Is all Stress bad? Here's How To Make It Work For You

We always hear how it is ‘bad’ to feel stress and how we should avoid feeling stressed as ‘stress is bad for you’. There are so many articles about how stress affects our physical health and also how stress has negative impacts on our psychological health and general well-being. But is that always the case? Is stress always bad? Let us have a look at the psychology behind stress and what research has actually demonstrated.

Back in prehistoric times, humans had to forage and hunt for food but they had to be alert as they could be easy prey for predators. So, whatever moved in the environment that looked bigger than us signaled ‘Alert, alert. Danger detected. Run!’ The danger was ‘real’ and involved actual loss of life. So the stress response acted like an alarm signal that would trigger our fight-or-flight mode. This happens automatically and without conscious thought – but the message is clear - ‘can I stay and fight this predator?’ or ‘is the predator bigger than me, so I should run?’ Once the danger had gone, our physiological arousal levels returned to baseline, to a stated called homeostasis. And we could engage again with our environment.

Nowadays, the ‘danger’ in our lives take different forms – e.g. the teenager we are raising, the spouse we live with, the boss we have to work for. These may not be a danger to our lives but are still a threat to our mental or psychological well-being, so the stress response still interprets these as ‘danger’.

So, research seems pretty clear. In and of itself, stress is not harmful. Stress is a signal that informs our body that a ‘danger’ or ‘threat’ has been perceived and we need to take action if we do not want to be ‘eaten’. This is an important survival mechanism after all. Our stress response is a signal that something is not ‘right’ in our environment and that we need to take action. In this sense, we can see how stress is actually useful in our lives!

‘Bad’ stress: Researchers have also identified another type of stress that, instead of helping us perform better, is experienced as paralyzing or debilitating. This has been called ‘bad’ stress or distress.

The key difference is that what ought to prime us for action, instead brings overwhelm and we either are not able to perform or simply perform badly. Similar to ‘good’ stress, we still experience this increase in heart rate and adrenaline and cortisol are released in the body but instead of helping us perform better, this type of stress make us not able to perform or causes up to perform badly.

For example, the athlete feels panic or overwhelmed at the start of the race. Similarly, the lecturer feels frozen or paralyzed in front of their audience. In each case, the stressor (race or presentation) is seen as threatening and something to run away from. When we experience ‘bad’ stress, we do not feel prepared to take action, we experience panic, helplessness and we may collapse under the challenge