The stress response is a complex, coordinated system of physiological, cognitive, and behavioural reactions that occur when an individual perceives an event or situation as demanding, overwhelming, or threatening to their well-being. The body's response to stress can be categorized into different parts, including chemical, biological, and mental responses.
We experience stress as -
Chemical response: This includes the release of hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which prepare the body for immediate action and is expressed through energy or lack of.
Biological response: This involves the body's ability to adapt to stressors, which can include illnesses, injuries, hunger, coldness, and other physical sensations.
Mental response: This encompasses the cognitive and emotional reactions to stress, which can include worrying thoughts, feelings of anxiety, depression, and other particular cognitive thought patterns.
Stress is essential to human survival, it is part of the human experience, and I want to explore the different types of stress, because not all stress is equal, and consider building a different relationship with stress that may be more effective.
I want to start by challenging our view of stress as either good or bad and consider it as neutral information.
After all, we might feel stressed when we're preparing for something we're really looking forward to. We might feel stressed when we're learning something new, taking on a challenge, or doing something that matters to us.
We might also feel stressed when we're having a difficult conversation, dealing with someone else's behaviour, trying to meet everyone's expectations, or worrying about something we have very little control over.
And then there's the stress that comes from having too much to do, too many things to think about, and not enough time or energy to deal with all of it.
These experiences aren't the same, even though we use the same word to describe them.
Some stress seems to help us get things done. Some seems to get in the way. Some is associated with things we genuinely want in our lives, while some comes from circumstances we'd much rather not be dealing with.
So, if we experience stress in all these different situations, it seems reasonable to ask:
Is the stress itself the problem?
Does it matter what causes it?
Does it matter how long it lasts?
Or is the real question what is the stress doing to us, and whether what we're getting out of the situation is worth what it's costing us?
Those are the questions I want to dive into today.
Is stress the problem? And at what point does it become the problem?
To answer those questions, we need to consider and identify -
The 3 types of stress: Eustress, Acute and Chronic
· Which one are we experiencing
· Is the stress we are experiencing helpful or is it hindering us.
· how long it lasts and whether we get any recovery or energy from it.
· where it comes from and how much influence we have over it.
This information matters because it helps us understand not just what we're experiencing, but what might help.
Eustress which means (Helpful) — is stress that helps us meet a challenge
This is stress experienced as beneficial, motivating, or manageable.
It's the stress we might experience before an important event, when learning a new skill, or when taking on a challenge that matters to us.
Think about the nerves before a presentation, the pressure of competing in a sporting event, or the uncertainty that comes with starting something new.
We might feel apprehensive. We might question whether we're capable. We might find ourselves thinking about all the things that could go wrong.
And yet, we might also feel excited, motivated, and willing to have a go.
The stress isn't necessarily pleasant, and it can help us prepare, focus our attention, and perform.
This type of stress often has something we value on the other side of it.
· We might want to develop a skill, achieve a goal, strengthen a relationship, or discover what we're capable of.
· The challenge feels manageable enough to engage with.
· We might not know exactly how things will turn out, but we believe we have some capacity to deal with the situation.
· The stress has somewhere to go.
· We prepare, we act, we learn, we finish the event, or we reach a point where the immediate demand has passed.
· And importantly, we have some opportunity to recover.
Consider the difference between feeling stressed while preparing for an event and feeling stressed because you never seem to get a break from the demands of everyday life.
Both might involve pressure, but the circumstances surrounding that pressure are quite different.
A quick caveat, not all stress associated with pursuing a goal is good stress.
We can be pursuing something worthwhile while pushing ourselves far beyond what is sustainable.
We can also be so anxious about a goal that the stress stops helping us prepare and starts interfering with our ability to function.
So, rather than asking only whether the goal is worthwhile, we also need to ask whether the way we're pursuing it is working for us.
A worthwhile goal doesn't automatically make every cost associated with achieving it worthwhile.
That idea will become important later in the episode.
Acute stress — is stress in response to an immediate demand or challenge.
For example:
You have to make a difficult decision quickly
Something unexpected happens at work.
You have an argument with someone.
You narrowly avoid an accident.
You're running late and trying to get somewhere on time.
Your body and mind respond to what's happening in the moment. You might notice your heart beating faster, your muscles tensing, your attention narrowing, or your thoughts becoming more urgent, it is just usually short lived.
