Stress is good for you — no, really
Thinking of stress as positive can help reduce its harmful effect
American health psychologist Kelly McGonigal used to believe stress was toxic and led to an early grave. Not any more. In her new book The Upside of Stress, the Stanford University lecturer examines a growing body of science that explains how embracing stress is good for you.
You used to warn people stress increased the risk for heart disease, depression and made people sick. Why should we now embrace stress?
One study in 2011 was literally a wake-up call. Researchers estimated 20,000 Americans a year were dying, not from stress but from this toxic combination of having a very stressful life and viewing stress as harmful for their health. That study triggered a lot of confusion for me because I had only seen studies that said stress increased your risk of death.
Other research came out around the same time showing that when people think of stress in a more positive way, it actually changes their experience of stress and seems to reduce the harmful effects.
You spent a lot of time telling people stress was harmful, in the hopes that it would motivate them to reduce or eliminate stress. What are your thoughts now, looking back on those talks?
It was really demoralizing. And it didn’t matter how many stressreduction tips I was throwing at people, like meditation and exercise, the main thing they heard was “Your life is killing you.” And I believe that that overall message is much more harmful than any benefit that was being done by trying to get people to reduce their stress.
For years, science has been telling us stress is toxic to our bodies. So which is it: Does it harm or help us?
Both. That’s the tricky thing about the science: stress seems to be a true paradox. Stress can be very good for us in the short term — anxiety can give us focus, energy and help us perform better — but in the long term it can leave us feeling exhausted and can be unsustainable.
And the exact opposite can be true. Traumatic experiences, like divorce or the death of a loved one, are awful when you’re going through them, but can give rise to post-traumatic growth like greater strength, better relationships and greater appreciation of life.
So it’s not the stress that’s harmful, but people’s belief that it’s harmful that’s actually dangerous?
So much of our messaging around stress is telling people to avoid stress — as if that were possible — despite the f act that I’ve seen no good evidence that anyone can choose the amount of stress in their lives. In fact, the more people try to avoid stress, they end up with more stress.
What do you mean when you refer to the upside of stress?
When I talk about the upside of stress, I’m not talking about choosing to view suffering as good. Like, if you’re unemployed, there’s a silver lining. Or if your child has been diagnosed with an illness, it’ll all be good. The upside of stress is about the role stress plays in catalyzing our human strength and trusting those capacities.
Stress is a trigger for our ability to act, connect and it triggers our meaning-making instinct.
Stress can be very good for us in the short term — anxiety can give us focus, energy and help us perform better