Positive Stress - Eustress

Life without stress would be quite boring. Not all stress is bad. Positive stress also known as 'eustress' pushes us to perform well and stretch ourselves and can raise our efficacy and creativity.

Stress Management

Stress is a normal physical, mental and emotional reaction to events which we percieve as threatening or overwhelming. It is an adaptive evolutionary response to our environment and can be both positive and negative. Recently almost two thirds of Americans surveyed by the American Psychological Society said that they expected to seek help for stress at some point in their lives.

Positive stress drives us to exert ourselves and push our boundaries.
Negative stress is when we tip over the other side. This sort of stress can be become chronic and has been linked to many of the most prevalent modern diseases such as heart disease and some cancers. Studies suggest that chronic ongoing stress releases hormones into the body that if not dispersed can weaken our immune systems.

The bad news is that much of the way we live today can contribute to raised levels of stress.
The good news is that we can do a great deal to avoid, minimize and manage our stress. There are clinically proven methods of stress reduction which are easy to implement and do not require any elaborate equipment, expense or training.

We just need to believe that being stressed is bad for us and that we can choose to do manage our stress.

First we need to understand just how our stress response works. Once you understand how our stress response gets switched on it becomes easier to see how we can start to learn to switch it off or at least control it