The two sides of stress: distress and eustress
One common misconception about stress is that it should be minimised at all cost—that stress is bad. But stress is just your body and your mind’s response to external challenges. Depending on the particular stressors and your reaction, stress can be detrimental (distress) or beneficial (eustress).
While the prefix -dis in “distress” has the same negative root as words like disconnect, dissatisfaction, and disingenuous, “eustress” literally means “good stress.” It was coined by endocrinologist Hans Selye in 1975 to describe a positive cognitive response to stress.