Managing Stress - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
date: 2023-11-10
author: Ivana Mrgan

Well, there are no real villains in this story, but it can surely get uncomfortable, if not ugly. I have a complex love-and-hate relationship with stress at work, and probably most of my colleagues do too. Often trained to demonize it, we have lately been prompted to change our mindset to support our clients in harnessing it. Quite a twist, really.
It seems that how we acknowledge and approach it can change the bodily response and help us to tune in to challenge instead of threat response. You then feel energized, focused and steady.
It can even allow you to recover and learn from stress more efficiently. If this sounds interesting, check the stress mindset interventions below:
1: Perceive stress as energy you can harness
Viewing your body's stress response as helpful rather than draining is a mindset shift that can enhance your ability to adapt and give you energy to tackle challenges. For example, recognizing that the uneasy feeling you experience during an exam indicates that it is important to you.
2: Let stress help you increase your resilience
Stress is most likely to be harmful when it feels uncontrollable and meaningless. Embracing aspects of stressful experiences if they validate your value(s) or focusing on aspects of the situation that are in your control can support resilience, e.g., noticing that although exams are stressful, they bring you closer to independence.
3: When under stress, it's OK to reach out to others
Feeling socially connected to others can be a significant protective factor. The tend-and-befriend response is equally valid as a fight-or-flight or challenge response, e.g., organizing a study group to mitigate the negative effects of the exam period and support each other.
This is not to say that chronic or traumatic stress can't affect you negatively. It's more about harnessing the energy that comes with short bursts of stress in our everyday lives.
You can read about different practices that can help you develop a more helpful stress mindset in The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal.