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August 16, 2021

Is it time to get rid of homework? Mental health experts weigh in

by Sara M Moniuszko

It's no secret that kids hate homework. And as students grapple with an ongoing pandemic that has had a wide-range of mental health impacts, is it time schools start listening to their pleas over workloads?

Some teachers are turning to social media to take a stand against homework .

Tiktok user @misguided.teacher says he doesn't assign it because the "whole premise of homework is flawed."

For starters, he says he can't grade work on "even playing fields" when students' home environments can be vastly different.

"Even students who go home to a peaceful house, do they really want to spend their time on busy work? Because typically that's what a lot of homework is, it's busy work," he says in the video that has garnered 1.6 million likes. "You only get one year to be 7, you only got one year to be 10, you only get one year to be 16, 18."

Mental health experts agree heavy work loads have the potential do more harm than good for students, especially when taking into account the impacts of the pandemic. But they also say the answer may not be to eliminate homework altogether.

Emmy Kang, mental health counselor at Humantold, says studies have shown heavy workloads can be "detrimental" for students and cause a "big impact on their mental, physical and emotional health."

"More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies," she says, adding that staying up late to finish assignments also leads to disrupted sleep and exhaustion.

Cynthia Catchings, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist at Talkspace, says heavy workloads can also cause serious mental health problems in the long run, like anxiety and depression.

And for all the distress homework causes, it's not as useful as many may think, says Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, a psychologist and CEO of Omega Recovery treatment center.

"The research shows that there's really limited benefit of homework for elementary age students, that really the school work should be contained in the classroom," he says.

For older students, Kang says homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night.

"Most students, especially at these high-achieving schools, they're doing a minimum of three hours, and it's taking away time from their friends from their families, their extracurricular activities. And these are all very important things for a person's mental and emotional health."

Catchings, who also taught third to 12th graders for 12 years, says she's seen the positive effects of a no homework policy while working with students abroad.

"Not having homework was something that I always admired from the French students (and) the French schools, because that was helping the students to really have the time off and really disconnect from school ," she says.

The answer may not be to eliminate homework completely, but to be more mindful of the type of work students go home with, suggests Kang, who was a high-school teacher for 10 years.

"I don't think (we) should scrap homework, I think we should scrap meaningless, purposeless busy work-type homework. That's something that needs to be scrapped entirely," she says, encouraging teachers to be thoughtful and consider the amount of time it would take for students to complete assignments.

The pandemic made the conversation around homework more crucial

Mindfulness surrounding homework is especially important in the context of the last two years. Many students will be struggling with mental health issues that were brought on or worsened by the pandemic, making heavy workloads even harder to balance.

"COVID was just a disaster in terms of the lack of structure. Everything just deteriorated," Kardaras says, pointing to an increase in cognitive issues and decrease in attention spans among students. "School acts as an anchor for a lot of children, as a stabilizing force, and that disappeared."

But even if students transition back to the structure of in-person classes, Kardaras suspects students may still struggle after two school years of shifted schedules and disrupted sleeping habits.

"We've seen adults struggling to go back to in-person work environments from remote work environments. That effect is amplified with children because children have less resources to be able to cope with those transitions than adults do," he explains.

'Get organized' ahead of back-to-school

In order to make the transition back to in-person school easier, Kang encourages students to "get good sleep, exercise regularly (and) eat a healthy diet."

To help manage workloads, she suggests students "get organized."

"There's so much mental clutter up there when you're disorganized... sitting down and planning out their study schedules can really help manage their time," she says.

Breaking assignments up can also make things easier to tackle.

"I know that heavy workloads can be stressful, but if you sit down and you break down that studying into smaller chunks, they're much more manageable."

If workloads are still too much, Kang encourages students to advocate for themselves.

"They should tell their teachers when a homework assignment just took too much time or if it was too difficult for them to do on their own," she says. "It's good to speak up and ask those questions. Respectfully, of course, because these are your teachers. But still, I think sometimes teachers themselves need this feedback from their students."

©2021 USA Today Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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More than two hours of homework may be counterproductive, research suggests.

A Stanford education researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter.   "Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good," wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education .   The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students' views on homework.   Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year.   Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night.   "The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students' advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being," Pope wrote.   Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school.   Their study found that too much homework is associated with:   • Greater stress : 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.   • Reductions in health : In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems.   • Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits : Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were "not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills," according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy.   A balancing act   The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills.   Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as "pointless" or "mindless" in order to keep their grades up.   "This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points," said Pope, who is also a co-founder of Challenge Success , a nonprofit organization affiliated with the GSE that conducts research and works with schools and parents to improve students' educational experiences..   Pope said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said.   "Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development," wrote Pope.   High-performing paradox   In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. "Young people are spending more time alone," they wrote, "which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities."   Student perspectives   The researchers say that while their open-ended or "self-reporting" methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for "typical adolescent complaining" – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe.   The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.

Clifton B. Parker is a writer at the Stanford News Service .

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Is it time to get rid of homework? Mental health experts weigh in.

It's no secret that kids hate homework. And as students grapple with an ongoing pandemic that has had a wide range of mental health impacts, is it time schools start listening to their pleas about workloads?

Some teachers are turning to social media to take a stand against homework. 

Tiktok user @misguided.teacher says he doesn't assign it because the "whole premise of homework is flawed."

For starters, he says, he can't grade work on "even playing fields" when students' home environments can be vastly different.

"Even students who go home to a peaceful house, do they really want to spend their time on busy work? Because typically that's what a lot of homework is, it's busy work," he says in the video that has garnered 1.6 million likes. "You only get one year to be 7, you only got one year to be 10, you only get one year to be 16, 18."

Mental health experts agree heavy workloads have the potential do more harm than good for students, especially when taking into account the impacts of the pandemic. But they also say the answer may not be to eliminate homework altogether.

Emmy Kang, mental health counselor at Humantold , says studies have shown heavy workloads can be "detrimental" for students and cause a "big impact on their mental, physical and emotional health."

"More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies," she says, adding that staying up late to finish assignments also leads to disrupted sleep and exhaustion.

Cynthia Catchings, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist at Talkspace , says heavy workloads can also cause serious mental health problems in the long run, like anxiety and depression. 

And for all the distress homework  can cause, it's not as useful as many may think, says Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, a psychologist and CEO of Omega Recovery treatment center.

"The research shows that there's really limited benefit of homework for elementary age students, that really the school work should be contained in the classroom," he says.

For older students, Kang says, homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night. 

"Most students, especially at these high achieving schools, they're doing a minimum of three hours, and it's taking away time from their friends, from their families, their extracurricular activities. And these are all very important things for a person's mental and emotional health."

Catchings, who also taught third to 12th graders for 12 years, says she's seen the positive effects of a no-homework policy while working with students abroad.

"Not having homework was something that I always admired from the French students (and) the French schools, because that was helping the students to really have the time off and really disconnect from school," she says.

The answer may not be to eliminate homework completely but to be more mindful of the type of work students take home, suggests Kang, who was a high school teacher for 10 years.

"I don't think (we) should scrap homework; I think we should scrap meaningless, purposeless busy work-type homework. That's something that needs to be scrapped entirely," she says, encouraging teachers to be thoughtful and consider the amount of time it would take for students to complete assignments.

The pandemic made the conversation around homework more crucial 

Mindfulness surrounding homework is especially important in the context of the past two years. Many students will be struggling with mental health issues that were brought on or worsened by the pandemic , making heavy workloads even harder to balance.

"COVID was just a disaster in terms of the lack of structure. Everything just deteriorated," Kardaras says, pointing to an increase in cognitive issues and decrease in attention spans among students. "School acts as an anchor for a lot of children, as a stabilizing force, and that disappeared."

But even if students transition back to the structure of in-person classes, Kardaras suspects students may still struggle after two school years of shifted schedules and disrupted sleeping habits.

"We've seen adults struggling to go back to in-person work environments from remote work environments. That effect is amplified with children because children have less resources to be able to cope with those transitions than adults do," he explains.

'Get organized' ahead of back-to-school

In order to make the transition back to in-person school easier, Kang encourages students to "get good sleep, exercise regularly (and) eat a healthy diet."

To help manage workloads, she suggests students "get organized."

"There's so much mental clutter up there when you're disorganized. ... Sitting down and planning out their study schedules can really help manage their time," she says.

Breaking up assignments can also make things easier to tackle.

"I know that heavy workloads can be stressful, but if you sit down and you break down that studying into smaller chunks, they're much more manageable."

If workloads are still too much, Kang encourages students to advocate for themselves.

"They should tell their teachers when a homework assignment just took too much time or if it was too difficult for them to do on their own," she says. "It's good to speak up and ask those questions. Respectfully, of course, because these are your teachers. But still, I think sometimes teachers themselves need this feedback from their students."

More: Some teachers let their students sleep in class. Here's what mental health experts say.

More: Some parents are slipping young kids in for the COVID-19 vaccine, but doctors discourage the move as 'risky'

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Eustress is the Good Type of Stress You Didn't Know You Needed

Elizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.

Identify and Respond to Eustress

Potential pitfalls, frequently asked questions.

Not all stress is the same. Some of the stress that you face in life can be more detrimental to your well-being, and some types of stress can actually be healthy. One type of beneficial stress is known as eustress.

Eustress refers to stress that leads to a positive response. It is the opposite of distress and can refer to any type of beneficial stress, whether physical or psychological. It tends to be short-term and often feels exciting. People perceive this type of stress as manageable and even motivating.

Physically, eustress can often resemble distress in many ways. You might feel nervous; your heart might pound; your thoughts might race. The difference is how these physical sensations are perceived.

With distress, they may feel uncomfortable and overwhelmed. With eustress, you might feel excitement or a sense of anticipation.

Eustress can be beneficial and is actually necessary for overall well-being. This type of "positive" stress can contribute to feelings of optimism and excitement about life.

Examples of Eustress

Eustress is associated with positive outcomes. To understand this type of beneficial stress, it can be helpful to consider a few different examples of when it may occur. Unlike distress, eustress is typically associated with feelings of excitement and challenge rather than anxiety or fear.

• Life changes : Major life transitions can create eustress. Examples of changes that can create this type of beneficial stress include starting a new job, being involved in a relationship, and parenting children.
• Smaller challenges : The excitement of a roller-coaster ride, a scary movie, or a fun challenge are all examples of eustress. Even a particularly tough workout can be an example of this type of stress.
• New experiences : Traveling can also create eustress. It can involve significant discomfort and unfamiliarity, but it also provides many discoveries. The anticipation of a first date, the first day at a new job, or other exciting firsts also fall under the umbrella of eustress.

