Stress Awareness: Stress in the Right Dose
The times are stressful, man. Thank you for reading these messages and for sending messages of sympathy and concern about last week’s anonymous flying rock breaking the window in my living room story. It really happened (no one was hurt). But dealing with that broken window felt stressful, because it was not planned and it took up extra time that I felt I didn’t really have. The good news is the window is now fixed!
The whole incident got me thinking about my relationship to stress.
Stress is many things: It’s a bear—like an unpredictable wild animal coming toward you in the moment. In that moment of high stress, you need to act right away. Sometimes you are just not ready to act, and that leads to stressful feelings. Stress is also the bodily response to a stressor: what happens inside your body in stressful situations when your body’s systems kick into gear to get you ready to act, fight, rise up, whatever, and your heart rate increases, your muscles tense up, and the stress hormones flow. You meet the challenge. Sometimes you are the hero in your private stress moment. Stress is also “bad,” and you need to get rid of it. Or is it?
Unrelenting stress can wear you down and deplete your reserves. Big or ongoing stress can disorganize the human system, and so create the conditions for disease or loss of ease (loss of joy) in life. High stress situations create tension in mind and body and make you vulnerable to disease. However, stress can also make you smarter and tougher, and tweaking your understanding and your relationship to stress is healthy and positive.
For stress to be beneficial, you may need to change your mindset about it.
So: stress can be good!?
Because life is stressful, it is helpful to have stress awareness. When it is your turn to face that symbolic bear in your life, stress awareness can give you a sense of what to do. Stress, after all, is what you experience when life has meaning: “You don’t stress out about things you don’t care about, and you can‘t create a meaningful life without experiencing some stress,” writes Dr. Kelly McGonigal in her book, The Upside of Stress: Why Stress is Good for You, and How to Get Good At It. Adapting and changing are the things that all stress requires. The challenge is to make yourself ready, willing and able to change as needed, and this comes from understanding stress patterns in yourself, your body, and in life in general.
Three Kinds of Stress
If you remember the story of Goldilocks and The Three Bears, you basically have the idea of the three kinds of stress:
Not enough stress. “Little Baby Bear” Stress
When there is too little stress, there is no challenge, and there is no growth. In fact, it is a little boring. Maybe you need things to be this way for a while. But then you might get restless and act out by seeking pleasure and novel experiences. This situation can be remedied by tuning into three things described by Dr. Carol J. Scott in her book, Optimal Stress: Living in Your Best Stress Zone. The three things are: find your passion and your purpose, and get straight on your priorities.
Too much stress. “Big Papa Bear” Stress
Big stress is no fun. Think hard lessons. Some things become stressful because they add up and seem to have no end. It can be little things adding up that burn you out and make you feel powerless to change things in the moment. These things can include meetings for work, world news, finances, relationships, health challenges, home repair situations, family situations, taking care of aging parents, friendships starting or ending, loneliness, dating—all happening simultaneously. The antidote to big stress is getting serious about relaxation exercises, taking breaks and getting rest on purpose and regularly. This goes far to clear your mind and restore your body, so that you can manage the work ahead. This is where having a mindbody practice (like meditative movement and conscious breathing) can really help you get in the habit of getting and feeling clear in mind and body. It is not a waste of time to do this!
The right amount of stress. “Nurturing Mama Bear” Stress
The interesting concept here is what scientific researchers call hormesis, which translates to a system’s capacity to adapt in an intelligent way to chaotic inputs (change and catastrophe) in a range or within a “window of tolerance.” That is to say, the right amount of stress at the right time has great benefits. What this means is becoming aware of stress patterns and using stress to your advantage. I like to think of this as this as “micro-dosing” stress or, not just managing stress and keeping stress at bay, but mastering stress so that it makes you better. This translates to having just the right amount of stress in your life, which does not wear you out but makes you the person you want to be on a regular basis. This includes getting regular exercise, eating healthful meals on a regular basis (making this happen can be stressful), learning about other people and cultures, and regularly doing something I call social engagement with people in person or online. When you engage socially you have a chance to do things that you might feel you are not good at—like remembering names, having difficult conversations, and being willing to be puzzled. Instead of seeking comfort and convenience all the time, engaging in these things can train you to tolerate discomfort little by little. Being observant and maybe even vigilant about what feels challenging can give you the clarity to change things when they don’t work.
Stress Awareness and Mastery
Stress awareness does not mean getting rid of stress and never ever again being stressed out. Accepting that stress happens is a big step in mastering it. Stress awareness means you accept yourself when you are stressed and having a hard time, and you also accept that others may be having a hard time at any given moment as you go about living your life. The stress of others does not have to add to your stress, and your personal stress story does not have to add to the stress of others. Sometimes you are not aware of the bigger stress pattern in your life until you start looking. You can look at your stress situation and start changing your relationship to stress through journaling or speaking with allies and friends or doing some kind of stress assessment. Once you know what you are dealing with, and you bring the light of awareness to the stress situation, you have opened the door to mastery.