Stress Friend and Foe

Stress IS Enhancing, is this sentence enough to improve your resilience, today!?

In the modern world, stress is often seen as the enemy of?

A) Well-being.?

B) Productivity

We're constantly bombarded with advice on how to reduce stress, manage it, or even eliminate it altogether. However, what if I told you that stress, when approached with the right mindset, can actually enhance your overall mental outlook, personal growth and performance? In this article, we'll explore the surprising connection between stress and mindset, and how embracing stress can lead to development, positive outcomes and success.?

Embracing the Right Perspective: It's important to acknowledge that not all stress is created equal. There's a significant difference between chronic, overwhelming stress and manageable, acute stressors. Chronic stress can indeed have detrimental effects on both our physical and mental health. However, short bursts of stress in response to challenges can stimulate our minds and lead to personal development.

1. Adaptability and Resilience: Think of stress as a mental workout. Just as physical exercise challenges our muscles, stress challenges our mindset. When faced with new and demanding situations, our brains are forced to adapt, find solutions, and develop new strategies. This process cultivates resilience, the ability to bounce back from setbacks stronger than before.
2. Enhanced Creativity: Stress often requires us to think outside the box. When our usual routines are disrupted, our minds are prompted to come up with innovative solutions. This cognitive shift can lead to increased creativity and a broader perspective on various aspects of life.
3. Focused Attention: In the face of stress, our minds naturally narrow their focus to address the immediate challenge. This heightened attention can lead to better decision-making and problem-solving. Once the stressor is managed, this enhanced focus can spill over into other areas of our lives, allowing us to concentrate more effectively on our goals.
4. Learning and Growth: Stressful situations provide invaluable opportunities for learning. They push us out of our comfort zones and force us to acquire new skills, knowledge, and experiences. Overcoming these challenges builds confidence and a sense of accomplishment, contributing to personal growth.
5. Mindset Shift: Stress as a Catalyst: The key to harnessing stress's positive potential lies in our mindset shift. Viewing stress as a catalyst for growth rather than a hindrance can change the way we approach challenges. Instead of avoiding stress, we can learn to embrace it as a natural part of life that propels us forward.

In fact studies have shown that the first tool we have is the simple phrase?

Stress is enhancing?

Make this a daily incantation, put some emotion into it and study the stress for performance phenomena and you have already immediately improved your capacity to make stress valuable to your biology. Put simply.....

It's a question of belief!

The Role of Stress Mindset - The research!

Andrew Huberman, arguably the world's most famous neurologist recently unpacked in detail the Stress is enhancing mindset on the Huberman podcast (link in comments.) Within the episode he cites, Dr Alia Crumbs incredible work out of Stanford's Mind Body Lab. Her work has shown that under controlled conditions difficult tasks approached with a ‘Stress is enhancing’ mindset were met with an immediate shift in performance with a significant net positive impact on cognitive agility, physical performance, Cortisol production, and attentional capacity.?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28120622/

Dr Crumbs work has shown unequivocally that your narrative frame on stress is a determining factor in its impact on your biology.?

It is important to note that an over activated and chronically engaged nervous system is less than ideal. So we need rituals and practices that will allow us to dissipate, ground and relieve stress each day, week, month, year. I am specifically speaking to ensure adequate stress baselining throughout our calendar right down to daily management. By doing so we can keep our stress management far closer to an optimal level. But ironically embracing the Mindset Alia Crumb has scaffolded we can help our own efforts in this regard.?

Precision Stress Management?

In a future article I will lay out the Stress Archetypes that exist and how these interact with our lifestyles to define our stress levels. For now I’ve provided some basic fundamentals to delineate the central sources of Stress and sources of relief or recovery depending on how well you have them in balance:

• Social Connection - Time and quality of engaging social settings.?
• Social Nurture - Community wellbeing and responsibility.
• Mind efficiency - How well your mind is functioning.
• Movement - A baseline exercise, creative physical pursuit.?
• Environment - The physical spaces which we occupy.

These frames of salience are deeply instantiated motivations or aims that emerge from our physiology and will have a profound impact on your being and Wellbeing. So in the stress conversation we do need to Personalise and I help my clients with this daily. However in this article we are speaking to the generalities that alone induce some powerful self mastery.?

General (practical) Strategies for a powerful Stress mindset:

1. Mindfulness and Meditation: Practising mindfulness and meditation can help manage stress by allowing us to stay present in the moment. This perspective enables us to navigate challenges with a clear mind and a positive outlook.
2. Observe your physiology: oftentimes our internal reactions are causing us to feel chaotic internally which is perceived as a negative by bodies that prefer stability. However, by reframing these physical sensations (heart racing, sweating, breathing patterns) we can see them as cue's for heightened performance.?
3. Reframing Techniques: Train yourself to reframe stressful situations. Instead of fixating on the negatives, focus on the potential positive outcomes and the growth you'll experience as a result.
4. Goal Setting: setting and pursuing meaningful goals gives you a purpose that can overshadow the stressors along the way. This forward momentum keeps you motivated and less focused on the stress itself.

Conclusion: I personally spent years trying to control my stress while in the Military environment this created some great recovery habits but my response to small stressors was quite poor. It represented a loss of control in the battle to keep my cortisol lower. This was a huge mistake, leaning into stress and transmuting its impact by creating a posture and pre-cognitive framework that sees stress as opportune. Now the renewed perspective that challenges bring value to your life has begun to transform my ability to leverage stress. Ultimately leading to better performance, growth and ironically - Stress Management?

Check in on your own Stress Mindset here, using this FREE TOOL devised by Alia Crumb and her colleagues at Stanford.? https://stanforduniversity.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0qWw4Vt1XKdooeh?Q_JFE=qdg

This short 60 minute exercise can develop self awareness of your own stress mindset and revitalise it for all of the ROI we have mentioned above!

Thanks for reading, I hope you can put these things into practice and coach yourself to a better mindset when it comes to Stress. If you are struggling with stress please reach out, at RISE Coaching we can really shift the way you view and manage this all important facet of the human experience and many others!

Our mission is to transform lives: Story, Spirit, Science and stress is no exception in fact it's a powerful opportunity that can usher in significant shifts towards our potential.?

So lets do it, let's set our Minds to it, because after all?

Stress IS enhancing?

Stress IS enhancing?

Stress IS enhancing?

Stress IS enhancing?

Stress IS enhancing?