These responses can help mobilise us to deal with a challenge.
Once the situation passes, the stress response will often settle, and we can return to what we were doing.
Acute stress while helpful in a life-threatening situation is often less helpful in other circumstances.
The term acute tells us something about the timing of the stress. It doesn't tell us whether the stress is beneficial, whether the situation is safe, or whether the consequences will be manageable.
Chronic stress is stress that persists over an extended period. When the demands just don't let up
It might come from ongoing financial pressure, a difficult work environment, caring responsibilities, uncertainty about the future, or a relationship that repeatedly leaves us distressed.
Sometimes there is one identifiable source. Sometimes it's the accumulation of lots of smaller demands.
And sometimes we struggle to identify the source because there isn't one particularly dramatic event, we're just continually dealing with things that require our attention, energy, or emotional capacity and not allotting any recovery time.
This is where the experience of stress can become particularly difficult.
We might find ourselves feeling irritable, exhausted, distracted, overwhelmed, or less able to manage situations that we would ordinarily handle reasonably well.
Sleep, concentration, mood, and physical health can also be affected.
Of course, these experiences can have other causes, too, but persistent stress is one possible contributor.
Stress that continues without sufficient recovery can become harmful. However, not everything that lasts a long time is necessarily experienced as damaging.
For example, raising children, running a business, caring for someone, or working towards a significant goal all involve ongoing demands and a level of stress day after day.
The issue isn't simply that the demand continues, It's the relationship and contributions between the demands being placed on us, the resources, including time available to meet them, whether the load is shared and our opportunities to recover.
We might have a demanding period at work that we're able to manage because we have support, some control over our schedule, and a clear end point.
We might also have a relatively ordinary workload that becomes overwhelming because we're exhausted, dealing with other pressures, and have no opportunity to catch our breath.
The same demand can affect two people differently. And the same person can respond to it differently at different times in their life.
This bit is important “our capacity to deal with stress isn't fixed, it is fluid and the demands we're dealing with don't exist in isolation from everything else happening in our lives”
The context matters:
A situation that feels manageable when everything else is going reasonably well might feel impossible when we're already stretched.
And that doesn't necessarily mean we've become less capable. It might mean we're trying to manage more than we have the resources to manage right now.
Finding out what the stress is doing for us?
Three considerations to ponder when deciding if the stress your under is helpful, or not.
What causes the stress?
Where does it lead if we move through it?
What does it offer us in return for the cost of experiencing it?
What if any choice or influence we have over the situation,
Is the cost or trade-off sustainable.
Suppose two people are experiencing stress because they're preparing for a major change.
One person has chosen to move to another country. They're excited about the opportunity, but they're worried about leaving their family, finding somewhere to live, and starting again.
The other person is being forced to move because their current circumstances have become untenable.
Both might be experiencing uncertainty, anxiety, and pressure.
But the meaning of that stress is different.
For one person, the stress might be part of pursuing something they want.
For the other, it might be part of navigating something they never wanted to happen.
And yet, we shouldn't assume that the first person's stress is helpful simply because the change was chosen, or that the second person's stress is necessarily unhelpful because it wasn't.
The person moving voluntarily might be overwhelmed by the demands of the move. The person facing an unwanted change might find meaning, support, or opportunities within it.
The cause of stress gives us information about the situation, but it doesn't allow for an individual’s response to it, or what else is going on their lives that contributes.
The really useful question is within the context that the stress is related to Where does the stress lead to? because it encourages us to look beyond how we feel in the moment and any immediate temptation for relief
For example, I might feel anxious about having a difficult conversation.
· If I avoid the conversation, which allows me to avoid how I am feeling in that moment, and I may feel some immediate relief.
· If I have the conversation, I will have to feel whatever I am feeling and I might feel more stressed initially, and I may also resolve a problem, establish a boundary, or improve the relationship.
The two choices produce different experiences in the short term and potentially very different outcomes in the longer term; both are stress inducing.
Sometimes avoiding something is the right decision. There is no virtue in confronting every difficult situation, and some situations are best left alone.
Sometimes avoidance reduces our discomfort today while allowing the underlying problem to grow into a more intense discomfort.
