by Dr. S.S. Dhillon

Created on: May 15, 2008

Good and Bad Stress Levels

How much stress is good for us? The demands of living in fact are all stressors. Stressors include everyday activities as well as unusual events or crises in our lives. Rushing to catch a train, entertaining guests, or shopping for Christmas are ordinary events that require us to readjust our lives for a short while and, thus, are stressors. Within this continually demanding life environment we must rely upon our coping and adaptive skills in order to maintain equilibrium between the status quo and change or growth.

What is important about stress is how we react to it. How you perceive the nature of the demand is, in turn, a product of your genetic inheritance, your psychological and physical development, as well as your prior experiences. For any given set of stressors, each person will have a different interpretation and a different response.

When the response is appropriate, or adaptive, you experience eustress (good stress) and a sense of mastery, psychological well-being, and increased self-esteem. This positive feeling will, in turn, influence your attitude toward the next stressor and stimulate personal growth. Olympic records are not set on the quiet training tracks, but only with the stress of competition-in front of huge crowds. The most efficient work done by a student is often during the stress of facing a deadline for a term paper or exam. The most electric performances don't come out of actors during rehearsals; they occur when the curtain rises before a live audience.

Serious poker players will play only if significant amounts of money are bet on each hand. With only pennies or toothpicks at stake, the stress of losing is gone, but so too is the intense concentration, the enjoyment of bluffing, and the excitement of winning. Many people with sedate working lives actively seek stress in the form of parachuting, cliff climbing, downhill skiing, horror movies or simply riding a roller coaster. Such stresses bring more joy into their lives.

On the other hand, when your response is nonadaptive, it is experienced as distress (bad stress). If unrelieved, distress can become a chronic state. The emotional consequences of chronic distress are broad, including anxiety, tension, anger, helplessness, hopelessness, and depression. Nonadaptive physical changes caused by chronic distress include heightened blood pressure, increased muscle tension, and a raised heart rate and oxygen supply, all of which have no appropriate outlet.

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