We've been told over and over again that stress is bad. When I searched for "stress management", Google came up with 748 billion results. And most of their recommendations for coping with stress focused on reducing the frequency or severity of stressors. But, stress is not the demon. In fact, stress can enhance our decision-making, focus, memory, and performance.
Key Takeaway
Stress is not the demon. In fact, some stress is necessary for building resilience. One of the ways we can build resilience is by reappraising, or reframing, stressful situations. In this way, we can use stress to fuel our performance.
The key is to optimize our stress response by looking at stress as fuel or an opportunity rather than a problem to be solved. This is how you build resilience: the ability to thrive in the face of adversity. And you learn resilience by experiencing some stress.
People who have never experienced stress find it difficult to cope with current stressful situations and build resilience. The research shows that, when something stressful happens, they are more likely to suffer from psychological distress and/or physical impairments, and have an overall lower life satisfaction.
But experiencing some lifetime adversity inoculates people from catastrophizing stressful events: It strengthens our ability to cope in the face of difficulties
How can we develop resilience?
One way is to reappraise, or reframe the stressful situation. For example, we can choose to see a stressful event as a challenge rather than as a threat. In a study from Harvard University, when participants were asked to give a speech in front of evaluators, those who were told "that the body's responses to stress have evolved to help us successfully address stressors and that increased arousal actually aids performance in stressful situations," showed relaxed, rather than the constricted blood vessels of those who had been told to ignore their stress. In fact, the blood vessels of the reappraisal group appeared similar to what is seen when people feel joy or courage!
In a second task that asked participants to name the colour that words were written in, the group that reappraised their stress as resourceful were less focused on the emotionally negative words compared to those who ignored their stress. What's destructive about focusing on the negative is that it can elicit and maintain feelings of anxiety.
Other studies have found that reappraising stress as helpful improved exam performance and short-term health outcomes.
The purpose of reappraising or reframing stress is not to dampen our stress arousal. Rather its purpose is to experience stress as a skill that we can use to optimize performance.
How do you help your clients deal with their stress?