Stress is an unavoidable consequence of life. Just as distress can cause disease, there are good stresses that promote growth and wellness. Stress is not always necessarily harmful. Hans Selye, best known for his pioneering studies about the effects of stress on the human body, noted: “Without stress, there would be no life”.
For example, any time you are starting a new level of growth in your life, you will undoubtedly experience stress because you’re out of your comfort zone. You can feel high levels of stress, anxiety, and a loss of clarity when you’re in a state of change.
I, for one, have gone through this phase more than a handful of times in my life specifically in relation to my business every time it requires me to step up! In the early days, I used to think it was a bad sign, that it meant I couldn’t handle things, that I had a problem, that I was an ‘anxious’ person, that maybe I wasn’t cut out for business … Yet I’ve learned that stress can hugely enhance our levels of creativity, growth and genius if we understand how to channel the energy in the right direction.
The turning point is when we don’t automatically assume that stress is wrong or bad.
A helpful way to change the narrative on stress is if you refer to it as ‘tension’ – because that’s what it is in truth – your mind and your body feel tense because you’re responding to a demand for (real or perceived) change, adjustment, or adaptation.
Furthermore, if you also believe that something good can come from the ‘tension’ (stress), it’ll also be easier to accept and embrace the feeling.
For the most part, aside from mood or chronic stress issues, temporary stress is tension and you can channel that tension into either worry and negative thinking, which doesn’t serve you at all, resulting in further stress and worry … Or you can channel it into creativity and sometimes even excitement.
Based on what’s happening in your body, fear is actually exactly the same feeling as ‘excitement’.
So, if, for example, you’re nervous and feeling stressed before giving a presentation you can literally turn that fear and stress into excitement by acknowledging what’s going on in your body (sweaty palms, armpits, butterflies in the stomach, etc.) then say to yourself something like:
“I feel excited to go and speak to these people, I feel excited to share this information with them”
By doing this you’re telling your brain that it’s excitement instead of fear and your body and mind will believe you. Not only will this help to lower your stress levels, but it will also make you more likely to use the tension (stress) to get in the zone and present well rather than letting fears or nerves get in the way.
You can also channel the tension of stress into creativity and finding your ‘genius’ zone. In fact, we often need the tension (stress) in our lives to tap into our genius.
When you’re experiencing tension about something, your mind can get really creative. I’m sure you can think of a time when you came up with an idea or produced a piece of work under pressure. Then, once it was over, and you looked back at your work you wondered where that insight or level of genius came from?! Sometimes we can amaze ourselves in times of tension, fear and stress.
The takeaway is that stress, tension, and fear can be a good thing – if you look at it that way – which then allows you to use it to your advantage.
There are of course many downsides to stress as well, stress is not always a good thing especially when it is chronic. The type of stress we’re talking about today is more short-term, anticipatory stress/tension.
The next time you find yourself feeling stressed, try describing it as tension and trust that a positive outcome will come from the experience. For example, you can say something along the lines of:
“I’m feeling quite a lot of tension today.”
“I’m feeling tense because of …”
… Doesn’t it feel different and better to describe it this way, rather than saying; “I feel really stressed out”?
Kate x
