What is Good Stress & Bad Stress?

Stress is a natural response of the body toward certain situations and conditions. For the most part, people tend to focus on the negative side of stress and the implications of being over stressed. What many people fail to realize is that there is such a thing as good stress and it can have a positive impact on your life. While too much stress might be harmful to your health and your ability to go about your daily life, a normal stress level can motivate you to achieve on a higher level and help you to react to critical situations with a prompt response.

Bad Stress

Bad stress is basically an overload of stress or feeling stressed in situations that should not be stressful. These conditions can have a negative impact on your life and health. Long periods of stress can lead to health problems that are both physical and mental. It can weaken your immune system, increase blood pressure and cause fatigue. Mental health side effects of having too much stress can include depression and anxiety. A person who is over stressed may experience symptoms such as a change in appetite, headaches, lack of sleep and irritability.

Good Stress

Even though too much stress is a bad thing, it is important for people to understand that certain levels of stress can be beneficial. Stress is, in a way, the human body’s response to help you manage the pressures of life. Stress can help the individual to focus in pressure situations, it can provide a burst of energy to help improve your performance and it can help to improve memory and task based functionality.

Additionally, stress is also like a warning system for dangerous situations. In an evolutionary sense, this reaction developed to help humans deal with fight or flight scenarios. In a dangerous situation stress is not only healthy, but it also helps to heighten the senses of the individual and in turn respond to the danger.

Along with having situational advantages, a limited amount of stress is considered to be good for you. Some research indicates that normal levels of stress can actually be beneficial to the immune system and play a role in good circulatory health.

We all know that too much stress is a bad thing, but in other ways, not having enough stress will also have a negative impact on your life. Stress can very easily go from motivating to debilitating and it is important for people to understand how to manage their stress levels. For some people managing stress might be more difficult than it is for others, but stress is a normal part of the human experience. Try to use good stress in situations where it will help you to excel and try to manage bad stress in situations where it is holding you back.