“We are not passive recipients of stress,” Jamieson explains. “We are active agents in actually making our own stress response.”
Jamieson says that the stress we experience during challenging situations can give us the fuel to meet the demands we face. For example, when your heart rate increases, it can help deliver more oxygen to your brain and muscles.
“Oxygen is very good at helping us process information quickly,” Jamieson explains. It can also help people introduce themselves.
Humans have long faced threats from predators, and our fight-or-flight response has evolved to help us survive these dangers. But the types of stressors we face today have changed. In modern times, some of our stress comes from challenges, which Jamieson says can be seen as “opportunities for growth.” The job interview, the presentation, the TV appearance.
“To really innovate and do hard things, your stress response is there to optimize your performance,” he says.
When it comes to stress, “context matters,” says the researcher Wendy Berry MendezProfessor of Psychology at Yale University. There are different types of stress responses and different types of stress.
She points to studies from Scandinavia going back decades that found that stress hormones are linked to better performance when taking tests from students.
“A bigger increase in catecholamines(including) epinephrine, norepinephrine, the morning of the test was associated with better performance on that test,” she says.
But here’s the challenge: Not everyone reacts to stressors the same way. Test anxiety is real for some people and can affect their performance. Part of the equation is how well they know the material or how well they are prepared to take the test. Another part is how they perceive stress.
Jamieson points to evidence that people can be taught “reassess” the stress. He and his collaborators studied college students who were preparing for a math test. When students were informed about the “functional benefits” of stress before the test, they did better.
“By making people aware of the benefits of stress responses in these settings, they latched onto the idea, I can lean into my stress,” Jamieson says, and use it to help do important things.
Students who were taught to “reappraise their stress as a resource” not only performed better, but had less anxiety on the text.
When good stress turns bad
So when stress arises from a challenge or opportunity, it can be helpful in the moment. But when your stress response stays activated during times when you don’t need it, it becomes problematic.
Let’s say you have a big presentation that’s three days away. You’re done preparing, but the stress of anticipation sets in. Just imagining giving the presentation makes you nervous. You can feel your stress response intensify.
Your breath is shallow or you feel nervous or irritable. If you use a wearable device such as an Oura ring or Apple Watch, it may show a low level of heart rate variability, which is indicative of more time in stress mode.
“Your body accelerates before you need it to,” Mendes says. And this can exhaust your physiological system. “Imagine you’re sprinting across the savanna trying to outrun a lion,” says Mendez, but the lion doesn’t show up for three days! This is not sustainable.
It’s also useless to worry about a performance once it’s over. “Your body doesn’t need to be overwhelmed anymore,” Mendes says, but worrying keeps the stress response activated.
This can lead to fatigue, low mood and burnout. Chronic stress can make you feel like you’re constantly under attack. It is related to everything from increased risk in heart disease to depression, headaches and sleep problems.
All of this suggests that stress management strategies are key. We can’t avoid the difficult situations that life throws at us, but we can learn skills that increase our ability to manage and even recover and thrive.
Stress Less is edited by Carmel Roth and Jane Greenhalgh