In some instances, distress can transform into eustress. For example, a job loss or breakup might initially be upsetting, but it may be perceived as an opportunity for change and growth over time.

Impact of Eustress

Eustress is a type of stress that is actually important for us to have in our lives. Eustress can have a variety of positive effects. For instance, it may:

• Help you concentrate and focus
• Encourage you to take on new challenges
• Motivate you to pursue your goals ,
• Help you feel more resilient in the face of challenges
• Give meaning and purpose to your life
• Help you to feel healthier and happier

A certain amount of stress can be beneficial when it comes to motivation and performance. In fact, the Yerkes-Dodson law suggests that optimal arousal levels (i.e., stress) contribute to improved performance, but only up to a certain point. And different tasks may benefit from different levels of stress and arousal.

Eustress is often thought of as a beneficial type of stress because it can positively impact your life. However, it's important to remember that eustress is still a type of stress. Because of this, eustress can become distress, or even chronic stress, if it becomes too intense or lasts for too long.

To manage your stress levels, it is important to recognize the differences between eustress and other types of stress. This isn't always straightforward because they sometimes resemble each other.

Understanding eustress can help you more easily manage other types of stress as well. For example, research shows that when an event is perceived as a "threat," people respond to it differently than if it's seen as a "challenge."

Threats tend to elicit a greater stress response and create greater levels of anxiety, while challenges can be exciting and even enjoyable to overcome. Threats are scary, while challenges are opportunities to prove yourself and learn how much you can accomplish when you really try.

This understanding can help you evaluate many of the stressors in your life as challenges rather than threats. There are a number of strategies that can help you shift into seeing events as challenges rather than threats:

• Use positive self-talk : This can be done by changing how you talk to yourself about these challenges. Make an effort to tell yourself that these are challenges you can cope with.
• Focus on what you can control : It can also be helpful to focus on the resources that you have to handle these challenges. Focusing on what you can control rather than what might go wrong can help you feel more positive about the challenges you face.
• Adjust your mindset : When you work on shifting your mindset and approach stress as a challenge whenever possible, you can manage these challenges with greater resilience.

Eustress doesn't generally carry the same type of damage as chronic stress. Chronic stress is persistent, long-lasting stress that is psychologically or emotionally draining. It is also the most harmful to your health and well-being.

However, too much eustress can still tax your system. You can feel overloaded and stressed by too much eustress if you're not allowing yourself to return to a relaxed state and have a healthy balance of restorative downtime.

Balance is essential. A certain amount of eustress can help you feel happier and boost your well-being, but too much might mean you are neglecting other important areas of your life, including self-care and relaxation.

Changing your perspective can certainly help with stress management, but it's not the only strategy that should be used. If you have too many challenges in your life, even eustress can become chronic stress and lead to burnout or worse. Some ways to deal with this include:

• Being mindful of where your limitations are and work to maintain balance in your life.
• Cutting out any unnecessary obligations (particularly ones that you don't enjoy).
• Adopting some resilience-promoting habits that can help you to be less reactive to stress overall.
• Becoming comfortable with saying no to new activities if they won't truly serve you.

This takes practice, but it can make all the difference in your stress levels.

Eustress is perceived as positive and beneficial, while distress is associated with negative outcomes. Eustress may help improve their focus and motivate people to take on new challenges, while distress can lead to anxiety, fear, and other negative emotions.

The word "eustress" is derived from the Greek prefix "eu-," which means "good," and the word "stress." Together, eustress refers to a type of stress that is beneficial or helpful.

Eustress can turn to distress if it is intense or persists too long. For example, riding a roller coaster is often considered an enjoyable eustress-inducing activity. If you are not prepared for the experience or fear heights, this experience can quickly turn into distress. Additionally, eustress can become problematic if it leads to risky behaviors, such as doing something without following safety procedures.

Lu S, Wei F, Li G. The evolution of the concept of stress and the framework of the stress system . Cell Stress . 2021;5(6):76-85. doi:10.15698/cst2021.06.250

Aschbacher K, O'Donovan A, Wolkowitz OM, Dhabhar FS, Su Y, Epel E. Good stress, bad stress and oxidative stress: insights from anticipatory cortisol reactivity .  Psychoneuroendocrinology . 2013;38(9):1698–1708. doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2013.02.004

Kirby ED, Muroy SE, Sun WG, Covarrubias D, Leong MJ, Barchas LA, Kaufer D. Acute stress enhances adult rat hippocampal neurogenesis and activation of newborn neurons via secreted astrocytic FGF2 . Elife . 2013;2:e00362. doi:10.7554/eLife.00362

Rowland DL, van Lankveld JJDM.  Anxiety and performance in sex, sport, and stage: Identifying common ground .  Front Psychol.  2019;10:1615. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01615

APA. How stress affects your health .

By Elizabeth Scott, PhD Elizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.

How much stress is too much? A psychiatrist explains the links between toxic stress and poor health − and how to get help

Professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine, University of Cincinnati

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Lawson R. Wulsin received funding in 2010 from the Veterans Administration support a secondary analysis of data from the Framingham Heart Study, which was published and contributed in part to the substance of this article.

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COVID-19 taught most people that the line between tolerable and toxic stress – defined as persistent demands that lead to disease – varies widely. But some people will age faster and die younger from toxic stressors than others.

So how much stress is too much, and what can you do about it?

I’m a psychiatrist specializing in psychosomatic medicine , which is the study and treatment of people who have physical and mental illnesses. My research is focused on people who have psychological conditions and medical illnesses as well as those whose stress exacerbates their health issues.

I’ve spent my career studying mind-body questions and training physicians to treat mental illness in primary care settings. My forthcoming book is titled “Toxic Stress: How Stress is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It.”

A 2023 study of stress and aging over the life span – one of the first studies to confirm this piece of common wisdom – found that four measures of stress all speed up the pace of biological aging in midlife. It also found that persistent high stress ages people in a comparable way to the effects of smoking and low socioeconomic status , two well-established risk factors for accelerated aging.

The difference between good stress and the toxic kind

Good stress – a demand or challenge you readily cope with – is good for your health. In fact, the rhythm of these daily challenges, including feeding yourself, cleaning up messes, communicating with one another and carrying out your job, helps to regulate your stress response system and keep you fit.

Toxic stress, on the other hand, wears down your stress response system in ways that have lasting effects, as psychiatrist and trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk explains in his bestselling book “ The Body Keeps the Score .”

The earliest effects of toxic stress are often persistent symptoms such as headache, fatigue or abdominal pain that interfere with overall functioning. After months of initial symptoms, a full-blown illness with a life of its own – such as migraine headaches, asthma, diabetes or ulcerative colitis – may surface.

When we are healthy, our stress response systems are like an orchestra of organs that miraculously tune themselves and play in unison without our conscious effort – a process called self-regulation. But when we are sick, some parts of this orchestra struggle to regulate themselves, which causes a cascade of stress-related dysregulation that contributes to other conditions.

For instance, in the case of diabetes, the hormonal system struggles to regulate sugar. With obesity, the metabolic system has a difficult time regulating energy intake and consumption. With depression, the central nervous system develops an imbalance in its circuits and neurotransmitters that makes it difficult to regulate mood, thoughts and behaviors.

‘Treating’ stress

Though stress neuroscience in recent years has given researchers like me new ways to measure and understand stress , you may have noticed that in your doctor’s office, the management of stress isn’t typically part of your treatment plan.

Most doctors don’t assess the contribution of stress to a patient’s common chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity, partly because stress is complicated to measure and partly because it is difficult to treat. In general, doctors don’t treat what they can’t measure.

Stress neuroscience and epidemiology have also taught researchers recently that the chances of developing serious mental and physical illnesses in midlife rise dramatically when people are exposed to trauma or adverse events, especially during vulnerable periods such as childhood .

Over the past 40 years in the U.S., the alarming rise in rates of diabetes , obesity , depression, PTSD, suicide and addictions points to one contributing factor that these different illnesses share: toxic stress.

Toxic stress increases the risk for the onset, progression, complications or early death from these illnesses.

Suffering from toxic stress

Because the definition of toxic stress varies from one person to another, it’s hard to know how many people struggle with it. One starting point is the fact that about 16% of adults report having been exposed to four or more adverse events in childhood . This is the threshold for higher risk for illnesses in adulthood.

Research dating back to before the COVID-19 pandemic also shows that about 19% of adults in the U.S. have four or more chronic illnesses . If you have even one chronic illness, you can imagine how stressful four must be.

And about 12% of the U.S. population lives in poverty , the epitome of a life in which demands exceed resources every day. For instance, if a person doesn’t know how they will get to work each day, or doesn’t have a way to fix a leaking water pipe or resolve a conflict with their partner, their stress response system can never rest. One or any combination of threats may keep them on high alert or shut them down in a way that prevents them from trying to cope at all.

Add to these overlapping groups all those who struggle with harassing relationships, homelessness, captivity, severe loneliness, living in high-crime neighborhoods or working in or around noise or air pollution. It seems conservative to estimate that about 20% of people in the U.S. live with the effects of toxic stress.

Recognizing and managing stress and its associated conditions

The first step to managing stress is to recognize it and talk to your primary care clinician about it. The clinician may do an assessment involving a self-reported measure of stress .

The next step is treatment. Research shows that it is possible to retrain a dysregulated stress response system. This approach, called “lifestyle medicine ,” focuses on improving health outcomes through changing high-risk health behaviors and adopting daily habits that help the stress response system self-regulate.

Adopting these lifestyle changes is not quick or easy, but it works.

The National Diabetes Prevention Program , the Ornish “UnDo” heart disease program and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs PTSD program , for example, all achieve a slowing or reversal of stress-related chronic conditions through weekly support groups and guided daily practice over six to nine months. These programs help teach people how to practice personal regimens of stress management, diet and exercise in ways that build and sustain their new habits.

There is now strong evidence that it is possible to treat toxic stress in ways that improve health outcomes for people with stress-related conditions. The next steps include finding ways to expand the recognition of toxic stress and, for those affected, to expand access to these new and effective approaches to treatment.

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What Is Eustress? A Look at the Psychology and Benefits

In this article, we will explore the way in which eustress – what I call positive stress – may provide a long-lasting solution to the pervasive “distress” which may be creating harm in our lives.

