Blessed with stress

Stress. It makes your heart pound faster, your breathing quicker, and your muscles tighter. In many cases, we’ve been engineered to believe that stress is mental condition that’s harmful to our health. We strive to avoid it and side-step stressful situations, giving and receiving advice like don’t worry too much, relax, or stop stressing, as a means to rid it from our lives.

However, emerging research suggests that stress is only bad for you only when you believe it to be damaging. The way we view stress – as either helpful or harmful – has a huge impact on how it affects our health.

Recognizing and working with stress, rather than ignoring and suppressing it, can help individuals perform better and achieve higher goals. The body’s physical response to stress is naturally constructed to help itself cope with pressure. When your heart beats faster, it’s preparing you for action by giving you strength and energy. If your breathing gets faster, it’s bringing more oxygen to your brain.

A case studied by Kelly McConigal, a health psychologist at Stanford University, discovered that individuals who experienced high levels of stress had a 43% increased rate of dying. However, this is only true for those who believe that stress is harmful for their health. People who reported high levels of stress but did not view it as harmful were the healthiest people of all.

This is not to say all kinds of stress are necessarily productive in supporting individuals. When stress is long-term or chronic, it has a higher potential to negatively affect our wellbeing. However, in the application of daily and weekly stressors, pressure is meant to work as a driving motivation force. It functions as an important signifier. It’s difficult to create a meaningful goal without experiencing some stress.

So as finals day gets closer and you feel like you’re drowning from overwhelming stress, take a step back and remember that your body is designed to help you cope with your work. When you choose to view stress as positive, you’re recognizing that you have the ability to handle life’s challenges. It all depends on how you view it.