Stress is Bad!
If we are to be at our best, we must be at our best. Stress can have major impacts on our work performance and health. Too long in the fight or flight zones, and our bodies will revolt. Stress is bad!!!
But is it?
Dr Kelly McGonigal (PhD), in her book, “The Upside of Stress,” has taken a different approach to the black and white notion that stress is bad and being stress-free is good. She argues that it is not necessarily the stress itself that is bad but rather the meaning we attach to it that does the damage. In fact, she believes that stress is critical to experiencing a full, challenging, goal-orientated life. Intuitively we know that stress overlaps with the greatest sources of meaning we have in life. If this is the case, stress may even contribute to well-being.
We don’t get to choose what we find stressful in life, but we do get to choose the meaning we attach to it.
McGonigal cites a Veterans Affairs Normative Ageing study conducted over five decades starting in 1961. In the study, participants reported on two types of stress in their lives being major life events and daily hassles. Interestingly, of the two types of events, daily hassles were by far the better predictor of mortality. Participants who reported the most daily hassles were three times more likely to have died sooner than the group that reported fewer hassles.
According to McGonigal, “feeling burdened rather than uplifted by everyday duties is more a mindset than a measure of what is going on in your life. When you believe stress is harmful, anything that feels a bit stressful can start to feel like an intrusion in your life. Everyday experiences can start to seem like a threat to your health and happiness.”
The takeaway from this study, according to McGonigal, is to change the relationship to the everyday experiences you perceive as hassles. The same experiences that give rise to daily stress can also be sources of uplift or meaning – but we must choose to view them that way.
How are you viewing stress in your business life?