Stress is Necessary for Success: The Way We React and Adapt to it Makes a Huge Difference in the Outcome

During the 2020-21 Covid19 pandemic, society has experienced a lot of changes.  The educational field is no exception with adapting to moving learning to virtual and hybrid models, distancing and disinfecting requirements, quarantine protocols, etc.  This is all new to the educational field, there is no playbook for this type of situation.  Despite all the challenges, our schools have experienced a tremendous amount of success and this will change education for the good in the long run.  We have this belief because we know stress is a precursor for change and improvement.  Stress is useful to prompt a specific action, to a specific threat, or to promote alertness during a brief period of danger.  Second, it can keep you alert in during a period of danger. 

 

When we talk about stress and pressure a couple of stories come to mind.  Story #1: On the deserts of the Serengeti, there’s a gazelle that knows they must run faster than the greatest lion or any other animal every single day if they want to survive.  On that same desert, every day a lion has to run faster and out maneuver the fastest gazelles if they are going to eat and not starve.  Survival of the fittest is the essence and nature of our food chain, but this stress forces each animal to be at their top performance for survival.  This stress causes daily growth and constant improvements for mere survival.  Story #2:  In theory it doesn’t make sense that someone would dig a hole and pour dirt on something in order to make it grow hundreds of feet tall.  As I drive to work every day there are miles and miles of peach orchards that produce fruit shipped all over the world for human consumption.  Each one of these trees started by someone digging a hole, throwing the seed down into the hole, and pouring a mound of dirt on top of them.  This dirt, pressure and stress, is necessary for the tree to grow.  The nutrients in the dirt provides nutrients for growth and develops a strong root system so the trees can stand strong as pressures and stress increase and tests their character.  People are the same as both these stories.  Like the lion and the gazelle, stress forces us to get up running every morning and causes pressure to increase our performance to survive.  Like the trees that grow strong from being put in a hole and having dirt poured on them, the stresses we face in life help strengthen us and cause our root system to grow strong if we are going to thrive.  Pressure is necessary for increasing performance and the people that can stand strong and continually grow from stress without breaking or having a meltdown excel and rise above others.  In the world of sports, the pressure players are the ones every coach wants to have the ball with the game on the line.  The key to stress is how we react and adapt to it.  Does it make us stronger and better or does it crush us and break us down? 

Is Stress Useful?  One of the strongest arguments is that for something to change something has to change and something has to be the stimulus for that change.  Stress is useful to prompt a specific action, to a specific threat, or to promote alertness during a brief period of danger. That’s it. Any stress which doesn’t facilitate these purposes is wasted and therefore any beliefs that stress is necessary must be limited to these contexts.  Why do people that want to be successful athletes train?....because they know the stress they are putting on their bodies will strengthen them and help them improve.  There are two kinds of people in this world: those who believe they can make things happen and those who believe things happen to them.  Tim Judge, University of Florida psychologist, researched how perception and attitude impacted how we handle stress and reported that people who feel that they control the events in their lives more than the events in their life controlled them and are confident in their abilities to adapt and adjust end up doing better on nearly every important measure of work performance.  His research concluded that people with this perception of and attitude toward stress:

 

1. Sell more than other employees do
2. Give better customer service
3. Adjust better to new assignments
4. Take home an average of 50 to 150% more in annual income

Stress is a necessity in life for change and improvement; anxiety is an absolutely necessary emotion.  We all experience it daily; however, everyone reacts and adapts to it differently.  We are biologically hard-wired to increase our capacities and performance under stress for survival.  The elderly gentleman that is able to lift or move a car to free someone trapped under it and save their life is an example.  Our bodies are prepared for out brain to be able to send the signal for our bodies to produce and release great amounts of adrenaline, a super hormone, to help us be able to survive.  Our central nervous system has the capacity to fire more muscle fibers simultaneously than we’ve ever been able to fire from our conscientious mind through our stress induced survival mechanisms.  The trick to using stress to increase performance is for the individual to be able to manage anxiety and keep it within the optimal levels in order to achieve top performance.  There are a couple of things that help with managing anxiety and using stress to increase performance: 

 

# 1: Expect and Prepare for Change.  Change is a given, we will all experience.  People don’t fear change, they fear change without support or requisite preparation for success.  Mentally prepare for change and be ready to make it happen instead of it just happening to you. 

# 2: Focus on Your Freedoms, Not Your Limitations.  We’ve all heard the saying “life isn’t fair”, but wouldn’t it be better to say “life is what you make of it.”  We have the freedom to choose our actions and reactions. 

# 3: Re-write Your Script.  Be reflective and learn/grow from every situation.  Every moment is a teachable moment.  It’s only failure if you don’t learn from it and improve going forward. 

# 4: Stop Negative Self-Talk.  The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them.  Most of our negative thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts.  The brain has a natural threat tendency to inflate the perceived frequency or severity of an event. Positive thoughts have a tendency to produce more positive outcomes. 

# 5: Appreciate What You Have.  Gratitude is a powerful emotion.  It also lessens stress and anxiety because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%.

 

Stress has the potential to increase performance if utilized and harnessed the right way.  Sometimes it takes a stressor to create the stimulus for change.  The key is how we react and adapt to stress in any situation.  Do you let it make you or break you?  The great thing is that decision is up to you.