“Imagine feeling capable of handling whatever life throws at you, without having to panic, overreact, or plan your exit strategy.”

Kelly McGonigal (2008) is a health nutritionist and professor at Stanford University and believes this is possible.

By delving into the inner-workings of stress, we can develop an understanding of how eustress may enable us to live more fulfilling, meaningful lives unconstrained by disproportionate neurological responses.

Before you start reading, we thought you might like to download our three Stress & Burnout Prevention Exercises (PDF) for free . These science-based exercises will equip you and those you work with, with tools to manage stress better and find a healthier balance in your life.

This Article Contains:

What is the meaning of eustress, stress = distress = health risk, the concept of stress and eustress, research and studies, the eustress scale: applications in business and the workplace, eustress vs distress worksheet, a take-home message.

Let’s start by looking at stress. Stress is a concept that is entrenched in our everyday lives and personal vocabularies.

Starting at a very early age, we are taught that adult life is ‘stressful.’ In this mindset, adulthood requires responsibility and achievement, which we accomplish by challenging ourselves and feeling stressed.

This traditional view of stress implies that if we are not stressed, we are not striving to become our best selves.

Until the ‘50s, stress was not an object of scientific attention. The golden age of the welfare state brought increased leisure time and growing criticism towards work. Thus, the Western world acknowledged stress only recently.

Because stress impacts our minds and bodies, it is crucial to study.

This article hopes that by understanding stress and how we perceive it, we can change the narrative of “all stress is bad for you.” As it turns out, associating stress with negativity can intensify our experience of stress itself.

Much of the world views all stress as bad, rather than viewing stress in its original meaning as “the non-specific responses of the body to any demand for change” (Selye, 1965).

The notion that stress is unhealthy and can lead to cardiovascular diseases, anxiety, and depression (Li, Cao & Li, 2016) has become part of the current global perception of stress.

With this prevailing belief, many humans have become stressed about stress. Definitely not the best stress management strategy.

This is because, as Le Fevre, Matheny & Kolt point out (2003), ”stress” has become a synonym for “distress,” a state of ill-being in which happiness and comfort have been surrendered.

Today, individuals often say that they are “stressed” when life feels chaotic, overwhelming, or tragic. An event like a heavy workload, a divorce, or an accident can feel too stressful to comprehend.

It is true: stress does push people into uneasy psychological states, but why? How do we live in the present and find inner peace when stress courses through our veins?

It is time for a deeper understanding of stress.

Stress is More than Distress

The idea that “stress is bad” is problematic, if not harmful, to our health. Belief plays a vital role in shaping physiological responses.

The widespread idea that “stress is bad” actually influences our physiological responses.

Stress may not be “good or bad,” but the perception of stress is. In a general sense, stress is just a conditioned response to a stressor, or a stressful event.

Stress helps us survive. It can heighten our senses and improve our performance with a given task or assignment.

But believing “stress is bad” can be detrimental in ways that stress itself, is not. Psychology, backed with empirical data, implores us to actualize our definition of stress by offering fresh insight.

If we change the negative perception of stress, we have the potential to transform our lives.

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The notion of “stress” had been used for centuries in physics to explain the elasticity of a metallic object, and its capacity to endure “strain” (as for instance in Hooke’s Law of 1958). It had also been used by Hippocrates in Ancient Greece to denote a disease which combined elements of pathos (suffering) and ponos (incessant and relentless work).

By the turn of the 20th century, negative ideas of stress were widespread, largely due to the forces of industrialization and urbanization, since these forces shaped the collective psyche of Western society.

In 1956, the famous Hungarian endocrinologist Hans Selye published The Stress of Life . This instilled the concept of stress and stressor (to distinguish between the stimulus and the response) at the foreground of modern psychological research.

Introducing Eustress

Almost two decades later, in 1974, he redefines the terminology to establish a clarification between two different types of stress: eustress , and distress . Combining the Greek prefix eu -, (meaning good) with stress , eustress became the term used to define “good stress” in opposition with “bad stress.”

This was necessary for in non-roman languages, the translation of the term ‘’stress’’ was difficult.

In Chinese, for instance, the translation of the term consisted of the assemblage of two characters respectively representing ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’, both combined meaning ‘’crisis.’’

By making the distinction between good stress (eustress) and bad stress (distress), Selye sought to show that stress, while being a reaction to a stressor, should not be always linked to negative scenarios.

Eustress = Good Stress = Health Benefits

According to Selye, eustress actually has emotional and physical health benefits.

It differs from distress with the following characteristics according to Mills, Reiss and Dombeck (2018):

• It only lasts in the short term
• It energizes and motivates
• It is perceived as something within our coping ability
• It feels exciting
• It increases focus and performance

On the other hand, distress, or negative stress, is characterised by:

• Lasting in the short as well as in the long term
• Triggering anxiety and concern
• Surpassing our coping abilities
• Generating unpleasant feelings
• Decreasing focus and performance
• Contributing to mental and physical problems

To embrace the idea of eustress, we have to understand our brain chemistry.

The Psychology of Eustress

Stress is essentially the outcome of the primal reaction known as fight-or-flight . Evolution has endowed humans with this reaction to fight against or flee from a potential danger (McGonigal, 2008).

The mechanisms of the fight-or-flight reaction are the following:

• A stressful event occurs, and an immediate response is triggered by the autonomic nervous system.
• The stress response activates the sympathetic nervous system, flooding the body with hormones such as cortisol and norepinephrine (McGonigal, 2008).
• These hormones heighten the senses, increase the heart rate, increase the blood pressure, and plunge the brain into a state of hyper-awareness.
• The part of the brain responsible for emotional calm and physical relaxation, the parasympathetic nervous system, is overwhelmed.
• A neurological cocktail of hormones and the overactivation of brain areas causes a burst of energy and focus, coupled with emotions such as anger, aggression, and anxiety.

In real danger, this reaction is very useful; it saved early humans from dying in the jaws of saber-toothed cats.

Unfortunately, our fight-or-flight brain chemistry has remained as a basic feature of human psychological processes, even when we do not need it.

If we perceive a stressful situation , no matter how serious the threat, this reaction ensues.

Whether the situation is actually life-threatening or not, the hormonal release is the same. This means it is possible to experience intense physical symptoms at the mere thought of something stressful.

Since the stressor is often only a perceived stressor, rather than a real one, changing the way the person relates to the stressor can influence the intensity of the experience.

If we do not want this fight-or-flight tendency to rule us, then it is crucial to recognize eustress.

As the figure above indicates, eustress can lead to focused attention , emotional balance and rational thoughts. Distress, on the other hand, can cause impaired attention, boredom, confusion, apathy, excitement, burn-out and disorganized behavior.

So if a situation is not life-threatening, how do we can encourage our brains to perceive the situation as eustress, rather than distress?

Eustress, in its best form, can induce a state of flow . Like eustress, flow is a focused state often induced by a healthy dose of challenge.

So the question lingers – is it possible to transform distress into eustress? The short answer to this question is yes.

For a longer answer, we have to dive into what research and studies have to say about the topic (and for that, you’ll have to keep reading).

Examples of Eustress

It is difficult to have a universal list of situations for eustress, since each person perceives stressors uniquely. For example, many people might consider a divorce or break-up a source of distress, while others view it as a source of eustress and the possibility of a new beginning.

Lazarus argued that for a psychosocial situation to be stressful, it must be appraised as such (1993). In other words, if we view something as awfully stressful, it will flood our bodies with that rich cocktail of fight-or-flight chemistry.

Equally important, Suedfeld (1997) points out that some societally traumatic instances such as war, plagues or natural disasters, can cause stress and distress simultaneously.

On the one hand, distress could fuel anxiety, financial worries, and concern for other people’s well-being.

On the other, eustress could be triggered by positive forms of social engagement, resourcefulness, and communal support (Suedfeld, 1997). More so, the release of the oxytocin hormone during the eustress response could push people to seek or provide aid (McGonigal, 2014).

Although humans respond uniquely to stress, there are a range of stressors which tend to be experienced positively by most people, according to Mills, Reiss, and Dombeck (2018).

A few examples include:

• Starting a new romantic relationship
• Starting a new job
• Buying a home
• Going on a holiday
• Having a child
• Affording to buy something that is expensive
• Learning a new hobby

In addition to these bigger life moments, eustress also plays out in simple instances of daily life where a personal boundary is nudged:

• Cooking a complex meal
• Playing a challenging video game
• Going on a hike
• Riding a rollercoaster

All of these are sources of eustress.

As long as the pushing of this boundary feels pleasurable or enjoyable, it is eustress. If it doesn’t feel good – even in a remote sense – it’s distress.

Listen to your body – because what feels good often does good. Research in psychology shows that those who experience eustress on a regular basis reap a number of positive health benefits.

When subjective well-being increases each day, long-term positive changes also impact physical and mental health (Brule & Morgan 2018).

How does it work? Several theories try to answer this question.

One of them is control theory (Spector, 1998), which suggests that the experience of stress is conditioned by an individual’s perception of control to the stressor.

In this context, ‘control’ can be defined as a person’s agency and capacity to make choices (Ganster & Fusilier, 1989). The figure below helps to clarify this point:

Hence, the more control a person has over the environment with the stressor, the less likely their response to it will be negative and take the form of ‘distress.’

Many studies show, especially in work settings, that the more decision-making power an employee has, the greater their commitment to their role will be; this will translate into increased levels of performance and job satisfaction (Bond and Bunce, 2001; McFadden and Demetriou,1993; Wall et al., 1992).

To summarize, this theory argues that subjective perception plays a big role in determining the type of stress that will result from an environmental stressor, as well as a person’s emotional response to it.

Here, the more control a person has over the environment in which the stressor is located, the less likely that his response to it will be negative (and take the form of ‘distress’, along with the physical symptoms that characterize that type of stress response).

This point has been backed by a number of studies that show, notably in the work settings, that the greater decision-making power of an employee is, the greater his commitment to his role will be.

This will translate into increased levels of performance and job satisfaction (Bond and Bunce, 2001; McFadden and Demetriou,1993; Wall et al., 1992).

Eustress might be the key for us to transform negative stress into healthy stress.

Benefits and Positive Effects of Eustress

Ted talk: How to make stress your friend | Kelly McGonigal

A useful introductory video on the subject is a Ted Talk by Kelly McGonigal (2013), who explains how in her career as a health psychologist, her biggest mistake was to tell people that stress was awful, and “something that makes you sick.”

While this came from a personal goal to make people happier and healthier, she realized that she was instead doing “more harm than good.”

This realization also coincided with the publication of a study for which 30,000 interviews were conducted in the United States, over five years, asking informants the following question: do you believe that stress is harmful to your health?

The results were astounding.

Those who had replied “yes” (nearly 186 million U.S adults), exhibited worse health and mental health outcomes than those who had answered “no” (Keller et al., 2012).

This relates to earlier points around the perception of stress: believing that stress is harmful can impair people’s overall mental and physical well-being. For McGonigal, this study was a revelation: it highlighted how belief influences health outcomes, and in this context, the ways people experience stress.

McGonigal became an unconditional advocate of eustress, advising people to accept a given stress response, and rethink it as helpful, as opposed to detrimental.

This approach, she argues, works best. Over time, they can develop a mindset equipped to deal with challenges rather than fear them. This acceptance builds resilience .

Resilience benefits people and empowers them to feel that they can pursue what creates meaning in their lives, while trusting their strength to handle potential stressors.

This is a tremendously empowering asset.

In McGonigal’s words, “ you create the biology of courage ” when you interpret the physical symptoms of stress – such as a pounding heart – as a “call for action,” as opposed to a call for dread.

A Look at Eustress and Flow

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2004). Flow, the secret to happiness

Described as “the ultimate eustress experience” (Dubbels, 2017), flow is on the upper end of the stress spectrum, far from distress with all its negative components. Positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes flow as the secret to happiness (2004), often experienced as a state of intense clarity and focus.

This peculiar state makes you “know exactly what you want to do from one moment to the other. You know that what you need to do is possible to do, even though difficult; a sense of time disappears, you forget yourself, you feel part of something larger.”

This somewhat surreal state can be achieved by composing music, writing, having a passionate conversation, developing an engineering project, and many other ways.

How does this connect to eustress?

As we have mentioned, the brain responds to stressors differently depending on the source, timing, control of the person, and their disposition – but if the stressor is perceived as manageable, meaningful and desirable, then a person will likely develop a predisposition to enter a state of flow.

In flow, all of our energy filters into the resolution of a given problem, and the mastering of a skillset.

Many workplaces and sports arenas offer concrete cases of flow. Both environments can generate stress in the body, and if a delicate balance is achieved, it can arouse eustress.

As this article conveys, eustress in either of these settings can optimize performance.

The business sector quickly understood the utility of eustress, and the potential to maximize the performance of employees while ensuring that they are not being overwhelmed by their given tasks.

The balance between optimal arousal and performance was sketched out in the Yerkes Dodson law dating from 1908 (see the figure below) and shows that beyond a certain threshold, performance can become impaired due to excessive anxiety.

The Yerkes Dodson Law, which frequently appears in basic management texts (e.g. Certo, 2003; Gardner & Schermerhorn, 2004), affirms that individuals can only really thrive under certain conditions. This balance often needs people to feel that their responsibilities are accessible yet stimulating, as opposed to overbearing hindrances.

At its worst, according to Gavin & Mason (2004), job stress is felt when the demands of the work exceed the workers’ belief in their capacity to cope.

As such, research has shown (Brule & Morgan 2018) the benefits of workplaces supporting the environment of eustress. Well-managed eustress can allow corporate interests to arise through the optimal performance of their employees.

One of the main problems with eustress in the business context, is that it has been misused and lacked crucial monitoring of the workers’ adjustment to their tasks and stressors.

As Melody (2018) points out, “the idea of using anxiety to enhance performance gained traction in the face of the economic deregulation of the 1990s and the resulting competitive pressure.”

While anxiety is a key element necessary to any productivity, too much of it causes distress.

It is likely that Melody was referring to distress rather than eustress, since zero stress (if taken as a physiological response) in a workplace may also be detrimental.

If employees don’t feel challenged by the assigned tasks, boredom often arises (Brule & Morgan 2018). This can start a vicious cycle of dissatisfaction in which employees feel frustrated with their performance, with the work itself, and with themselves. This can lower self-esteem, and trouble the workplace.

The lack of stimulation or ‘stress’ can cause boredom and depression in other areas of life too.

For example, as McGonigal (2008) illustrates, people who try to avoid all stress often feel a lack of life’s essential components. She goes on to explain that “while excess stress can take a toll on you, the very things that cause it are often the same things that make life rewarding and full.”

McGonigal encourages people to reflect on “the pressures in your life: family, work, having too much to do. Now imagine a life without those things. Sounds ideal? Most people don’t want an empty life. They want to possess the skills to handle a busy and, yes, even complicated life” (2008).

Some degree of arousal is needed for individuals to perceive their work to be worthy of esteem and stimulating. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explains that (2004), “arousal is the area where most people learn from because that’s where they’re pushed beyond their comfort zone.”

In sum, a compromise is mandatory. Human resource managers need to establish reasonable boundaries and schedules, cultivate a positive mindset at the heart of the workplace, and support a healthy working space.

Eustress in Sport Psychology

Similar to business managerial models, the world of sports has applied the benefits of eustress to optimize individual and team performance.

Competitive sports tend to be demanding, not only physically, but also mentally. The pressures of winning, managing public image, and maintaining a positive social presence can be challenging.

For many athletes, the pace of life is intense. So what does this have to with eustress?

If an athlete experiences this intensity as suffering (distress) or enjoyment (eustress), the entire physiological experience changes.

It is a fragile balance, between optimal performance, and optimal emotional and physical health.

To manage this, players often enter a state of flow at the peak intensity of competition and also maintain a belief that by doing this activity, they are ‘part of something bigger.’

In some ways, when athletes master a stressor with their physical and mental strength, they capture what it feels and means to be alive and overcome challenges. It is no wonder that many cultures worship their sports teams and athletes.

The warrior-like values that lie at the heart of sports can be a source of inspiration for the rest of society.

We seem drawn, as humans, to examples of control over perceived threats. Perhaps this is why people internalize the victories of teams they cheer, and after a winning game, feel influenced and changed by them.

“Check your thoughts, challenge them and change them”

The Neuropsychology of Performance Under Pressure | Dr. Philip Hopley

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Can you differentiate between the different types of stress you experience on a daily basis? If you feel like distress frequents your life more than eustress, then you’re at the right place.

Here is a worksheet we put together to help you identify positive and negative forms of stress that your body generates when exposed to certain situations and emotions.

Sometimes the best way to make sense of stressors is by writing about them and exploring the ways they affect our lives.

To understand your balance of distress and eustress, a first step is to keep a ‘stress diary.’ This is a diary solely dedicated to writing about your experiences of stress. It can be a place for you to vent and process intense life experiences.

If you don’t know where to start, try to remember moments in which you felt panicked, overwhelmed, or let down. Recall a demanding situation or a nightmarish scenario, and how it felt to experience. Or, reflect on a time when all odds seemed stacked against you—and yet you succeeded.

Write about how those moments felt psychologically and physically. If you can remember them, make a list of the different thoughts that were going through your mind at that time.

When you are done, review your diary, and identify examples of eustress and distress, based on the following definitions:

• Eustress: a situation which feels stressful but you feel like you can handle it, despite feeling challenged; it makes you have positive thoughts about life and yourself.
• Distress: a situation that feels overwhelming and unlikely to result in satisfactory outcomes; you feel like your health is deteriorating and have negative thoughts about life and yourself.

Create a table with four columns, using ‘Eustress’ and ‘Distress’ as headers, and leave two blank columns after each.

Can you fit an instance you wrote about in the diary in the columns?

Great. Now try to enter as many as you can until you have your list of experiences.

Now, next to both ‘Eustress’ and ‘Distress’ respectively, put the headers ‘physical and mental symptoms,’ and ‘stressors.’

Can you remember what symptoms you experienced in both moments of eustress and distress? What do you think the stressors were? Fill in as much as you can in the corresponding columns.

You have your table – now, look at the ‘distress’ column and highlight the areas of distress that trouble you the most.

Do you notice a pattern that repeats itself regarding the distressed situations? For example, do you experience distress when you feel like things are going out of control, or when you have to carry out a presentation in front of an audience?

The goal now is to find ways to convert distress into eustress.

How you physically and mentally respond to a stressor depends on a range of factors, but mostly your mindset and the kind of lifestyle you live. A lifestyle adjustment may include:

• Adopting a better diet
• Exercising more
• Sleeping better
• Meditating regularly

These can change, minimize and even eliminate a stressor.

A good support system and a healthy sense of self-esteem also are essential elements that keep stress levels low.

But even if such changes are made, the stressor and distress can persist—what matters is what you believe about the stressor and how it affects you.

This shift in examining our beliefs around stress can change whether your mind interprets the stressor as an ‘emergency threat’ or not.

Other coping strategies can be adopted ‘in the moment’ too. For example, breathing techniques release oxygen in the brain; this relaxes the muscles, slows the heart and breathing rate, and changes the body’s physiological response.

In this way, distress can be tackled and unlearned through a process in which you learn to react to the same stressors with positive emotions like gratitude, hope, and goodwill (Selye, 1987).

Is it easy to change our reactions to stressors? No.

Is changing our reactions possible and vital for our health? Yes.

Positive self-talk and reaffirming statements to yourself can be extremely powerful and can disintegrate negative beliefs of certain stress responses.

Try different methods and see what works and what doesn’t for you – but next time you talk about your stress, let’s hope that you will not be referring to the ‘distress’ kind of stress, but your abounding eustress, instead.

