Learning to make the best use of stress can be tricky. Indeed, stress can sometimes seem like a strictly negative emotion. The good news is, it doesn’t have to be that way. By learning to understand stress, you can start to harness it for your own good.
How to learn to use stress positively
1. Recognise the control you have
Most people are familiar with the multitude of tips available for managing stress through self care. These include getting regular sleep, reducing your caffeine consumption, exercising regularly and trying to change your mindset. There is a reason you will have heard these often: all these tips are important steps in ensuring stress does not become unhealthy or overwhelming. However, whilst this type of stress management is important, it can also be helpful to try and use stress positively. To do this, you need to stop looking towards external causes of stress and start to recognise the control you have internally to access the positives of stress. By developing a mindset that sees stress as an energiser rather than a threat, you can use the energy given by it to move forward.
2. Understand why we experience stress
The first step in achieving this mindset is understanding why we, as humans, experience stress. It is, ultimately, designed to help us. Stress enables you to think sharper and therefore helps you to identify opportunities. It can help you act quicker and therefore energises what you do. Stress also tightens the muscles involved in fighting and thus quickens reflex speed to help you meet up to a competitor with maximum effectiveness. With this in mind, we can begin to understand that stress is there to help us perform at our best at times of importance.
3. Reframe your view of stress
As your understanding of stress improves, you can start to identify your own response to stress. When you notice yourself becoming stressed, instead of labelling it as something that renders you helpless, you can try to see it as an adaptive strategy; your body is preparing you for your best performance, rather than trying to hurt you. By learning to recognise stress as a help rather than a hindrance, you can try to direct stress into the right challenges. This will help you with efficiency in achieving your goals, since it propels quick action.
4. Give yourself time
Changing your thought pattern to see stress as an aid can take time and practice. If however, with all this in mind, stress still seems to overwhelm you negatively, then try seeing your stress as an early prompt to reach out and ask for help. That way, even when stress seems like it is having a purely negative impact, it can still result in a positive outcome in the long term.
Further resources
For more tips on managing stress effectively—please explore the anxiety page of our website or read our advice pamphlet on stress.
For help with overcoming symptoms of anxiety, try the Clear Fear app.
If you are struggling, please talk to someone you trust. If you need advice on how to talk to someone about your mental health, check out our Asking for Help Booklet.
