Stress Isn’t Always Bad: Eustress vs. Distress

Imagine this: You're at work, and a major deadline is coming. But there's been a mistake, and now you must quickly redo a part of your project. You can feel the pressure building up, making you more stressed and less patient.

In such tense moments, it's normal to feel negative emotions. We might react harshly to a coworker or just get quiet, trying to handle our stress.

So it's understandable that we usually see stress as something negative that we should avoid as much as possible. People often think stress is always bad.

But stress is simply how your body and mind react to difficult situations. Depending on what's causing the stress and how you react, stress can be harmful (called 'distress') or helpful (called 'eustress').

The prefix 'dis-' in 'distress' is the same as in words like 'disconnect' or 'dissatisfaction.' On the other hand, 'eustress' means 'good stress.' The term the doctor Hans Selye made in 1975 describes a positive stress response.

Distress can be terrible for your productivity, creativity, and mental health. But eustress can improve your performance and make you feel better, especially at work. When you're feeling eustress, it pushes you to do your best.

Simply put, distress makes you feel anxious, while eustress is exciting. Distress can lead to procrastination, but eustress motivates you. Overall, distress negatively affects your performance, but eustress can boost it.

The main differences between distress and eustress are":

Events that cause eustress generally are seen as challenging but manageable. They make you focus better and motivate you more. That's the key to why eustress can be good, but a balancing act is involved.

The right amount of pressure can unlock the benefits of 'eustress.' This concept comes from the Yerkes-Dodson law, created by psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson in 1908. The law says that our performance improves when mentally or physically stimulated, but only up to a point.

Eustress vs. Distress

But if you can find that balance, eustress can be very beneficial, especially for motivated people who like exciting challenges. Some of the benefits of eustress are:

Flow: Researchers have called flow the 'ultimate eustress experience.' When we're in flow, we're focused on the challenge and fully present. We get so absorbed in what we're doing we lose track of time and can easily ignore anything else happening around us. Resilience: Since eustress is based on how we perceive things, having more eustress can make us react better to difficult situations, making us more emotionally flexible. It can also help us improve our coping skills and confidence by seeing stressful situations as learning opportunities. The term self-efficacy refers to our ability and out perception of our ability to do a task or play a specific role. Experiencing eustress proves our skills and abilities, encouraging us to be more ambitious. The good news is that although we can't make all stress positive, we can actively manage many stressors so they become helpful eustress rather than harmful distress.

Takeaway: Not all stress is bad. Finding the right positive stressors can be a healthy source of motivation. Stress can actually boost performance.

Recommended Reading: The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal