We often talk about the negative impact stress can have on our life. Often resulting in loss of sleep, headaches, irritability and even leading to more serious, long-term physical and mental illnesses. During the course of the pandemic, when stress levels had been high, many firms declared a war on the ever-rising levels of stress. But does stress always have to be a negative thing?

 

Stress, when at the right levels can have a myriad of positive effects on your daily life. Experts describe it as a burst of energy that advises you on how to approach a given situation. Going back to its origins, stress was a lifesaver. Warning you and stimulating the basis of our fight or flight response. When we were living in caves, this would allow you to clamber a tree, escaping the claws of a growling lion. Today though, when perched in our ivory towers and surrounded by the concrete canopy of the city, do we think of stress-inducing high performance?

 

There are also many health benefits linked to stress. Researchers have found that some stress can strengthen your immune system, and can improve your heart's performance. In one study, patients experiencing moderate amounts of stress before an operation recovered faster than the individuals that didn’t.

 

Stress can trigger enhanced effort, motivation, and persistence. All of which are highly valued in the concrete jungle.

 

Understanding stress is important. In another study, students that were about to take a final exam were told they were experiencing high levels of stress. They were then taught that when your body perceives a “stressor”(the exam) it stimulates the generations of chemicals such as epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol. This increases your breathing and heart rate, shooting red blood cells full of oxygen to your muscles and brain. This increases your focus, makes your mind sharp, and prepares you for high performance. They were told that the result was them performing at the highest level possible. When asked how the exam went, researchers found the students were more satisfied with their performance and felt the stress wasn’t as overwhelming as those who hadn’t been given a clear understanding of the impact of “good stress”.

 

High-performance environments promote stress and it’s hard to shy away from this reality. What is crucial, and in many ways what we thrive towards, is creating an environment in which our teams choose to get themselves into a state of mind in which they want to drive their career, while enjoying the ride. In many ways, it is down to leadership to bring their teams to high performance rather than into unproductive stress, which leads to negative psychological and physical effects (bad stress), that are so widespread in our industry and society.