For your own health, and wellbeing, as well as in many social and workplace settings, eustress has a lifetime of benefits waiting for you to explore.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Stress & Burnout Prevention Exercises (PDF) for free . References

• Brulé, G., & Morgan, R. (2018). Working with stress: can we turn distress into eustress? Journal of Neuropsychology & Stress Management, 3 , 1-3.
• Dubbels, B. R. (2017). Gamification Transformed: Gamification Should Deliver the Best Parts of Game Experiences, Not Just Experiences of Game Parts. In Transforming Gaming and Computer Simulation Technologies across Industries (pp. 17-47). IGI Global.
• Certo, S.C. (2003). Supervision: Concepts and skill-building . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
• Ganster, D. C. & Fusilier, M. R. (1989). Control in the workplace. International review of industrial and organizational psychology , 4, pp.235-280.
• Gardner, W. L., & Schermerhorn, J. R. (2004). Unleashing individual potential. Organizational Dynamics, 3 (33), 270-281.
• Gavin, J. H., & Mason, R. O. (2004). The Virtuous Organization:: The Value of Happiness in the Workplace. Organizational Dynamics , 33(4), 379-392.
• Jones, J. G., & Hardy, L. (1990). Wiley series in human performance and cognition. Stress and performance in sport.
• Keller, A., Litzelman, K., Wisk, L. E., Maddox, T., Cheng, E. R., Creswell, P. D., & Witt, W. P. (2012). Does the perception that stress affects health matter? The association with health and mortality. Health Psychology, 31 (5), 677.
• Lazarus, R.S. (1993). From psychological stress to the emotions: A history of changing outlooks. Annual review of psychology, 44 (1), pp.1-22.
• Le Fevre, M., Matheny, J., & Kolt, G. S. (2003). Eustress, distress, and interpretation in occupational stress. Journal of managerial psychology, 18 (7), 726-744.
• Li, C. T., Cao, J., & Li, T. M. (2016, September). Eustress or distress: An empirical study of perceived stress in everyday college life. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing: Adjunct (pp. 1209-1217). ACM.
• McGonigal, K. (2008). Tame your stress. Yoga Journal , 275, 82.
• McGonigal, K. (2013). How to make stress your friend . Ted Global, Edinburgh, Scotland, 6, 13.
• Mills, H., Reiss, N., & Dombeck, M. (2018). Types of Stressors (Eustress vs. Distress). Retrieved from https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/types-of-stressors-eustress-vs-distress/
• Rosch, P. (2018). Hans Selye: Birth of Stress. Retrieved from https://www.stress.org/about/hans-selye-birth-of-stress/
• Selye, H. (1956). The stress of life .
• Selye, H. (1965). The stress syndrome. The American Journal of Nursing , 97-99.
• Spector, P. E., & Jex, S. M. (1998). Development of four self-report measures of job stressors and strain: interpersonal conflict at work scale, organizational constraints scale, quantitative workload inventory, and physical symptoms inventory. Journal of occupational health psychology , 3(4), 356.
• Suedfeld, P. (1997). Reactions to societal trauma: Distress and/or eustress. Political Psychology , 18(4), 849-861.
• World Health Organization, & Commission of the European Communities. (1986). Environmental health criteria (No. 53). World Health Organization.
• WHO. (2018). WHO | Stress at the workplace. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/occupational_health/topics/stressatwp/en/
• Wilding, M. (2018). Please Stop Telling Me to Leave My Comfort Zone. Retrieved from https://anxymag.com/blogs/home/comfort-zones-melody-wilding

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Hi, I’m currently working on a writing sample for my master in Psychology and I’m talking about stress, stressor’s and I would like to cite some of this article about Eustress. May I have the references of this article or perhaps the PDF version?

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3 Stress Exercises Pack

Eustress vs. distress: What are the differences?

Stress is a natural human response to frightening, threatening, or confusing events and situations. Stress sometimes keeps individuals safe by motivating them to fight, run away, or freeze to safeguard themselves. It can also encourage people to utilize motivation. 

Eustress and distress are two types of stress that can impact your overall health and daily functioning. Recognizing which is healthy and which may be harmful can help you take steps toward positive stress and away from maladaptive stress.

Eustress vs. distress

Eustress and distress are forms of stress unique from one another. Eustress is a term for  positive stress  that can have a beneficial impact on your life. "Eu" is a prefix meaning "good" used in words like "euphoria" or "eulogy." Eustress can refer to challenges that put positive or healthy pressure on you to grow and improve. Contrarily, distress is an unhealthy or "bad" form of stress. Distress is what you may think about when you think of stress, which can harm your well-being.

Eustress works similarly throughout the body to other types of stress. It heightens the central nervous system, making you more alert. It often occurs in response to a specific situation or task that is challenging but ultimately achievable. While distress may linger, eustress can temporarily boost motivation, achievement, and resilience.

What is distress? 

Distress is a maladaptive form of stress. While sometimes unavoidable, experiencing distress can harm mental wellness. While a minor amount of negative stress can have a similar effect to eustress, a prolonged experience can have unwanted side effects. With pervasive stress, whether from a job or other sources, distress can significantly impact your health and well-being.

Distress is often characterized by how it surpasses one's ability to cope with challenging circumstances. Looming feelings of anxiety can significantly contribute to this type of stress. While eustress allows individuals to tackle challenges positively, distress can cause an adverse stress response in the face of significant obstacles. Distress can also develop in the wake of events outside of your control, such as the death of a loved one, the end of a romantic relationship, or unexpected failure.  

While some people use the term "stress" to refer exclusively to distress, it is an umbrella term that can refer to any type of stress, including eustress. Although distress may be more commonly discussed due to its adverse effects on mental health, it can be as vital to highlight the positive sides of stress to build confidence and accomplish goals.

How does eustress benefit individuals? 

Eustress can have a wealth of benefits regarding personal achievement and mental health. For example, it may give individuals a temporary energy boost to complete tense but ultimately exciting and positive activities—like starting a new job. If you've ever felt stressed but optimistic when making a significant life change, you may have experienced eustress. Eustress allows people to cope with the challenges of new situations without becoming overwhelmed by them.

Eustress is often a result of pushing yourself past where you are comfortable growing and changing. Whether you're looking for a challenge in terms of physical, personal, or professional goals, it can increase your self-confidence while you reach new milestones. 

Eustress can also significantly increase feelings of  self-efficacy , which refer to a person's belief in their ability to achieve specific outcomes according to their actions. It can make people feel more prepared to face particular challenges, whether significant or minor. Without stress present, psychologists theorize that people might feel bored and unfulfilled. Eustress could be characterized as a happy medium involving energy without pushing one past their limits. 

If you're bored and stagnant, you might benefit from challenging, positive activities that engage and inspire you. Try picking up a new hobby or taking steps toward a goal, whether you're interested in a new sport, a creative discipline, or carving out time to explore new places with friends and family. The excitement of new, foreign experiences can cause eustress and positive emotions. 

How does distress impact the body and mind? 

While eustress can positively affect the mind and body, distress can have the opposite effect. It can be essential to look out for  symptoms of stress and distress to enact change and seek support if necessary. 

Fatigue and lethargy 

Fatigue and lethargy are some of the  most common symptoms of distress . If you struggle to get out of bed in the morning and feel weighed down throughout the day, you could be experiencing the adverse effects of distress. Fatigue may make it more difficult to accomplish basic tasks, which can seem overwhelming. 

Anger or irritability 

If you've ever snapped at someone in a stressful moment, you may be familiar with how anger can become a secondary response to stress. It might be a sign of distress if you often feel angry and irritable. You may even feel your blood pressure rising in response to the stress. When experiencing excess distress, it can seem that more sets you off. 

Changes in sleep patterns 

Changes in your sleeping patterns may be another sign of distress. Insomnia or hypersomnia can both be caused by changes in mental well-being. Poor sleep quality can often exacerbate stress, causing further distressing symptoms. 

Feelings Of Guilt Or Hopelessness 

When you're experiencing prolonged distress, it can be normal to feel guilty or hopeless. As you face stressful situations you have little to no control over, you may feel guilty about your actions or powerless to enact meaningful change. 

How to cope with stress

If you're experiencing the adverse effects of stress, there are several steps you can take to cope. Whether you implement lifestyle changes, adopt healthier habits, visit a therapist, or consider medical treatments, reducing the amount of distress you're experiencing over time is possible. 

Consult a medical provider before deciding to start or stop a new medication. No matter what methods you use for stress management, receiving professional advice can be a safe way to ensure you meet your goals and exhaust every avenue of support. Even when stress is unavoidable, there may be ways to reduce the impact it has on your mental and physical health. 

Professional support options 

If you've been struggling to cope with distress on your own, you might choose to consider counseling. Therapy can be a productive way to express your thoughts and feelings, get a second opinion, and develop strategies to cope with stress or anxiety in your daily life.

However, some people face barriers to mental healthcare, such as a lack of transportation, financial hardship, or limited availability of nearby professionals. Online therapy through a platform like  BetterHelp can reduce some of these barriers and reduce stressors like a long commute or searching for parking. 

Researchers studied the mental health of university students before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and assessed the effectiveness of online versus face-to-face psychodynamic counseling intervention for stress. They found that online counseling intervention during the pandemic was  effective in reducing psychological distress . In addition, it decreased symptoms of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), interpersonal sensitivity, and anxiety. 

Stress is a natural part of being human that can have positive and negative purposes. It may offer motivation and keep you safe while being a byproduct of anxiety or pressure from others. Recognizing the type of stress you're experiencing can help you identify the value of making lifestyle changes, starting a new stress management technique, or reaching out to a mental health professional. Consider reaching out to a licensed therapist to further understand the impacts of stress on the mind and body and receive compassionate guidance.

If you're experiencing the adverse effects of stress or anxiety, a professional can help. Doctors and psychiatrists can prescribe medicine to help treat stress and anxiety. Find a solution that helps you manage your mental health and well being. Eustress and distress are two opposite types of stress that you may seek out professional help for understanding.

Feeling disregarded or disrespected also influences stress and can impact the levels of and distress on the body. Additionally, to increase the levels of eustress, discontinuing any habits that are not benefitting you will help with any disappointments you might be facing. Feeling disoriented or disengaged from normal life could be a sign of severe stress.

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In with the Good and Out with the Bad: Promoting Healthy Stress in Class

by Matthew Mahavongtrakul | Mar 11, 2019 | 390X

Alicia Hoffman, Department of Chemistry

Stress is correlated with both improved and diminished academic achievement. Students are successful when there is a drive to attain high standards, but too much stress negatively impacts learning and memory and increases underachievement, dropout rates, and depression. 1,2  Therefore, maintaining a balance between too stressful and not stressful enough is important for students to do well in the classroom.

Eustress (good stress) can drive productivity, creativity, and hope. 3 It is linked to academic achievement and investment in coursework. 4 Setting ambitious goals and having high expectations promotes eustress, resulting in a desire to achieve. 1

On the other hand, overemphasizing goals or setting unrealistic expectations introduces distress (bad stress). 1 Distress causes anxiety, lack of investment or interest, and can reduce students’ ability to concentrate. 3,5 The fear of failure is a major source of anxiety for many students, and the fear becomes more apparent as the goals become more unrealistic. 5

Students report several different causes of stress, such as studying, examinations, and fear of failure. 5 While teachers cannot control all of these factors, there are some simple ways to reduce distress and increase eustress in the classroom.

