Stress often gets a bad rap, often for good reason. When it becomes pervasive in our lives, stress has the power to mess with our emotional well-being, deplete our physical health, and even impair our judgment and cognitive abilities. When these symptoms encroach on our ability to do our work, they can lead to self-perpetuating cycles of ever-increasing anxiety. They don’t call it the Stress Monster for nothing.
In a recent episode of Morning Edition, MPR’s Allison Aubrey Dan Harris, host of the podcast 10% Happier, Yale University psychology professor Wendy Berry Mendes, and University of Rochester psychologist Jeremy Jamieson shed light on the nuanced role that stress plays in our lives, starting with an essential distinction between the two different types of stress: chronic and acute.
Chronic stress is pervasive, wearing us down and whittling away at our resilience, even when we are not experiencing stress-inducing events. Chronic stress, when left untreated, is harmful. But then there is acute stress, a response to a situation or event in which our bodies momentarily release “stress hormones” like adrenaline, cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine. These chemicals can amplify our alertness, energy, and strength to flee danger, react quickly in emergencies, or hyperfocus our abilities on a critical, short-term task. In fact, that hormone release sets in motion a series of other physical reactions that can enhance our ability to perform well in high-stakes moments.
Professor Jamieson, who studies how human beings can “optimize” their stress responses, provides more detail on the mechanics involved. Consider what happens when our heart speeds up in response to a moment of fear or “stage fright.” As it pumps our blood faster, it delivers higher levels of oxygen to our brain and our muscles, helping us perform our best in brief, high-pressure moments.
The key is to understand – and embrace – those symptoms as helpful instead of fearing them. Harris, who still gets the “jitters” (complete with a faster heartbeat and pacing the floors) before TV appearances, says that with his understanding of those symptoms and a new attitude toward them, he can use that stress to his own advantage. It’s a shift in thinking, which he calls an “empowering inner jujitsu move,” a way of harnessing that stress energy and directing it in a more positive direction. “Instead of telling yourself that you’re having crippling anxiety,” he tells MPR, “you can tell yourself a more empowering story, which is, I’m excited!”
Jamieson’s work validates Harris’ experience. In fact, we can train ourselves in that same kind of “inner jujitsu.” He cites a study he and a team of researchers conducted with community college students who were prepping for an upcoming math test. Those who were also educated about what Jamieson calls the “functional benefits” of stress prior to taking the test performed better on it. Once they understood the benefits of their own stress responses within the math test context, “they latched on to the idea, I can lean into my stress,” Jamieson said.
As empowering as these findings are, Yale’s Professor Mendes adds that it’s important to remember that “context matters.” Those stress hormones, higher oxygen flow, and more focused thinking can only amplify what we already have. The students who did better on their math tests were able to access and deploy the knowledge they had gained through study. At work, our “good stress” can help us crush an important presentation only if we have actually prepared a solid presentation.
While acute stress can enhance our performance, chronic stress – that hyper-vigilant, hyper-worried state that begins long before a stressful event and stubbornly persists long afterward – is different. Instead of harnessing it, the goal is to reduce it as much as possible. It’s a different challenge, but it’s not impossible. Changing life routines to include activities like exercise, meditation, connecting with friends, and spending time in nature can reduce chronic stress and have a profoundly positive effect on our health, our relationships, and our careers.
Stress is a fact of life for all of us. If you would like to learn more about how to manage your stress, check out NPR’s Stress Less series of articles that offer useful, research-based information and very relatable stories about how we each cope with stress in our lives.