protect against oxidative damage that is associated with disease and cognitive decline. And exposure to daily doses of stress can even switch on genes and hormones that make us more resilient to future stressors.
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“When we are stressed, the brain releases neuropeptide Y [NPY], a gene that helps to regulate our physical and emotional response to stress,” Wild says. “Studies have shown that when NPY interacts with adversity it boosts our behavioural resilience so that we can respond better to stressful challenges.” Wild says that in a study of special forces soldiers who faced prisoner-of-war-like stress as part of their training, NPY levels predicted a better response to extreme stress under interrogation.
But how do we make it work for us? Where many of us go wrong, Wild says, is in the way we think and deal with stress. “Stress has become an overused word, and using it a lot is not helpful when it comes to harnessing the potentially positive aspects of stress,” she says. “If we are constantly telling ourselves we are stressed, we are making ourselves anxious, and the outcome is less likely to be positive.” We need to think of stress as a tool for resilience and as a launchpad that allows us to focus on getting things done. Here’s how to make stress work for you.
Heart beating fast? Sweaty palms? They are preparing you for challenges
It’s easy to get bogged down with everything at this time of year, but if your heart starts beating faster and your palms get sweaty at the prospect of organising everything, try thinking of the rising stress as a built-in, pump-up mechanism that prepares you for challenges. By doing this you may boost the way your body deals with stress too. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that people who interpreted stressful situations in a positive way, eg “a bit of stress will help me through this”, were healthier and lived longer than those who crumbled under pressure. “Stress provides you with a rush of energy and alertness, but you need to channel that to be energised,” Wild says. Think about sportspeople who use pre-event stress as a motivational tool for peak performance — the same can work for you. “Athletes have strategies to remove some stress before a competition, such as positive self-talk,” Dr Josephine Perry, the author of I Can, says. “But they don’t actually want to be completely stress-free as nerves are essential to get the body and mind primed for action.”
Don’t call it ‘stress’, call it ‘excitement’
How we talk about stress has a powerful impact on our ability to deal with it. “Telling yourself you are too stressed will zap all motivation,” Wild says. Rephrasing stress — in your head or when you speak to others — can help to change your perspective on it. “Try to avoid even using the words ‘I’m totally stressed out’,” Wild says. Replace the negative phrases with positive self-talk, phrases such as “stress will help me cope” or “stress can be reframed as excitement or a platform for motivation”. “We all have negative head chatter, but if you have similar unhelpful thoughts that set off stress and anxiety, it’s important to turn them into a facilitator that helps us get things done,” says Perry. For example, if you are icing the Christmas cake and think, “I am never going to be skilful enough to do it well,” you are offering only unhelpful negative talk that gives no practical instruction or action. “If you reframe it to ‘I’ll master this skill to the best of my ability if I keep at it,’ you are providing yourself with a purpose to keep making an effort.”
Don’t try to block out stress
When you feel moderately stressed, trying to reduce it by using stress-alleviating apps or tools is not always helpful. According to researchers at the University of Wisconsin, they reinforce the notion that all stress is inherently bad. They are best reserved for chronic stress that has worn you down over time. The amount of emotional energy used in trying to suppress short-term stress can be exhausting and often futile. Instead, Wild says, it’s better to think, “OK, I’m about to feel stressed, but let’s deal with it,” getting to grips with your stress triggers, such as a lengthy to-do list, and looking out for warning signs — headaches, making sarcastic comments, feeling hot and bothered — so that you intervene with steps to manage it before you feel overwhelmed. It might require something as simple as taking a step back to gain better perspective — does it really matter if that report isn’t done by tomorrow morning? “Think about how you respond to those stress triggers and what you can do to change that response,” she says. “We usually stress about things we care about, so accepting that can provide us with much more leverage to push on than ignoring or blocking stress.”
Locate where in your body you feel stress
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Perry says that a good way to track stress so that you keep on top of it is to locate where you feel it. It’s a trick used by athletes to help them to reach the sweet spot of stress before a competition and she says that it can work in other situations. “Close your eyes, breathe deeply and think about where in the body you are feeling that stress,” she says. “It may be in your shoulders, your stomach or your head.” Once you’ve identified it, decide what to do with it. “Imagine your stress in a more physical form by giving it a shape and colour,” Perry says. “Then think of it draining of energy, so you can become energised to attack what you have to do.”
Much of the way we respond to stress comes down to our mindset. In a study involving students sitting an exam, one group was provided with information about stress and how it is a natural response to help us to cope with difficult situations. The other group was instructed to ignore stress and carry on. Results showed that the students who were aware that stress can be beneficial scored significantly higher in their papers. The message is to reframe stress as a positive power that can help your performance and wellbeing.