Reducing Distress

Build a community

Use icebreakers and group work to foster a sense of community in the classroom. A community of supportive peers reduces distress and improves student confidence. 3 The feeling of belonging in an academic community is also linked to a positive academic mindset. 1

Create a routine

Students feel calmer and more in control when the class follows a daily routine. Too much “novelty” can cause students to worry or mentally withdraw. 3 Maintain a few regular activities during the class, such as a break around the same time or a low-stakes review quiz at the beginning or end of every period.

Teach about time management

Time management training positively impacts a student’s sense of control over time, which reduces distress. 2,5 Incorporate time management into projects and assignments. Have students reflect on the steps they need to complete the project and define goals for how to finish these steps. Then have students detail deadlines and strategies to reach their goals. Finally, have them break down these deadlines into daily or weekly tasks so that the entire project feels manageable.

Increasing Eustress

Set achievable goals with positive rewards

Instead of forcing goals on students, set them with your students. Ask students what they want out of the class. Create rubrics as a group so students understand what is expected and feel they have control over these expectations. Provide rewards for exceeding expectations, such as a homework freebie or a few bonus points on an exam.

Let students take ownership

Promote feelings of self-confidence and ownership by allowing students to make decisions. Give students the freedom to choose their own topics or the format of a project. A sense of purpose and ownership over a task motivates students and promotes confidence in their abilities. 1,4

Focus on student improvement

Use formative assessments and check-ins to show students how they have improved over the course. When working on long-term projects, provide feedback at different stages so students have the opportunity to learn – and show they’ve learned – from their mistakes.

Recognizing a few sources of distress and redesigning them into sources of eustress can improve student attitudes and promote academic achievement. Stress doesn’t have to be a bad thing in the classroom, and good stress can help students achieve more.

Dockterman, D.; Weber, C. Does stressing performance goals lead to too much, well, stress? The Phi Delta Kappan 2017 , 98(6), 31-34.

Häfner, A.; Stock, A.; Oberst, V. Decreasing students’ stress through time management training: An intervention study. Euro. J. Psych. Educ. 2015 , 30(1), 81-94.

Sharpe, B. Digging into dissonance: Distress, eustress, and the student experience. 2014

Levi, U.; Einav, M.; Ziv, O.; Raskind, I.; Margalit, M. Academic expectations and actual achievements: The roles of hope and effort. Euro. J. Psych. Educ. 2014 , 29(3), 367-386.

Robotham, D. Stress among higher education students: Towards a research agenda. Higher Educ. 2008 , 56(6), 735-746.

Matthew Mahavongtrakul edited this post on April 24th, 2019.

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Eustress vs. Distress

Stress is a common concern in today’s fast-paced life. But is all stress inherently bad? Turns out, there are two kinds of stress: Eustress and distress – both of which can motivate us in different ways.

To learn more, we spoke with Dr. Nanika Coor, a Licensed Psychologist, and Joel Kosman , a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. We learned about eustress, distress, and how our perceptions can shape how we interpret “stress” as a concept in the first place.

What is eustress?

“Eustress is a kind of ‘doable’ stress,” explains Dr. Coor. “You’re faced with a challenge, but a challenge you know you can handle – and you actually look forward to handling that challenge. You feel out of your comfort zone in a good way.”

Its name stems from the Greek prefix eu-, which means “good” – implying a beneficial element to its presence.

“When in a state of eustress, a person feels absorbed in, and intensely focused on, the task at hand,” says Dr. Coor. “There is a sense of satisfaction, motivation, excitement and potential in the experience of eustress. It lasts for a short period of time, and is a positive experience.”

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Examples of eustress

“One might feel eustress when embarking on life milestones usually perceived to be positive,” explains Dr. Coor.

Examples might include:

• The birth of a child
• Buying one’s first home
• Moving to a new state to attend college

“All of these events may cause stress, but they are within a person’s ability to cope,” she adds. “Positive stress can lead to personal growth.”

What is distress?

Distress is typically accompanied by feelings of overwhelm and anxiety , which are perceived as negative and unwanted.

“You’re out of your comfort zone – and it feels worrisome, dangerous or even life threatening. This is a kind of stress that exceeds a person’s physical, emotional or psychological ability to cope with a situation,” explains Dr. Coor.

Distress hinders a person’s ability to function normally, communicate and think clearly. If it continues on a long-term basis, it can become detrimental to a person’s mental and physical health.

Examples of distress

Events that could result in distress include:

• Diagnosis of a life-threatening or debilitating illness
• The death of a loved one
• The loss of a job
• A serious injury
• Filing for divorce and/or a separation
• Being neglected or abused
• Feeling burnt out , especially in difficult situations that won’t end

Eustress vs. Distress: Does it depend on perspective?

That said, it’s important to note that different people will have different reactions to every situation – so it’s impossible to categorize every situation as universally in the distress or eustress camp. Rather, our interpretation of events depends on our personal experiences and perspectives.

As Kosman points out, “It’s not the stressor itself so much as it is the person’s stress response that is critical.” And when stress becomes too much, our bodies can actually take a hit.

In that vein, Kosman explains that in his work, he’s found it helpful to think of stress more neutrally. Whether it’s eustress or distress, a better approach may be to examine the stressor and explore why it creates the challenge(s) that it does.

How to better manage stress

Shifting your interpretation of stress can help you better manage stress.

Take, for example, a  stressor that might be considered universally negative – such as the death of a loved one. “It is important for the person to be able to experience the sadness, or other emotion inherent in the event,” explains Kosman. “But, as a stressor, the goal would be to try to channel the force of the stress into an opportunity for growth.”

Another example is a feeling frustrated at work or the assignment of a big project on a tight deadline. “Those are stressful events, yes, but whether they ultimately impact a person in a positive or negative way is a function mostly of how the person interprets the event and how they respond to it,” Kosman points out.

“If the interpretation of the event is along the lines of, ‘My boss is out to get me’ or ‘I’ll never be able to do this,’ then the impact of the stressful event will be negative – and, not coincidentally, demotivating.”

On the other hand, “if someone can get a bit beneath the surface and see what underlies the impact of the event," they may discover the reason for their reaction and turn it into a positive, motivating force.

“Perhaps their work means a lot to them, and that helps explain their initial response (getting upset) AND gives them an affirmative reason to approach the event (work is important to me and therefore I want to succeed). The event then becomes motivating.”

Bottom line: If the interpretation of the impact of the event is that it is overwhelming or destructive or otherwise negative, it’s going to be that much harder to move forward.

Alternatively, if you’re able to tap into the growth-oriented aspects of the impact – and see and understand the event as important, say, rather than frightening – then therein lies the key.

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Eustress VS Distress: 5 Differences & How to Add More Eustress to Your Life

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Stress is your body's response to any change that may create a taxing demand on your physical or mental health . Despite popular beliefs, stress can be beneficial at times… as it helps you get out of your comfort zone, improve focus and overcome challenges.

This good type of stress is called eustress . The difference between good and bad stress often boils down to our coping mechanisms and our mind’s capacity to handle various situations without falling apart.

Today, we’re going to take a look at eustress vs distress… or, as it is more commonly referred to, good stress vs bad stress.

Table of Contents

What is Eustress?

Eustress is the kind of stress that we experience when we are facing a challenge that we know will turn out okay . It is the kind of stress that allows us to become motivated to push through because we know the end result will be worth it.

We are also confident we have both the external and internal resources to get through.

Some situations that create eustress include:

• Watching a scary movie or riding a roller coaster
• Proposing marriage
• Having a baby
• Getting a job promotion
• Buying a house

When we are experiencing eustress, we may be feeling nervous, but we also know we can handle what is to come . This is because eustress:

• Motivates you to act
• Is only short-term in duration
• Is perceived as within our ability to handle it
• Is exciting
• Helps improve performance

During eustress, things are viewed as more of a challenge than a problem . You have a feeling of hope in the outcome and know how to rely on the available resources.

Eustress and Flow

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was a psychologist that originally addressed the concept of flow. Flow is the state where we are often most productive . Eustress shares many of the same qualities as flow. With flow:

• There is a situation that is challenging, but not too difficult.
• Enjoyable tasks are involved, such as things like pushing the limits when exercising, traveling to a new place, or doing something you have never done before but find exciting.
• Your right frontal cortex is fully engaged.
• Your concentration is intense and distractions are very few.
• There is a loss in the sense of how much time has passed.

Now, let's take a quick look at what distress entails.

What is Distress?

Distress is the type of stress we think about when the subject comes up. This is the fear or anxiety we feel when faced with a situation that we don't think we can handle . It may feel like there is no hope and no way for the situation to turn out for the best. 

Things that cause distress can include:

• Being bullied
• Financial problems
• Death of a spouse, parent, or child
• Missing deadlines
• Facing a natural disaster 

When facing stress, you may quickly feel overwhelmed and like the world is ending. Distress:

• Causes anxiety, concern, or pain
• Can be either short-term or long-term .
• Feels unpleasant .
• Creates poor performance
• Is perceived as beyond our ability to cope .

Physically, your body reacts to any stress the same way. When we are stressed, our brain releases chemicals that initiate a flight or fight condition . The biggest difference between distress and eustress is how you react emotionally .

Before you can deal with either, it is important to determine which type of stress you are dealing with.

Eustress vs Distress: Five Differences

When you are trying to determine whether you are feeling eustress or distress, examine how you feel when asking the following questions.

1. What is my energy like? 

• Eustress helps you feel motivated and productive
• Distress leaves you feeling exhausted

2. How focused am I?

• Eustress allows you to see where you need to go and shows a clear path
• Distress tends to cloud your vision and you feel unsure of your next move

3. Am I excited?

• Eustress allows you to feel excited about what is coming your way next
• Distress will leave you feeling worried or anxious

4. What is my confidence level?

• Eustress leaves you feeling confident in your abilities
• Distress causes your self-esteem to hit rock bottom

5. Am I thinking positively or negatively?

• Eustress allows you to see the positive in the situation
• Distress leaves you focusing entirely on the negative

You can change many instances of distress to eustress if you start viewing the situation as a challenge to learn from rather than a hindrance . You can also take a minute to evaluate the resources available to you and learn to utilize them more effectively.

Ways to Add More Eustress to Your Life

Adding eustress to your life will help you grow emotionally . It will build your confidence and self-esteem and help you become better motivated to be more productive.

You will learn to push past your preconceived limits and grow.  There are several ways in which you can add eustress to your life.

Seek it out.

Any time you step out of your comfort zone or attempt to stretch your limits, you are able to create eustress. The trick is to make it a challenge that causes you to do more than you have before, but doesn't make it so difficult you get discouraged.

For example, try to increase your speed, distance, or repetitions in a sport you love. Try that new rollercoaster that just opened or take the leap and go to Spain, even if you don't know Spanish.

Make the challenge easier.

Treat overcoming the challenge like a goal. Break it down into a number of steps and tackle each step individually.

Do you have to present that great idea you took to your boss at the next meeting of stockholders? Write a great report and have someone review it. Practice in front of the mirror. Practice deep breathing or other calming techniques. Remind yourself that your boss loved the idea. Now, go deliver that presentation.

Increase resources.

Having more resources allows you to relax and feel better about the outcome. If financial stress is something you face, find a second source of income.

If you are facing a challenge that requires moral support, initiate the help of your support network.

If you are thinking of buying a home, do your research and prepare by seeking a real estate counselor.

When you have the proper resources, you can change the fear into excitement because you know you have what it takes to succeed.

Develop a Growth Mindset.

People with a fixed mindset believe that where they are in regard to skills, talent, etc… is something that can't be changed. But with a growth mindset , you believe you have the ability to keep learning.

You know you are capable of doing more than you currently do or have done. By believing in yourself, you increase your self-esteem and this allows you to approach both challenges and the world outside your comfort zone with anticipation. What can you learn from the situation?

Focus on the wanted outcome.

Picture this: you are looking at buying a piece of lake property and live off-grid. That has always been a dream, but anxiety is trying to take hold. You will have to leave everything you are familiar with – your job, your friends and the comfort of your current home – and learn skills to help you survive away from a town environment.

If you allow the anxiety to settle in by focusing on these aspects, you won't go. However, if you keep your eye on how you will feel once you are sitting there in that cabin, you can overcome the fear and take the necessary steps to achieve it. 

Find the positives.

Almost every situation has some positive aspects in it. Your marriage has ended, but it gives you the chance to find a more supportive partner.

You get fired, but now you have time to start that business you have been thinking of starting and never had the time.

Do all you can to find the positive things within the situation and focus on them. It promises to change your entire outlook.

Focus on what you can control.

There will always be some things you simply can't control. The good thing is that there are always aspects you can control, even if it is only how you respond to the situation.

Try studying some of the Stoic principles and learning that the Universe isn't targeting you. Think about the lessons you can learn or what a change of attitude could change about the situation.

You do have some control, use it.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

Even good things can be overdone. Eustress is, after all, a form of stress . You can't keep up this state continuously, as your body needs time to settle and regenerate. Some things you can do to make sure your body has this time include:

• Being mindful of when you have reached your limit.
• Limit your obligations to only those you really want to do.
• Practice resilience-promoting habits so you become less reactive in a negative way.
• Be willing to say no to new things if you really don't think they will benefit you.

Final Thoughts on Eustress vs Distress

Stress is inevitable. Your body uses it to warn you that change is coming and you are being asked to step out of your comfort zone. By learning how to turn distress into eustress , you are allowing yourself to grow and become the best person you can be… in small increments.  

You won't ever be able to eliminate bad stress completely, but by dealing with good stress effectively, you are giving yourself greater tools to handle distress and get through to the other side.

You will become more resilient and mentally stronger. You will become someone who thrives! 

Finally, if you need help with building habits, then check out this nine-step blueprint that walks you through the entire process of creating lifelong habits .)

Eustress vs. Distress: The Different Types of Stressors

Feb 17, 2023 By Lael Miller

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Stress isn’t always bad—as long as you learn to harness its perks. It’s an ancient survival mechanism that triggers a fight, flight, or freeze response once key to our survival and is more complex than you may realize. In this article, you’ll learn about the two types of stress and how to manage them effectively to avoid the consequences that come with prolonged distress.

Good Stress vs. Bad Stress: The Two Types of Stress

Hans Selye, a 20th-century endocrinologist, dedicated much of his career to a field he pioneered: stress theory . One of his most notable contributions to science was splitting the concept of stress into two areas: positive stress (or eustress) and negative stress (distress).

What Is Eustress?

Maybe you haven’t even heard this word before: the prefix “eu-” means good or well in Greek, and “stress” refers to any type of change that triggers strain . In other words, eustress is a type of stress that feels good. It fills those experiencing it with a burst of energy and motivation to face challenges enthusiastically.

What Is Distress?

Distress makes us feel anxious and worried. The body ups its production of epinephrine (or adrenaline) and cortisol to help you respond to a perceived threat, which is a good thing in moderate amounts and for short periods of time. But in high amounts or over an extended time, your body has no chance to return to a calm state and is constantly on high alert, which becomes draining.

Signs and Symptoms of Eustress vs. Distress

Eustress and distress trigger very similar emotions , which is why it’s sometimes hard to tell them apart. First, you’ll probably feel your pulse racing and thoughts scattering. You may also suddenly feel chills running up and down your body and have cold, sweaty palms. For some people, both kinds of stress make their muscles tense up as if they’re gearing up to fight or flee, while others feel paralyzed—typical fight, flight, or freeze responses.

Eustress Symptoms

But what if you feel energized? That’s eustress. Because you perceive this kind of stress as a good thing, you’ll almost always feel euphoric. Focusing on the task at hand becomes easier and you’ll have enough stamina to get it done.

Distress Symptoms

On the other hand, distress is draining because you see the challenge in a negative light. You may feel like your skills aren’t good enough and that you’ll never clear this obstacle in your way. Distress can seriously hurt your self-esteem, keep you up at night, and cause you to undereat or overeat.

Is Stress Bad for Your Health?

Stress (and distress in particular) is a primal mechanism of survival, so it’s not always bad. In fact, humans should strive to stay in hormesis: a balanced state of stress . Too little stress prevents you from taking on new challenges and growing, but too much stress ( chronic stress ) can wreak havoc on your body:

• Wears down your immune system
• Accelerates aging and damages cells
• Impacts short-and long-term memory and impedes learning
• Can exacerbate mood disorders
• Triggers insomnia, irritability, restlessness, and fatigue

What Causes a Stress Response?

Internal stressors (you’re the one putting pressure on yourself) and external stressors (someone or something is pressuring you) both trigger a stress response.

Positive or Negative Stressors?

Everyone reacts to stressors differently: what one might view as a positive stressor, someone else might see as a negative stressor. And a situation that doesn’t register as important to one person might trigger acute distress for another.

For example, one person might feel distressed over being laid off, while others might feel eustress because they’re free to explore other avenues. What would you feel, distress or eustress? Your past experience, personality, and other factors will determine if you feel distress or eustress and that can also change over time. But you also have a choice in how you choose to experience the situation.

3 Tips to Keep Distress in Check

Now that you know that having a manageable amount of stress in your life is a good thing, it’s time to make an action plan to keep distress in check. Don’t let it take over your life, or else you might be stuck with the consequences of stress. Instead, give these tips a try:

• Carve out time to relax: You should let your body come to a restful state. Incorporate an ice bath into your busy schedule, or pick up a new low-stress hobby to unwind.
• Stay positive: Don’t get worn down by the challenges life throws at you; instead, try to shift your perspective and see them as a way to grow and be resilient.
• Look at the big picture: Sometimes, negative stressors seem much more overwhelming than they actually are. Or that the situation is, or will be, worse than the actual. We’ve all been there where we anticipate something will be terrible and it’s not really as bad as we thought. Take stock of your life as a whole and find gratitude.

Can Distress Turn Into Eustress?

Yes, distress can turn into eustress. It’s all about how you respond to a potential stressor. Will you see it as an obstacle that’s keeping you from progressing, or will you face it as a challenge you’re well-equipped to overcome?

Even if you don’t quite believe you can do it, harness the power of positive self-talk. A 2020 study published by Oxford Academic found that participants who resorted to self-affirmations (sentences that affirm the person’s worth, such as “I am confident, I am strong”) felt less stressed and fared better in complicated tasks. The age-old fake it till you make it strategy seems to pay off.

Some Discomfort Is Necessary to Grow

Implementing a certain degree of discomfort (stress) in your life is useful: it prevents you from getting complacent and static. Eustress and distress foster change, which is necessary if you want to better yourself. Just like plunging into an Ice Barrel for a mind-and-body restorative experience, stress (in the right amount) feels uncomfortable at first but pushes you to improve.

The Invitation to Adventure

Now it’s your turn.

We are inviting you on an extraordinary adventure to explore the depths of your potential and experience the incredible results Ice Barrel will produce in your life. Not just for you, but for the ones you love most and the things you are most passionate about.

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12.2: Psychoneuroimmunology and Stress

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Science of Psychoneuroimmunology

Psychoneuroimmunology is defined as the examination of the interactions among psychological, behavioral, and social factors with immunological and neuroendocrine outcomes. It is now well established that psychological factors, especially chronic stress, can lead to impairments in immune system functioning in both the young and older adults. In several studies of older adults, those who are providing care for a relative with dementia report high levels of stress and exhibit significant impairments in immune system functioning when compared with noncaregivers. Stress-induced changes in the immune system may affect a number of outcomes, including slowing the wound healing process and increasing susceptibility to infections.

What is stress?

Stress is a feeling you get when faced with a challenge. In small doses, stress can be good for you because it makes you more alert and gives you a burst of energy. For instance, if you start to cross the street and see a car about to run you over, that jolt you feel helps you to jump out of the way before you get hit. But feeling stressed for a long time can take a toll on your mental and physical health. Even though it may seem hard to find ways to de-stress with all the things you have to do, it’s important to find those ways. Your health depends on it.

Chronic Stress

We all have stress sometimes. For some people, it happens before having to speak in public. For other people, it might be before a first date. What causes stress for you may not be stressful for someone else. Sometimes stress is helpful—it can encourage you to meet a deadline or get things done. But long-term stress can increase the risk of diseases like depression, heart disease and a variety of other problems. A stress-related illness called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) develops after an event like war, physical or sexual assault, or a natural disaster.

If you have chronic stress, the best way to deal with it is to take care of the underlying problem. Counseling can help you find ways to relax and calm down. Medicines may also help.

How Stress Affects your Health and What You Can Do About It

Stress—just the word may be enough to set your nerves on edge. Everyone feels stressed from time to time. Some people may cope with stress more effectively or recover from stressful events quicker than others. It’s important to know your limits when it comes to stress to avoid more serious health effects.