And sometimes moving towards something uncomfortable creates a temporary increase in stress but leads to a better outcome.
The challenge is learning to distinguish between those situations and make a decision that best for you.
It is helpful to ask ourselves, what does the stress offer us in return?
This is where considering the cost or the trade-off becomes particularly valuable.
Asking ourselves:
What am I hoping to gain by doing this?
Is the stress part of the price of achieving something I genuinely value?
Is the cost temporary, or is it becoming a permanent feature of my life?
Is there another way to achieve what matters to me without paying quite so high a price?
Imagine someone starting their own business.
They might willingly accept uncertainty, longer working hours, financial pressure, and the discomfort of learning new skills because building that business matters to them.
They aren't necessarily enjoying the stress, but they believe what they're working towards is worth the effort.
However, if they continue working longer and longer hours, sacrifice their health, and become unable to enjoy the life they're trying to build, the original trade-off may no longer make sense.
The goal hasn't necessarily changed.
But the cost of pursuing it has.
And that's an important distinction.
Something can be worth working towards without every sacrifice we make along the way being worth it.
Deciding if the cost or trade off is worth the stress.
Here’s the stress test, it is five questions:
Question 1: What is this stress asking of me?
Is it asking me to concentrate, prepare, learn, make a decision, or step outside my comfort zone?
Or am I constantly trying to anticipate problems, manage other people's reactions, meet competing expectations, or prevent something from going wrong?
There's a difference between stress that accompanies a particular challenge and stress that comes from continually trying to manage circumstances that feel unpredictable or unmanageable, and outside of your control.
Question 2: What am I getting in return?
Am I developing a skill, achieving something important, maintaining a relationship I value, or protecting something that matters to me?
Or am I expending enormous amounts of energy without making any meaningful progress?
Sometimes the return is obvious.
Sometimes it isn't.
For example, staying in a difficult job might provide financial security while you work towards a different career.
You might not enjoy the job, but you have a clear reason for staying and a plan for changing your circumstances.
That's quite different from remaining in a job that is damaging your wellbeing because you've never stopped to consider whether you have other options.
The point isn't to judge the decision.
It's to understand what the decision is achieving for you.
Question 3: What is this stress costing me?
We can become so focused on what we're trying to achieve, or what we need to manage, that we stop paying attention to what it's costing us.
Perhaps we're sleeping poorly.
Perhaps we're becoming increasingly irritable with the people we care about.
Perhaps we're so preoccupied with a problem that we're no longer present for the rest of our lives.
Or perhaps we're constantly telling ourselves we'll feel better once we get through the next thing, only to find another thing waiting for us.
The cost isn't always immediately obvious.
And we can become accustomed to living with stress, particularly when it has been part of our lives for a long time.
We might even start treating our stressed state as normal simply because we can't remember what it feels like not to be in it.
Question 4: Is the cost temporary, or is it becoming the price of admission?
There are times when we willingly accept a period of discomfort because we know it will help us achieve something important.
But what happens when that period keeps extending?
When does a temporary sacrifice become a permanent way of living?
When does the stress associated with building a business become a life in which we're always working?
When does the effort required to maintain a relationship become an expectation that we'll continually put our own needs aside?
When does being responsible for other people become feeling responsible for everyone's happiness?
We might initially accept a cost because we believe it will be worth it.
But that doesn't mean we have to accept it indefinitely.
We can value the outcome and still decide that the way we're pursuing it needs to change.
Question 5: What choices do I have, even if I can't change the situation itself?
This is where I'd bring the discussion back to personal agency.
Sometimes we have considerable influence over the source of our stress.
Sometimes we have very little.
But there's often value in distinguishing between what we can change, what we can influence, and what we may need to find a way to live with.
That doesn't mean pretending we always have choices that are realistically available to us.
It means looking carefully enough to identify where our influence begins and ends. The Responsibility Pie tool you hear me talk about is particularly helpful for this step.
What if the source of the stress is something we don't want to give up?
It's relatively easy to tell someone to remove a source of stress or to stop stressing when the solution doesn't require them to give up anything important.
But what if the situation is more complicated?
What if the stress comes from a relationship with someone we love?
What if it comes from caring for a family member?
What if we're responsible for children, have financial commitments, or are dealing with circumstances that are largely outside our control?
