Learning to live with stress

Not all stress is bad stress. By learning to differentiate between eustress and distress, we can find a calmer way of being.

We’ve written before about the role and purpose of stress, noting that while stress can be a remarkably good friend, warning us with waves of cortisol and adrenalin when danger is near, it can also be responsible for fictional futures that cause unhelpful anxiety.

Good stress, bad stress?

Endocrinologist Hans Selye differentiated between eustress (literally, good-stress) and distress. When our basic needs and wants are satisfied, eustress motivates us to develop and improve. Connected to the idea of flow, we experience eustress when we are keenly interested and engaged in something. Rather than tiring us, eustress is energising and is associated with increased life satisfaction, immunity ability to heal.

We certainly know the difference between good stress and bad stress when we feel it. The excitement, euphoria even, we experience when we are fully immersed in a satisfying activity seems a world away from the lethargy and despondency we feel when we are ‘stressed’. Yet, physiologically speaking, eustress and distress are the same thing.

perceptions of stress

Hamlet, who knew more than a little of stress, famously tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Their palace, whether physical or of the mind, is Hamlet’s prison.

The same goes for stress. The very thing that motivates one person, leading them into a blissful state of flow, might be our idea of torment. One person’s pottery class is another’s maths test.

So when eustress threatens to become destress, what can we do?

• Stretch our comfort zone gently and slowly by experiencing new things

• Practise persistence in things that matter to you to increase motivation

• Practise imperfection. When we feel the gap between what we’d like to achieve and what we can achieve is too great, we feel despondent and over time, depression and despair

welcoming stress into your life

Creating a different dialogue with stress means noticing stress’s arrival and considering whether its presence is appropriate and beneficial or not. This emotional awareness requires practice. Yoga, meditation and outdoor exercise are all beneficial because they remove us from fixed, reactive mindsets and train our emotional muscles to flex and respond.

This April at Lifetime, we’ll be getting to know our Stress better. Our Getting Back in the Room workshop for counselling professionals invites newly qualified and experienced practitioners to share their experiences and ideas so they can return to in-person counselling with renewed confidence, inspiration and enthusiasm.

Of course, counsellors are not the only people returning to work this month. After extended periods in partial or total isolation, Getting Back in the Room is going to be difficult for many of us. Please do take advantage of our free private Facebook group, Lifetime Therapy Gratitude Practice, a relaxed place where people of all walks of life notice and name the things they are grateful for. Wouldn’t it be nice to notice Stress, and to thank it once in a while?

Malachy Dunne

Find out more about wellness.