Stress benefits
Can stress be a good thing? What’s the best stress management? Stressed out has negative connotations in every language.
Being stressed, however, is arguably the most universally acceptable response to modern day living and some may even say stress benefits them.
Can stress ever be a good thing?
Stress can help you:
- Perform better
- Grow stronger
- Feel more motivated….
…Under the right conditions & as long as you’re careful to differentiate between the good and the bad.
GOOD STRESS VS BAD STRESS
Let’s look at the Research
In studies on rats, they found that significant, but brief stressful events caused stem cells in their brains to proliferate into new nerve cells that, when mature two weeks later, improved the rats’ mental performance. Berkeley researchers noted: “You always think about stress as a really bad thing, but it’s not,” said Daniela Kaufer, associate professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley. “Some amounts of stress are good to push you just to the level of optimal alertness, behavioural and cognitive performance.”
Key points about Good Stress:
- Good stress, “eustress,” from the Latin prefix “eu-” meaning “good” or “beneficial.”
- It is proven that these short periods of stress may help improve brain function and learning as they trigger the “fight or flight” response ingrained in all humans that allows us to learn, grow and achieve more quickly
- This type of stress isn’t associated with the type of damage that long-term periods of negative stress can do
- “Good” stress tends to occur in short-term bursts of motivation that challenge one to achieve more expansive goals
- Unable to control the outcome of negative situations? This is when good stress can help one accomplish their goals, whether facing a tight deadline at work, getting ready for a test or preparing for a speech.
- Even if one’s stressors are things to be excited about, they may still experience temporary periods of acute stress that help propel them forward and enable them to overcome obstacles.
BAD STRESS HAS A NEGATIVE IMPACT ON YOUR HEALTH
How Do You Know When Stress is “Good” or “Bad”?
- Bad Stress is a chronic state
- Short-term stressors provoke the mind and body to positive action whilst Chronic Stress or Bad Stress is so damaging is that, when you trigger the “fight or flight” mode mentioned above – your body undergoes a host of physiological changes
- Physiological changes occur to your:
- Immune system
- Reproductive system
- Excretory and digestive systems – all of which are **designed to help you respond to short-term stress
As a Naturopath Susannah sees the active consequences of stress a lot in practice because Naturopathic medicine is a distinct health care profession. We emphasise prevention, management and optimal health through the use of therapeutic methods and naturally occurring substances that encourage our unique inherent self-healing process. The naturopathic ethos underpins osteopathy thus. The practice of naturopathic medicine includes modern and traditional, scientific and empirical methods.
At Susannah Makram Clinics we can carry out the Adrenal Stress Test to correctly identify between the “good” stress and the “bad” stress. Your Functional nutrition is as unique as your DNA. What does that mean exactly?
Lifestyle Nutrition
Whether stress benefits us depends HUGELY on our nutrition and our environment. We can’t always change the latter but we can certainly change the former.
The easier we make this transition for you the more likely you are to follow it and achieve your goals for healthy:
(i) weight loss (ii) skin and hair (iii) body that performs optimally
We can use functional testingz to identify trends in health. So we can optimise health and deliver care pathways. We offer our clients choices, involving you in every step of their health journey.
Find out if you have stress benefits. Or could you be suffering from a chronic stress related illness? Take our stress questionnaire here