What if leaving the situation would create a different kind of suffering, potentially greater than the stress we're experiencing now?
These are the situations in which telling someone to eliminate their stress can be unhelpful.
Because reducing one kind of stress can create another kind of cost, and the decision isn't always as simple as choosing the option that feels best.
Let's use a relationship as an example.
Imagine someone has a relationship with a family member they love, but interactions with that person frequently leave them feeling anxious, frustrated, or emotionally exhausted.
They might have tried explaining how they feel. They might have tried to change their own responses. They might have hoped that, with enough patience and understanding, things would improve.
But the same difficulties keep arising.
They don't want to end the relationship.
The person matters to them, and losing the relationship would come at a considerable emotional cost.
So what do they do?
I think there are several different questions worth exploring here.
First, what part of the situation is actually creating the stress?
Is it the other person's behaviour?
Is it the unpredictability of their responses?
Is it the feeling that you have to keep the peace?
Is it the expectation that you should be able to make them understand?
Is it the fear of what will happen if you disagree, say no, or disappoint them?
Or is it a combination of these things?
We need to understand what we're responding to before we can identify what might help.
And we need to be careful not to assume that all the stress is being created by our own thoughts or reactions or the opposite and put all the blame on the other person.
As a caveat sometimes another person's behaviour really is unreasonable, hurtful, intimidating, or harmful. And understanding our own experience doesn't mean taking responsibility for somebody else's behaviour or staying in an unsafe environment.
Second, what are you trying to preserve?
This is an important question because it helps us understand why we're continuing to engage with the situation.
Perhaps you want to preserve the relationship.
Perhaps you value family connection.
Perhaps you want your children to have a relationship with that person.
Perhaps you're hoping things will improve.
Or perhaps you're trying to avoid the guilt, grief, or conflict that you anticipate would follow if you changed the relationship.
These are different reasons for staying engaged, and they have different implications for what you might do next.
For example, wanting to preserve a relationship is not the same as wanting to preserve the way the relationship currently operates.
You might value the person while recognising that certain interactions aren't working for you.
That distinction can open up possibilities that weren't obvious when the only options seemed to be tolerating the situation or walking away.
Third, what can you change without having to give up what matters to you?
Perhaps you can't control what the other person says, but you can change how long you remain in a conversation that is becoming unproductive.
Perhaps you can't prevent them from becoming upset, but you can reconsider whether it's your responsibility to resolve their feelings.
Perhaps you can't make them understand your perspective, but you can stop repeatedly trying to explain it in the hope that the next conversation will finally be different.
Perhaps you can't change the relationship as a whole, but you can change the amount of time, energy, or emotional investment you're putting into particular interactions.
None of these changes guarantees that the relationship will become easier.
But they may change the amount of stress you're exposed to and the extent to which you're trying to control something that isn't yours to control.
And sometimes that's enough
Fourth, what if the trade-off is still worth making?
This is worth considering because I don't think every difficult relationship needs to end, and I don't think every stressful situation can or should be avoided.
Sometimes we make a considered decision to remain in a situation because something we value outweighs the cost.
But there's a difference between making that decision consciously and feeling as though we have no alternative.
If we decide that maintaining a relationship is important enough, we might be willing to accept some discomfort, we can make that decision while remaining aware of what it costs us.
We can also revisit the decision if the cost changes or change my mind and decide the cost as it stands is to high.
We don't have to pretend the situation is easy, convince ourselves that we shouldn't feel stressed, or expect the other person to change before we can do anything differently.
And we don't have to conclude that because we've chosen to stay, we must accept every aspect of the situation, or that we can’t then change our mind.
We can accept that something matters enough to us to tolerate some discomfort or something we don’t like without accepting that we must tolerate an unlimited amount of it.
What if we can't change the source of the stress?
some of the most difficult stress comes from circumstances we have little power to change.
Illness, bereavement, financial hardship, uncertainty, and caring responsibilities are just a few examples.
In these situations, we can spend an enormous amount of energy trying to make something different from what it currently is and as a result there are practical changes we can make.
But sometimes we're fighting the unchangeable, accepting the helplessness to change anything and dealing with the situation itself.
For example, imagine you're caring for someone you love who has substantial needs.
