The idea of having stress a friend might be an awkward one, but there is such a thing as "good stress." We start the blog by explaining what stress is and quickly go into the 3 daily practices.
Stress is defined as a relationship in scientific research: a person's surrounding demands are greater than their coping resources.1 To consider that the demands exceed the resources, a person needs to make a personal evaluation first. When the evaluation is made, the person considers if the stressor causes threats or challenges.
- Threats involve expected harm or losses. In this case, stress can be distinguished as "bad stress."
- Challenges, however, give way to opportunity and growth. This is when stress is viewed as "good stress." 2
With this short introduction in mind, it leads us into three practical ways to manage stress:
1. Perception change
The evaluation explained above can lead to two almost opposite outcomes. The stressor stays the same, only the interpretation is different. Depending on the individual and their perception, the response to stress can be totally different.
Changing perception regarding our stress response can have great effect on overall health. A racing heart is a familiar physiological sign during stressful times. Instead of viewing it as a sign of stress, we can think of it as the body preparing energy to be ready for the challenge at hand.
Studies in psychology have shown that changing the way we perceive stress can reduce its negative impact on our health. When researchers coached individuals in a similar way to believe that stress was helpful for their performance, they noticed that participants heart rate could stayed relaxed!3
If you start practicing seeing your physical stress response and emotions as helpful for you to face your stressors, you may be on your way to a more promising way of life.
2. Understanding your stressors
“Stress” is a word that is easily thrown around and confused when we might want to speak of something else, such as stressors. Stressors are the sources that induce a stress response in us. And when it comes to stressors, there are mainly two types: external and internal.
- External stressors are usually aspects that you have limited control on, such as pollution, life changes, pressure from work, family obligations, etc.
- Internal stressors are aspects that comes from within us. In our modern world, most of our "bad stress" stem from internal stressors. Examples of these are: worries about things that we cannot control, self-criticism, memories, etc.
This is a critical distinction to make. When we are stressed, we are not necessarily focused on thinking about what is the source of it. Even when we are, it is a next productive step to know if it is an external (uncontrollable) or internal (controllable) stressor to finally figure out stress management strategies to target it.
Practice taking some time to not only assess your stressors, but also into what category they fall into. Put aside external stressors while working on stress management strategies for internal stressors.
By identifying your internal stressors, you can work on techniques such as cognitive restructuring or relaxation. For external stressors, adopting acceptance or organization strategies may be more effective.
3. Mindfulness
All the above practices can be enhanced by mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practice of orienting your attention to the present moment with curiosity, acceptance and without judgement.4
When you chose mindfulness, the practice itself disrupts processes that lead to common emotional disorders, such as rumination, avoidance and bias.5,6
Mindfulness has been a popular topic of research for the past decade. A well-established training program called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) has been well studied to reduce stress, depression, and anxiety.7
How to integrate mindfulness easily
Start by taking 2 minutes in your day to practice mindfulness. No time? No excuse. Mindfulness can be done in almost any situation, which makes it so practical to implement. Those two minutes can be while you eat, while you drive, while you shower, or even while you walk. Puzzled? For example, practicing mindfulness during your lunch can look like:
- noticing the texture and shape of the pasta you are eating,
- feeling the temperature of the metal utensil touching your lips,
- realizing you took 15 minutes to finish your meal (without judgement!), etc.
If ever judgement does arise, practice mindfulness onto it. Accept with curiosity the fact that judgement happened, let it go and continue focusing on the presence moment. For people who have tried it and found it difficult, do not give up. It is like exercising any muscle; the more you do it the easier it gets.
Stress will always be present in our life, but how we handle it makes all the difference.
- Changing our perception on stress transforms it from a threat to an opportunity.
- Differentiating between an internal or external stressors allows us to focus on the things we can change, decreasing ruminating tendencies.
- Practicing mindfulness helps us stay present, further improving our relationship with our stressors.
It's time that stress stops getting a bad rep. Let's use this knowledge and fuel a more balanced, productive, fulfilling life.
To complement these strategies, certain natural health products, such as those formulated by Adrien Gagnon, can support the body in managing stress. Solutions based on L-theanine, saffron or ashwagandha are recognized for their role in relaxation and stress resilience. Take a few minutes to answer our quiz to find out more.
References
- Lazarus, Richard S. "Psychological stress and the coping process." Mc Grew-Hill (1966).
- Pluut, Helen, Petru L. Curșeu, and Oana C. Fodor. "Development and validation of a short measure of emotional, physical, and behavioral markers of eustress and distress (MEDS)." Healthcare. Vol. 10. No. 2. MDPI, 2022.
- Crum, Alia J., Peter Salovey, and Shawn Achor. "Rethinking stress: the role of mindsets in determining the stress response." Journal of personality and social psychology 104.4 (2013): 716.
- Linardon, Jake, et al. "The efficacy of mindfulness apps on symptoms of depression and anxiety: An updated meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials." Clinical psychology review 107 (2024): 102370.
- Beck, Aaron T., and Keith Bredemeier. "A unified model of depression: Integrating clinical, cognitive, biological, and evolutionary perspectives." Clinical Psychological Science 4.4 (2016): 596-619.
- Craske, Michelle G. Anxiety disorders: psychological approaches to theory and treatment. Westview Press, 1999.
- Khoury, Bassam, et al. "Mindfulness-based stress reduction for healthy individuals: A meta-analysis." Journal of psychosomatic research 78.6 (2015): 519-528.
