The Performance Boosting Benefits of Stress

During our morning workout this week, one of my clients casually mentioned that she had a dentist appointment scheduled just 15 minutes after class ended, followed by two back-to-back meetings, one of which she’d take during her 30-minute drive home.

Here was a woman who knew how to maximize her time.

She followed the explanation of her itinerary with, “I don’t know why I do this to myself.” But as she said it, I saw the glint of excitement in her eye. And I recognized exactly what was going on—she’s the kind of person who thrives when she builds a bit of intentional stress into her days.

Are you the same? Or do you try to avoid stress as much as possible?

Whether you appreciate a little stress here and there or try to avoid it altogether, the truth is that some stress in our lives does benefit us. Stress helps us learn, grow, and change. The key is knowing the difference between good stress and bad stress—and making sure we stay on the right side of that line.

The Difference Between Good Stress and Bad Stress

Good stress is known as eustress. It’s the kind of stress that’s exciting, invigorating, and here’s the important part—short-lived. Eustress is what lights a fire under your butt and can help you feel focused, energized, and productive. And when you understand how it works, you can learn to channel it as a performance enhancer.

When your body detects a stressful trigger, a cascade of physiological changes occurs to prepare you for action. Cortisol and adrenaline surge, your heart rate increases, blood sugar rises for quick energy, and inflammation spikes to support healing in case of injury. Meanwhile, less critical functions—like digestion and reproduction—pause as your brain zeroes in on one goal: survival.

Although this was evolutionarily programmed to help you survive an attack from a wild beast, the same response will occur when you get a “scary” email that needs to be dealt with ASAP…or you over-schedule your morning.

When these experiences are short-lived and followed by appropriate rest and recovery, they’re great for your body and mind. Bouts of good mental stress are like going to the gym: you lift some weights, work up a sweat, and push yourself a bit beyond your comfort zone. Then you come down from the workout: you shower, eat, and get some sleep. As your muscles recover and rebuild between workouts, they come back stronger. Mental stress can be like that too. It can push you in the moment, while also building resilience over time.

But when your mental stress isn’t isolated to short, invigorating bursts interspersed with adequate recovery, it becomes harmful. This is when it can be labelled distress. When stress starts to feel like a never-ending endurance race rather than a short, challenging workout, that’s when it turns into chronic stress. Chronic stress is where the problems start and it’s the thing we want to avoid.

As a result, it’s important to be mindful of how stress affects you, where you can use it to benefit you, and how to manage recovery so that chronic stress doesn’t become your norm.

So how do you keep stress in the “good” category and use it to your advantage?

Recognize Your Mindset

Whether you fear stress as something to be avoided at all costs or lean into it as a performance aid will make a big difference in terms of how stress affects you. Looking at challenges as opportunities to grow will help you to feel more energized and capable when it comes to stress and the ways in which you can channel it.

Move Your Body

The stress response prepares your body for action and it’s imperative to move to flush out the stress hormones. Without movement, these can stew inside your system, which is a recipe for negative long-term health outcomes. While you might feel like flopping on the couch to zone-out over Netflix or a thorough social media binge is the best way to relax, moving your body is actually what helps reset your system.

It doesn’t matter what kind of movement you choose—whether it’s walking, jogging, yoga, lifting weights, or dancing in your kitchen with your kids, all of these will help purge the stress from your body and complete the cycle.

Rest and Recover

Although moving is important, downtime is also critical. Intentional rest and recovery are essential to remaining resilient in the face of stress. This is because rest and recovery ensure that stress is interrupted, giving you time to recharge so that you’re ready to lean into the next challenging experience designed to help you learn, grow, and change.

Channel It

Understanding that the right kind of stress can help you perform at your best is a powerful piece of knowledge. But just how do you leverage your stress response to achieve your goals?

My best advice is to start being more mindful of the circumstances where stress feels invigorating, exciting, and increases your performance. Equally important is to pay attention to the circumstances where stress weighs you down and has a negative impact on your performance and well-being. Once you’re clear on the difference between the two, set up the factors that will drive your performance when you need the extra boost that eustress can provide.

For example, I’ve noticed that I work best when I gamify tasks. I love to race the clock to see how much I can accomplish in a short burst of time. When I approach things this way, it flips my to-do list from an obligation (“Ugh. I have so much to do”), to a challenge (“Just how much can I get done in 30 minutes?”). Using the clock as the stressor gets me moving, makes it a little fun, and helps me stay on task.

For you, it might be stacking meetings back-to-back so the slight worry that you have about not making it to each one on time gives you the edge you need to stay alert and focused. Or maybe having them fill up your entire morning forces you to do the prep needed the afternoon before, rather than avoiding it and leaving it to the morning of.

Another option might be that you schedule your workout during your lunch hour because feeling a bit rushed helps you move more quickly between sets. The ways in which you can use a healthy dose of eustress to boost your performance are endless!

Final Thoughts

When you flip your stress mindset to see stress as a tool that can help fuel your best, you can leverage it to your advantage. But to keep stress working for you, it’s important to be mindful that good stress occurs in short, manageable bursts that are punctuated by movement. Similarly, adequate rest and recovery between stressful episodes will enhance your ability to continue to respond positively to stress, allowing you to grow while also building resilience. Overall, when you understand what factors help you to thrive, you can begin to channel the right kind of stress to support you in accomplishing great things!