Stress can be defined as the brain’s response to any demand. Many things can trigger this response, including change. Changes can be positive or negative, as well as real or perceived. They may be recurring, short-term, or long-term and may include things like commuting to and from school or work every day, traveling for a yearly vacation, or moving to another home. Changes can be mild and relatively harmless, such as winning a race, watching a scary movie, or riding a rollercoaster. Some changes are major, such as marriage or divorce, serious illness, or a car accident. Other changes are extreme, such as exposure to violence, and can lead to traumatic stress reactions.

How does stress affect the body?

Not all stress is bad. All animals have a stress response, which can be life-saving in some situations. The nerve chemicals and hormones released during such stressful times, prepares the animal to face a threat or flee to safety. When you face a dangerous situation, your pulse quickens, you breathe faster, your muscles tense, your brain uses more oxygen and increases activity—all functions aimed at survival. In the short term, it can even boost the immune system.

However, with chronic stress, those same nerve chemicals that are life-saving in short bursts can suppress functions that aren’t needed for immediate survival. Your immunity is lowered and your digestive, excretory, and reproductive systems stop working normally. Once the threat has passed, other body systems act to restore normal functioning. Problems occur if the stress response goes on too long, such as when the source of stress is constant, or if the response continues after the danger has subsided.

How does stress affect your overall health?

There are at least three different types of stress, all of which carry physical and mental health risks:

• Routine stress related to the pressures of work, family and other daily responsibilities.
• Stress brought about by a sudden negative change, such as losing a job, divorce, or illness.
• Traumatic stress, experienced in an event like a major accident, war, assault, or a natural disaster where one may be seriously hurt or in danger of being killed.

The body responds to each type of stress in similar ways. Different people may feel it in different ways. For example, some people experience mainly digestive symptoms, while others may have headaches, sleeplessness, depressed mood, anger and irritability. People under chronic stress are prone to more frequent and severe viral infections, such as the flu or common cold, and vaccines, such as the flu shot, are less effective for them.

Of all the types of stress, changes in health from routine stress may be hardest to notice at first. Because the source of stress tends to be more constant than in cases of acute or traumatic stress, the body gets no clear signal to return to normal functioning. Over time, continued strain on your body from routine stress may lead to serious health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, anxiety disorder, and other illnesses.

Stress and Stressors

Even though there is little consensus among psychologists about the exact definition of stress, mainstream scientists define stress as the process by which we perceive and cope environmental factors that are appraised as threatening or challenging by our brains. Those factors, known as stressors, could be either physical or psychological in natural. A stressor can be the presence of flood after a storm or nervousness about SATs. According to the theory of Richard Lazarus, a psychologist from UC Berkeley, there are three types of stressors (also known as stimuli): major cataclysmic changes that affect large numbers of persons; major changes affecting one or several persons; and daily hassles. (Lazarus, 1984)

The first type of stressors may refer to phenomena that are outside anyone’s control. Like natural disasters, wars or uprooting and relocation, they are universally stressful. The stressors themselves could be ephemeral, but the physical and psychological aftermath is long-term. The second category of stressors happen to relatively few people or to individuals. These are events out of the individual’s control, like the death of loved ones, a robbery, or the process of taking exams. The daily hassles are little things that distress or irritate: a quarrel with parents, a losing sports game or too much homework.

The above listed stressors all seem to have negative effects and impacts to our life, however, stressors can be positive as well. According to Hans Selye, the father of stress study, there are two types of stress: eustress and distress. Eustress refers to stress that actually allows the body to function as well or better than it does while unstressed.

Learning Activity

• Go to Stress Assessment to rate your own stress level.
• Were the results what you expected? Why or why not?

[reveal-answer q=”780026″]Show Sources[/reveal-answer] [hidden-answer a=”780026″]

Science of Psychoneuroimmunology: Science of Psychoneuroimmunology , NCBI, NLM, NIH, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK24698/#a2000af97ddd00065

What is stress?: Stress and Your Health , http://womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/stress-your-health.cfm

Chronic Stress: Chronic Stress , NLM, NIH, Medline Plus http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/stress.html

How Stress Affects your Health and What You Can Do About It: Fact Sheet on Stress , NIMH, NIH, http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/stress/fact-sheet-on-stress.shtml

Stress and Stressors: Stress and Stressors , York School AP Psychology Textbook, CC-BY-NC-SA, http://appsychtextbk.wikispaces.com/

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• Contemporary Health Issues. Authored by : Judy Baker, Ph.D., Dean of Foothill Global Access at Foothill College. Provided by : [email protected] . Located at : http://hlth21fall2012.wikispaces.com/ . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

Low-to-Moderate Doses of Stress May Fortify Resilience

Hormesis hypothesis: too much stress is toxic, but small doses boost resilience..

Posted August 2, 2022 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

• What Is Stress?
• Find a therapist to overcome stress
• There are three types of stress: eustress (good stress), distress (bad stress), and sustress (too little stress).
• Without sufficient doses of stress, people lose their ability to cope with adversity and become less resilient.
• Hormesis refers to an adaptive sweet spot where the dose of stress is "just right."

Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker . (What does not kill me, makes me stronger.) —Friedrich Nietzsche, aphorism number eight from Twilight of the Idols (1888)

In the mid-19th century, a French physiologist, Claude Bernard, introduced the concept of milieu intérieur (internal environment) to describe the ability of an organism to maintain homeostasis and its "inner balance" in response to unpredictable stressors. Bernard famously said, "The stability of the internal environment is the condition for the free and independent life."

During the 20th century, research pioneers such as Walter B. Cannon and Hans Selye created stress system frameworks built on Bernard's previous work. Their groundbreaking concepts of the fight-or-flight response and general adaptation syndrome underlie how most of us view stress.

3 Types of Stress: Distress, Eustress, and Sustress

For more than a century, we've known that there's "good stress" ( eustress ) and "bad stress" ( distress ). From a psychological perspective, what differentiates eustress from distress is that the former typically feels exhilarating and is associated with a doable challenge. In contrast, the latter tends to be overwhelming and is often perceived as an anxiety -inducing threat.

But there's an often-overlooked third type of stress (or lack thereof) called sustress , which means "inadequate stress." The detriments of inadequate stress are currently taking center stage as part of a framework evolution that identifies a sweet spot of homeostasis and eustress nestled between sustress and severe doses of distress, as seen in diagram "C" below.

The Hormesis Hypothesis

As an umbrella term, stress tends to have negative connotations. Because chronic stress is detrimental to our physical well-being and mental health, there's a tendency to presume that "all stress is bad." However, the hormesis hypothesis posits that, although excessive amounts of stress can be harmful, smaller doses of distress or eustress are beneficial.

Through the lens of Friedrich Nietzsche's famous aphorism, "what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger," the hormesis hypothesis could be summed up as, "Low-to-moderate doses of stress that don't kill you, make you more resilient."

Increasingly, stress researchers are advancing the notion that optimal stress levels fall in a "Goldilocks zone"—which they refer to as the hormetic zone —between too much or too little daily stress. Like everything with a sweet spot, the hormetic zone follows the inverted-U dose–effect curve and lands between the extremes of chronic distress and a vacuum-like existence marked by inadequate stress (sustress).

The hormetic effects of low-to-moderate stress align with the Yerkes-Dodson Law , which suggests that there's an optimal level of arousal (i.e., stress) between anxiety and boredom that promotes intrinsic motivation , flow state experiences, overall achievement, and peak performance .

A Goldilocks Zone Where Stress Levels Are "Just Right"

In a recent paper ( Lu et al., 2021 ) about the evolution of stress frameworks since the 19th century, the authors explain how excessive distress and sustress both impair optimal physiological functions whereas hormetic amounts of stress play a vital role in the adaptive process (see Figure 1, above).

As mentioned, low-to-moderate levels of stress strengthen coping mechanisms and fortify an individual's ability to thrive in the face of adversity. Notably, Lu et al. put a spotlight on how the often-overlooked phenomenon of sustress can cripple the stress system's capacity to cope with stressors.

Another recent study ( Oshri et al., 2022 ) tested the hormesis hypothesis and found that low-to-moderate levels of stress are associated with increased resilience , better cognitive functioning, and a lower risk of psychopathology. These findings were published on June 27 in the peer-reviewed journal Psychiatry Research .

"This study provides preliminary support for the benefits of limited stress to the process of human resilience," the authors write in the paper's abstract.

"If you're in an environment where you have some level of stress, you may develop coping mechanisms that will allow you to become a more efficient and effective worker and organize yourself in a way that will help you perform," first author Assaf Oshri of the University of Georgia's Youth Development Institute said in a July 2022 news release .

Much like gradually building up calluses on your palms from lifting weights without gloves can make the skin tougher and more resilient, low-to-moderate levels of stress bolster grit and psychological resilience with repeated exposure at tolerable doses over time.

However, if your skin is rubbed too hard in a short time, it can blister before a callus forms, making it prone to pain and infection. Similarly, high levels of distress can create inner turmoil and have harmful consequences if stress doses are too high.

"Most of us have some adverse experiences that actually make us stronger. There are specific experiences that can help you evolve or develop skills that will prepare you for the future," Oshri explains. But he also warns that stress can quickly become toxic if it isn't intermittent enough or the dose is too high. "Chronic stress, like the stress that comes from living in abject poverty or being abused, can have very bad health and psychological consequences," he notes.

Take-Home Message

Finding the hormetic sweet spot of daily stress that's "just right" can be tricky. It's important to remember that too much stress can be detrimental, but too little stress also has its downsides. In general, the latest (2022) research on the hormesis hypothesis suggests that low-to-moderate stress levels are optimal because they enhance cognitive functioning and promote resilience.

Assaf Oshri, Zehua Cui, Cory Carvalho, Sihong Liu. "Is Perceived Stress Linked to Enhanced Cognitive Functioning and Reduced Risk for Psychopathology? Testing the Hormesis Hypothesis." Psychiatry Research (First published: June 27, 2022) DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2022.114644

Siyu Lu, Fang Wei, and Guolin Li. "The Evolution of the Concept of Stress and the Framework of the Stress System." Cell Stress (First published: April 26, 2021) DOI: 10.15698%2Fcst2021.06.250

Christopher Bergland is a retired ultra-endurance athlete turned science writer, public health advocate, and promoter of cerebellum ("little brain") optimization.

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