Eustress: 10 Advantages Of Positive Stress

Stress is part of the daily life of many people in the world. Its negative aspect, called distress, is characterized by the harmful impact it has on health. However, there is a completely different and beneficial type of stress! Next, we tell you the 10 advantages of positive stress.

Hans Seyle is the creator of this concept of eustress or “beneficial stress”. This is characterized by being short-lived and a great contributor to the positive development of people. This differentiates it from distress, which is longer lasting and a source of suffering and illness.

Motivation and coping

The main utility of this psychological construct is to provide us with an increase in our ability to cope. In this way, thanks to eustress, people feel better able to face all kinds of challenges. Day-to-day problems, situations that exceed your resources at specific times or the various challenges in the environment that you have to face on a daily basis.

This enhancement of our abilities to cope with moments of stress is, in turn, an excellent motivating agent. Feeling supported helps in all facets of our life.

Proactivity, productivity and creativity

Well, one of those areas that can be greatly benefited is labor. This is because eustress is truly useful in this area by allowing us to approach any change in a purposeful way.

Hence, among the advantages of beneficial stress, is that of enhancing skills such as creativity or improving proactivity and productivity. These traits allow us to be more change-oriented and broaden points of view that we might have previously been ignoring.

Control of own activity

Eustress can be activated in controlled risk situations. Of the latter, we could highlight some, such as bungee jumping, rafting, running confinements, riding attractions or parachuting, among many others. Surely you know someone who feels stimulating effects when doing one or more of these activities.

These people are likely to tell you that, before performing them, they usually have a subjective feeling of anxiety. Accompanied by some characteristic signs of it, such as palpitations, tremors or a feeling of suffocation. That anxiety is reduced as we do the activity.

For example, we can think of the moment immediately before jumping from a plane by parachute. Anxiety is usually very high in those previous moments. But it is dissipating since we jump and it decreases more as we go down.

Emotional security and stability

Among the benefits of beneficial stress is that it enables us to improve our internal locus of control. That is, our assurance that our actions have a direct effect on our life and that we are the ones who control it. In this way, the feeling of vulnerability and helplessness is minimized.

In turn, this improvement in the perception of control of situations helps to guarantee our emotional stability. Since eustress is not long-lasting, but is activated at specific moments, it is less likely that affective lability does not appear and that, therefore, our emotional health is not in danger.

Energy and vitality

Another advantage of positive stress is that it is activated the moment we leave our comfort zone. That is, from that place where we feel protected and safe. However, when faced with a new challenge, this beneficial stress prompts us to react. This allows us to stay alert and increase our speed of reflexes.

Therefore, it provides us with energy and vitality. With this, it is likely that our desire to perform physical activities increases, since they allow us to channel all that vital force. Likewise, eustress is associated with the production of dopamine, related, in turn, to happiness.

A low activation level does not help us

It is important to note that a zero stress level is not recommended. Stress is adaptive and not having it at certain times stagnates us. It is likely that this lack of activation or level of alertness diminishes our creativity, and may be more prone to boredom. And this, in the end, ends up taking its toll.

Now that we know the many benefits of positive stress, you may want to put in place strategies to activate it. You can try deep, mindful breathing, playing sports, dealing with negative thoughts, or adjusting the perspective with which you deal with problems.