The fact that we can refer to stress as being a force for both good and bad is often confusing and this article gives a simple example of just how stress can work to our advantage and disadvantage.
Although most of us think of stress as being something unpleasant and for which we should seek relief, many psychologists often talk about stress as being beneficial, which seems to be more than a little confusing.
The truth is that stress can be both good and bad for us and, in many cases, it is simply a matter of how we look at ourselves in terms of both our mental and physical states. Still confused? Here is an example:
Imagine two individuals, one a young runner facing his first Olympic final and the other a college senior who is just about to take a final engineering examination. The runner has spent most of his life training for the Olympics but the college student has hardly studied at all.
In purely physiological terms both are about to experience similar effects – rapid breathing and heartbeat, raised metabolism, active sweat glands and so on. In psychologically terms there are also similarities – higher concentration on the present moment and thoughts about the next few minutes, vivid images and heightened sensitivity to feelings.
However, in psychological terms, there are also some key differences. The runner is exhilarated, prepared for the challenge and keen to demonstrate his ability and to win the race. By contrast, the college student has considerable doubts about his ability and is almost certainly feeling more than a little fear.
Both young men are under stress and are feeling stressful. But the differences are significant. The runner perceives his situation as presenting a challenge which he believes he is ready for and which he wants to take on. The college student, on the other hand, knows that he is not prepared for his examination and perceives his likely failure with a poor grade meaning that he will probably need to re-take his final year.
Although both young men are uncertain about the outcome, they each evaluate the chances of success quite differently. They will probably also perceive failure quite differently too.
The runner might, for example, up with a silver rather than a gold medal. This would almost certainly be a disappointing result but, in the Olympics, coming second can still result in some very lucrative endorsements and a good future. The college student will probably see his chances for getting into a good graduate school dropping and be thinking only in terms of having to retake the year before he can even graduate.
This is, of course, a very simplified example of the different ways in which stress can affect us, but the pattern seen here is typical. Whether you feel elated or stressed is often a question of how you perceive the situation around you and your own inner state.
From this we can see that, on the one hand, stress can simply refer to a condition of heightened awareness combined with a number of physiological symptoms. On the other hand, it can also refer to this same condition with the addition of an element of worry. It is this form of stress which we are normally referring to when we talk of being stressed or are looking for some form of stress relief.
