Handling Stress

Three Things Mentally Strong People Will Never Tell You About Stress

By CLAIRE DOROTIK-NANA, LMFT

There are plenty of things we’ve been told about stress. Avoid it, reduce it, and find ways around it — or it might harm you. Yet, there are some people who have a different reaction entirely to stress. Instead of being debilitated by it, they are made stronger. And, it turns out, mentally strong people know a few things about stress the rest of us don’t. Here are three:

Stress Causes You To Connect.

When we are stressed, the body releases cortisol, epinephrine, and adrenaline — that we know. But what is also released is oxytocin. That’s right, the same neuro-chemical that is spiked during bonding, physical contact, and falling in love. And when oxytocin surges, is causes us to reach out, seek comfort, and surprisingly, lowers blood pressure. That’s because there are receptors for oxytocin right on your heart, and when the levels are high, the blood vessels around the heart relax — and so do we.

It Matters What You Believe.

In her powerful Ted Talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcGyVTAoXEU) Kelly McGonigal references a longitudinal study of 30,000 people that tracked three things: stress levels, what participants believed about stress — whether it is a good thing or a bad thing — and death rates. The unsurprising news was that there was a positive correlation between high stress levels and death rates. But, amazingly, when participants had high stress levels and also believed that stress was a good thing, the death rates were no different from those who had reported low stress levels. Using physiological data, researchers uncovered why: when people believe stress is positive, the physiological response is similar to being excited — as oppose to those who believe stress is bad, where the physiological response was similar to being frightened.

Stress Is An Ergogenic Aid.

Stress is the body’s way to prepare for action — any kind of action. It heightens mental alertness, readies the muscular system, enhances awareness, and improves response time. And the flip side of stress is boredom, listlessness and apathy. What mentally strong people know is stress is an aid designed to improve performance. And feeling stressed draws our attention to the challenge — that is, should we decide to take it.

While I’m sure we all want to get stronger mentally, I’m also sure we all have a lot of stress. However, it turns out, when we believe stress is a good thing, the two go together.

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