What kind of stress and anxiety are you feeling is probably more the question to ask.
Stress exists whether you believe it or not. Stress will affect you if stress is a bad thing in your mind. Therefore, stress at the core is a belief that it's not good for you or it is necessary to drive you.
Kelly McGonigal gave an excellent TED Talk on “How to make stress your friend”; you really need to watch it, as it will change your perspective on stress.
Just like we have been told for years about fat and salt in our diets, we have become adverse to stress in your life because we are told it’s not healthy.
I would agree that it's not healthy for the people that have chronic over the top stress and anxiety that makes them physically ill and incapacitated a very small percentage of the population.
Let me be up front I am not suggesting these people now change completely as that would be unhealthy too.
The people I am talking about are stressing about every little thing and it is causing them to be stuck in their business, this is causing them to start to go down the road of physically making them sick. But there is a way to stop that…
The same as salt and fat in your diet, it is necessary to have some stress and anxiety to cause you to spring into action.
What Kelly McGonigal talks about in her TED talk is from which perspective you come from when you think about that stress. McGonigal talks of a study that asked people, “how much stress and anxiety have you experienced in the last year?”’ The doctors also probed whether participants believed that stress was bad for their health – and then looked at the records to see who died.
‘People who experienced a lot of stress in the previous year had a 43 per cent increased risk of dying. But,’ McGonigal continues, ‘that was ONLY true for the people who also believed stress was also harmful for your health. People who experienced a lot of stress, but did not view stress as harmful were NO more likely to die – in fact, they had the lowest risk of dying of anyone in the study, including people who had very little stress.’ So McGonigal points out that, ‘BELIEVING that stress is bad for you’ is the sticking point.
They are strong indicators for people that believe that stress is bad for you.
Back to my point “IS Stress a Belief?” Well, this certainly points to it is and depending on your perspective, you can use this belief to your advantage or detriment. With all things, it’s your choice.
I don’t see too many people understanding that stress or your perspective, how you view your belief is a choice.
I hear people all the time the way they talk about stress. They are making statements that “it’s a side effect of more work”, “long hours”, “My tight deadline” and “I am overwhelmed”.
There is a whole other perspective the healthy people use when feeling stress as an indicator to take action.
The increased heart rate, strange sensations in their stomach, indicates to them they are alive and says move forward, they are actually healthier. The signs of the stressed out people don’t seem to affect these people who have a different perspective.
So what are they doing differently?
They believe stress is good, it’s an indicator a deep gut feel to help them make choices in their business.
Can you now change your perspective and feel different; I challenge you to try to look at this from any other perspective now that you know the research.
