Here are 3 so-called facts about stress that everyone thinks are true but that are really blatantly false, and what you can do to counter these disclaimers.
“Fact” # 1: Stress is an excellent motivator. False.
Most of us think stress motivates us, but really, what motivates us is really wanting something. We don’t need to go into a fight, flight or freeze response every time we want something we think we might not get.
As His Holiness the Dalai Lama says, if there’s a problem and there’s something you can do about it, you do it. Why worry? And if there’s nothing you can do about it, why worry?
Stress is an adaptive mechanism left over from the days when we encountered physical danger, like a tiger in the forest. All of the body processes speeded up, heart rate accelerated, muscles contracted to prepare us to fight the tiger or to run away.
We’ve come a long way in evolutionary terms, but guess what? We still respond the same way to real or perceived danger, but these days, the threat is rarely physical. We typically feel threatened psychologically or emotionally, and there’s no one to fight or flee from.
This accumulated energy is called stress. We can think that it motivates us, but it’s merely a response to a perceived threat of some sort.
If you can see what the threat or fear is, there may be more adaptive ways of handling this energy.
“Fact” # 2: Stress helps me to do my best. False.
This is another variation on number 1. Here you can try on an alternative behavior. Let’s say your boss has given you an assignment, and you really want to succeed. Make a list of all the things you need to do to complete the task and the order you need to do them in.
Then, as you sit down to do each task, try taking 3 deep belly breaths. Put both hands on your belly, just below your belly button. As you breathe in, feel the belly expand, and you exhale fee the belly contract. Try this a few times. When you’ve got this going, give a count to each complete inhale and exhale. It just takes 3 such breaths to calm you down, but if you can do 10, it will really help.
Then do the task at hand on your list. If you notice your body tightening up, breathe again and continue. It might take a bit of practice but soon you’ll see that you don’t actually need stress to do your best to do your best work, in fact the contrary is true.
“Fact” # 3: Stress keeps me on high alert, which prevents sleepiness and laziness. False.
Stress is actually exhausting. Remember the flight or fight example? Stress was designed to give us a short spurt of energy so we could survive physical danger.
If we have too much accumulated stress, without release, we are likely to burn out, or quite literally, crash and burn. Stress can morph into unwanted physical symptoms, obsessive thoughts and behavior, addictions, sleeplessness or excessive sleepiness.
The truth is we cannot maintain being on high alert over time. Our bodies aren’t made that way.
So if you find that you are chronically stressed, learn to meditate, go for a run, take a yoga class, sing your heart out, or do any other physical activity that gets you out of your head.
There’s nothing to be gained from romanticizing stress. It is not your friend.