Apparently, April is Stress Awareness Month. I recently saw an intresting tweet by James Arthur Ray breaking stress into 2 types:
- Distress: which comes from focusing on what you don’t want. This is BAD stress. This type of stress, when prolonged, diminishes your health potential and can lead to pain/discomfort and be a contributing factor to other major diseases.
- Eustress: or creative tension. This is that nudge you feel inside when you are focused on the achievement of a goal or intention. I would propose this is GOOD stress. It drives you forward. It inspires. It motivates.
So, this April, be aware of your stress! Are you in distress or eustress?
4 comments
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April 17, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Danny B.
Thanks for delineating between the two. I’ve heard that the complete absence of stress is called “death.” It’s encouraging to know there is good stress. (But is it bad that my b-day falls in Stress Awareness Month?)
April 18, 2009 at 12:55 am
Jennifer Schumann
It does make me feel better to know that my tremendous amount of stress lately has been “good” stress. At least, I think it makes the situations easier to deal with mentally.
So…when it get that pain in the back of my neck reaching down through my shoulder blade…that is from distress? Or, can creative tension also cause muscle tightness? Seems to me that either would cause me to be uptight.
April 20, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Anthony J. Davis, D.C.
Danny,
Good point. As far as your birthday goes being in April, it’s also Grilled Cheese Month and Poetry Month. Does that help?
April 20, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Anthony J. Davis, D.C.
Jennifer,
Thanks for your comment. In my experience, that pain you are describing would be made worse by distress. The distinction to draw is that even though the stress may be due to progress toward an intention or goal, if it’s because you are focused on what you DON’T want (ie: I don’t want to fail this test. or I don’t want to get sick because I have a big presentation tomorrow.) it’s actually distress.
With practice, you’ll start to tell the difference. I work on it nearly every day.
I hope this helps!