Good Stress: It Exists!?

Being stressed out isn't a very fun feeling, so how can there possibly be good stress? But the fact is, certain pressure filled situations, like the occasional public speaking event or cramming for a test, can be good for your health. It's called "good stress."

 Edward Calabrese, Ph. D., a toxicologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, says that there are "good" (eustress) and "bad" (distress) types of stress. "The bad kind is chronic and uncontrollable, like the tension caused an unhappy marriage or sick relative," Calabrese says, "but there are lots of positives associated with short bursts of stress that ease up quickly." An example of this would be getting caught in traffic when you're in a rush or sweating through a presentation at school.  
In 2009, a study on mice at Ohio State University that subjected them to brief but intense stress were better able to fight the flu. Acute, short term stress had been linked to a reduced risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer's. 
But why? 
Stress jolts you into repair mode. It works like this: When you injure yourself, your body snaps to attention and starts to fix itself—healing your injury and revving up your immune system to protect against infection. Short-term stress works the same way. Initially, it produces free radicals and hormones such as cortisol that wreak havoc on your tissues. But then, when your body senses the damage, it calls in the cleanup crew. If the stress is short-lived, you can heal quickly and still have enough energy left over to repair everyday wear and tear, like a scratch or a bruise. (It's like when you decide to tidy up a room for 10 minutes and end up in the midst of a full-on spring cleaning—your body goes into a kind of self-repair overdrive.)


Isn't that neat?