You're tired. You're worried. You have less time for yourself, and there are demands that cannot simply be removed, it is difficult to meet your own needs due to the high priority of another person’s needs.
You might also be frustrated with yourself for feeling resentful, guilty for wanting a break, or disappointed that your life doesn't look the way you imagined it would.
Now you're dealing with the demands of caring, as well as the additional emotional strain of judging yourself for finding it difficult.
That doesn't mean your feelings are the problem, or that changing your perspective will make the circumstances easy.
But it does raise a useful question:
Is there anything I'm doing in response to this situation that is adding to the stress without actually helping me deal with it?
Perhaps you're expecting yourself to manage everything without help.
Perhaps you believe that wanting time for yourself means you're letting someone down.
Perhaps you're spending energy worrying about things you cannot currently resolve, while overlooking practical things that might make the present situation more manageable.
Perhaps you're trying to be positive about something that is genuinely difficult, rather than acknowledging how difficult it is and working out what you need.
These are areas where we may have some influence, even if we can't change the underlying circumstances.
The answer isn't always to change how we think about the situation
Sometimes we need more practical support, more resources, clearer boundaries, or a change in circumstances.
Sometimes we need to acknowledge that something is genuinely hard and stop expecting ourselves to make it feel easy.
Sometimes we need to grieve what we cannot change.
And sometimes the most useful thing we can do is find a way to recover our energy while continuing to deal with the demands that remain.
Sometimes the more realistic and useful goal is to reduce the stress, change our relationship with it, or stop contributing to it in ways that aren't helping.
The following steps can be helpful in supporting those outcomes -
Step 1: Identify what is happening
Instead of stopping at "I'm stressed", get a little more specific.
For example:
I'm stressed because I have too much to do and not enough time.
I'm stressed because I'm worried about how someone will react.
I'm stressed because I don't know what is going to happen.
I'm stressed because I'm trying to make a decision without knowing whether it will work out.
I'm stressed because I feel responsible for something I can't fully control.
These are different experiences, and they may require different responses.
The more specifically we can identify what is happening, the easier it becomes to consider what might help.
Step 2: Separate the situation from your response to it
This isn't about suggesting that the stress is all in your head.
It's about distinguishing between the circumstances we're dealing with and the things we're doing mentally, emotionally, or behaviourally in response.
For example, a difficult conversation might be unavoidable.
But repeatedly rehearsing every possible outcome, imagining every possible reaction, and trying to find the perfect thing to say might be adding to the stress without necessarily improving the conversation.
Equally, if someone repeatedly behaves in a hurtful way, the situation itself may be a significant source of stress, and changing your response alone may not be enough.
It is helpful o understand both parts.
Step 3: Work out what is within your influence
I would encourage you to consider three categories:
What I can change: My actions, decisions, preparation, boundaries, or the way I organise my time.
What I can influence but not control: How a conversation unfolds, whether someone understands me, or how a team responds to a proposal.
What I cannot currently change or what is outside of my control: Another person's decisions, something that has already happened, or an outcome that remains uncertain.
This distinction can help us direct our effort towards things that have a realistic chance of making a difference.
It can also help us recognise when we're spending enormous amounts of energy trying to control something we cannot control.
Step 4: Consider the cost of continuing as you are
This is where I'd consider the trade-off.
If nothing changes, what is likely to happen?
What is the stress costing you now?
What might it cost you if the situation continues for another six months or two years?
And what would it cost to change something?
Sometimes these questions reveal that a situation is worth continuing to navigate, but that we need a different way of doing it.
Sometimes they reveal that we need more support.
Sometimes they reveal that the cost of things staying as they are has become too high.
And sometimes they help us recognise that the discomfort of making a change is something we're willing to accept because the alternative is no longer working.
Step 5: Make one practical change and see what happens
We don't always need to solve the entire problem before we can do something useful, look for any piece or part that you may be able to practically change.
Perhaps we can stop taking on additional responsibility or give one piece of existing responsibility away.
Perhaps we can have a conversation we've been avoiding or at least make a time to discuss it.
Perhaps we can ask for help of some kind.
Perhaps we can stop trying to resolve a problem tonight when nothing useful can be done until tomorrow.
Perhaps we can give ourselves permission to be disappointed about something without immediately trying to make the feeling go away.
