The Power of Stress

Let’s start by looking at the impact that stress can have on our well being. It can be easy to define stress as something trivial, however, it has been linked to both physical and emotional health problems when left unaddressed or untreated. While our bodies have incredible evolutionary abilities to manage small periods of stress that are caused by the environment (think about the importance of healthy stress when presented with a dangerous situation that necessitates immediate action), people are actually incredibly inadequate managers of long-term stress because our bodies were not designed to negotiate it for extended period of time. When unhealthy, long-term stress continues to impact our bodies and minds, it has a great capacity to evolve into ongoing anxiety, a disorder that has been linked to not just mental health difficulties, but physical ones as well. And….there are ways to both minimize and mitigate chronic levels of stress to avoid health issues.

Let’s start by reframing stress as something that is both good and necessary. Gentle levels of stress prepare us to motivate for healthy action. We get up in the morning, tackle important tasks, avoid perpetual procrastination and leave situations that may be harmful because stress provides the power to act and achieve. However, as every human knows, stress can also be unpleasant and less helpful for both our bodies and minds. In terms of overwhelming or unpleasant stress, it typically falls within the following three categories:

• We have too many things to accomplish and lack the internal or external capacity to adequately address those items.
• We are unaware of what we need to do to resolve the stress or do not have the resources to do so.
• We experience unpleasant emotions for a long period of time without creating opportunities to experience positive emotions (joy and love in particular)