After reading, the "Newsweek" article, "Who Says Stress is Bad For You," by Mary Carmichael, I learned that stress, known for its negative effects on our health, has positive effects as well. Stress motivates us to do better at our jobs or as students in school by keeping us alert and occupied and helping us to remember things. I have experienced this last year in my history class when I had to write a compare and contrast essay for a test. As I was working on the essay, all I remembered was that I kept writing, looked at the clock once in a while, but kept writing some more, stressful that time would run out. At the end of the test, I realized that I wrote about 3 pages of work and I didn't even know if the essay had sufficient transition from one topic to the next. When I got my test back after being graded, I read my essay and thought to myself, "Wow, I didn't know I could write this well."
We've all experienced situations like these when our own stress energizes us and causes us to successfully accomplish what we need to get done. Janet DiPietro, a developmental psychologist at Hopkins University says, "The public has gotten such a uniform message that stress is always harmful. And that's too bad, because most people do their best under mild to moderate stress." This is true in that stress has been given such a bad name in society that people usually never attribute achieving their goals with it. There are people, however, who "thrive on stress," such as policemen and ER doctors, because they enjoy the thrill of bringing chaos back into order. Researchers say that these people are unhealthy because they feel the need to satisfy a psychological need. But how does that make sense? How could researchers say that stress could be good for you, but say that those who seek it are mentally ill? This means that there has to be a strong distinction between healthy stress and unhealthy stress. The thing is, however, we can't judge for each person how much stress is healthy enough for them. Therefore as humans we simply have to learn to live with both the negative and positive impacts of stress and always remember that everyone goes through them; you're not alone.
For a closer look at the symptoms and causes of stress click on the link below. It also includes some ways to alleviate stress.
http://www.webmd.com/balance/stress-management/all-stressed-out?page=2
Here's another link if you want to read the Newsweek article, "Who Says Stress is Bad For You?"
http://www.newsweek.com/id/184154/page/1
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I completely agree with your statement about how stress is never mentioned in terms of someone achieving their goals. Stres isn't good for the mental or physical health of a person, but I do believe that it helps push people beyond what they believe they can do. I tend to wait until the last minute to do things, and I get stressed out, but in the end, the work that is done, is better than that had it been done earlier.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post and like the fact that you added the ways to alleviate stress, as well.
Odd. Not until now have I realized that stress has actually helped me to an extent in my academics (though I must confess it is not healthy and there are some minor side effects.) Stressing on one important subject or thing may be benefitial, but I have learned that this stress takes away attention from the many other things that may be important to you! I agree with sunkist that, as students, stress helps push us beyond what we beleive we can do, but this can lead to lack of sleep and forgetfullness of other things.
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