Or perhaps we need to recognise that a situation is outside our control and focus on what would help us get through it with a little less unnecessary struggle.
The aim is to find out whether there is something we can do that makes the situation more manageable or helps us move towards an outcome we value.
And then upon implementing any action we need to pay attention to whether that change is actually helping.
One further distinction
Sometimes we focus so much on whether a situation is causing us stress that we overlook the other things happening within that situation.
For example:
a relationship might cause us stress, but it might also offer companionship, love, belonging, and shared experiences.
A job might be demanding, but it might offer financial security, purpose, and opportunities for development.
A difficult responsibility might be exhausting, but it might also be connected to something deeply important to us.
If we look only at the stress, we might conclude that we need to get rid of the situation.
If we look only at the benefits, we might conclude that we should simply put up with the stress.
Neither approach gives us the full picture.
We need to consider what the situation offers us, what it costs us, and whether there is a way to preserve what matters while changing the aspects that aren't working.
Sometimes that will be possible.
Sometimes it won't.
Sometimes the cost will be worth accepting for a period of time.
And sometimes we will have to make difficult decisions because the things we want to preserve are in conflict with one another.
For example, we might want to maintain a relationship and protect our own wellbeing and find that doing both requires a change that the other person isn't willing to make.
That doesn't necessarily mean we've failed to manage our stress.
It might mean we're facing a genuine conflict between two things that matter to us.
And that is a different problem from simply needing to relax more or think differently.
Understanding stress doesn't guarantee that we'll find an easy solution. But it can help us make more informed decisions about what we're willing to accept, what we want to change, and where we want to direct our effort.
A final comment
Feeling stressed doesn't automatically mean that something needs to change, it is just a
· signal that our demands are exceeding our available resources.
· a signal that we're facing a meaningful challenge and need to prepare.
· a signal that something isn't working for us.
· A signal that we need to take a look at something and gather information, check in on what is happening.
And sometimes as a result on the information gathering we decide a situation needs to change, even if changing it will be difficult.
If you are feeling stressed right now here are a few questions to ask yourself -
What is creating the stress I'm experiencing at the moment?
What, if anything, is this stress helping me achieve?
What is it costing me?
Is that cost temporary, manageable, and worth accepting, or is it becoming unsustainable?
If I don't want to give up what matters to me, what could I change about the way I'm dealing with the situation?
There will always be things that challenge us, things that matter enough to make us uncomfortable, and circumstances we would never have chosen, that is the cycle of life, and the natural growth and order of things.
But we don't have to assume that all stress is the same, or that the only options are to tolerate it or get rid of it.
The more we understand what we're experiencing, the more opportunity and agency we have to decide our next move.
And I think that's a much more useful place to start than simply asking ourselves how we can become less stressed.
If nothing else I would love for you to take away these three ideas-
1. The source of stress doesn't determine whether it's helpful.
Stress associated with something we value can still become damaging. Stress associated with something we didn't choose can sometimes help us respond, adapt, and find a way forward.
We need to look at the context and the cause.
2. The reward doesn't automatically justify the cost.
We can be pursuing something important and still need to reconsider how we're going about it.
We can value a relationship without accepting every aspect of how it operates. We can value our work without sacrificing our entire life to it. We can accept that some discomfort is unavoidable without deciding that any amount of discomfort is acceptable. Acknowledge there is always a trade-off, what is it giving you and costing you.
3. Sometimes the most helpful response is not to remove the stress, but to change the trade-off.
We might not be able to eliminate a source of stress, and we might not want to give up what it offers us.
And we can still ask whether there's a different way to engage with the situation, a different cost we're willing to accept, or a different way of protecting what matters to us.
And sometimes we discover that what we thought was an unavoidable cost is actually a cost we've become accustomed to paying, and haven’t questioned it, or consider other options.
A final distinction
Our stress response is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, it is getting our attention our job is to discover what it wants us to look at.
Stress can be useful in one respect and harmful in another. A demanding period can be manageable for a while and become unsustainable if it continues. A situation can offer genuine rewards while also imposing costs that need to be addressed.
And the same experience can affect us differently depending on our circumstances, capacity, resources, and available support.
understanding what stress is asking of us, recognising what we're getting and giving up in return, and deciding whether the way we're responding still makes sense for us.
