Not all stress is bad.  What??!!!, I hear you say – no way.  It’s common knowledge that stress has lots of negative impacts on both physical and mental health.  But wait…

Studies have found that the way we perceive stress determines the impact on our health.  Seeing stress as helpful can lead to physical and mental health.  Seeing stress as a problem can lead to major health issues.

​In order to negate the negative impacts stress can have – we simply need to practice changing the way we see it…

Stress can be our friend.  It is helpful when it rallies the body’s sympathetic nervous system.  The sympathetic nervous system is a wonderful mechanism – powering us to rise to the challenge before us.

Seeing stress as helpful can assist us to change what we can and cope with what we can’t.  Instead of feeling the symptoms of stress and worrying that we are stressed we can learn to view the stress response as our body’s system designed to rise to challenges.  When you choose to see your stress as a helpful response, you are essentially saying you trust yourself to handle life’s challenges.

I trust that you will rise too.

Photo by Stephen Leonardi on Unsplash