Benefits of Stress
There are several benefits of stress that can improve the way we live. Managing your stress is important for you to be more concentrated while you’re accomplishing your goals. Stress that is often felt before a school presentation or test is known as short-term stress. This is beneficial because it can motivate you to do your best. However, long-term stress may cause you to feel more anxious and affect your ability to be successful. For example, stress allows you to overcome challenges and gives you the ambition to reach your goals (text 1, paragraph 2). It allows us to realize our weaknesses and work harder to complete an important assignment for school, meeting deadlines at work, or family life. Also, “Dealing successfully with troubling stressful situations, makes you smarter”, say researchers at Rockefeller University (text 2, paragraph 5).
This means that dealing with stress can make the human brain stronger with improved cognitive function. Additionally, stress helps to activate memory, as well as long-dormant unrelated memories (text 2, paragraph 15). People who stress experience increased memory activity in the brain which is a successful strategy to help a person remember long-term memories. Some people think that being stressed-out can make you very overwhelmed and unable to concentrate (text 1, paragraph 1). However, stress can motivate you to work harder and to focus more on what is important (text 1, paragraph 1). Learning stress management skills and keeping a balanced lifestyle can help us accomplish our ultimate goals.
Dealing With Stress
When dealing with stress, our health is very important to consider. Often, stress can affect a person’s physical and mental health, interfering with the human system. Stress also strengthens our mind and body while also maintaining a balance in our lives. Some stress is conducive to physical and emotional growth. For example, “Studies suggest that it strengthens the immune system, makes vaccinations more effective, and may even protect against certain types of cancer” (text 3, paragraph 3). This means that even a little stress can help fight off sickness and protect our bodies from harmful diseases. Also, stress produces an increase in blood pressure and heart rate to react to stressful situations (text 1, paragraph 3). This is known as the “fight or flight” response, which acts as our bodies’ natural alarm system, creating a warning when we are in danger. Additionally, “Enhanced “production of neurotransmitters” in the prefrontal cortex” is among positive consequences (text 2, paragraph 6). This means that our brains can determine the good and bad stressors in our everyday lives. Some people think stress “can set off dangerous inflammation in the body, increasing your risk for heart disease, obesity, and breast cancer” (text 3, paragraph 1). However, studies show that small doses of stress are healthy and can set off protective chemicals in the body (text 3, paragraph 1). Reducing your stress levels can not only make you feel better but may also protect your long-term health. With this in mind, we can learn how to cope with stress to stay happy and healthy. When these skills are set, our thoughts become clearer, moods are balanced, relationships improve, and the risk of illness decreases.
Emotional Changes
Our stress response can be caused by emotional changes such as anxiety, depression, or anger. Emotional stress can make it difficult to focus or make decisions, but there are benefits to understanding your stress to help maintain motivation every day. For example, people that stress makes fewer cognitive errors than those who don’t stress (text 2, paragraph 10). This means that stress can greatly impact memories and cognitive function. Stress also limits inaccurate thinking and decreases negative thought patterns. Also, stress can cause beneficial effects on learning and memory (text 2, paragraph 9). This means that stress causes neurotransmitters to communicate with the hormone, cortisol that helps to enhance knowledge and memory. Additionally, with stress your senses cause you to focus more clearly so you can avoid stressful situations (text 1, paragraph 3). This means, when our brain perceives a combination of stress, we can react quickly to threatening situations. Some people think that stress can cause us to lose touch with our emotions and interactions with other people (text 4, paragraph 5). However, relieving stress through exercise or meditation are just a few ways to reduce stress in our lives (text 4, paragraph 8). The ability to identify and understand our stress is through emotional intelligence. Many people are unaware of their emotions and this makes it difficult to manage stress.
Emotional Awareness and Importance of Stress
While some believe that stress is harmful to our health, in fact, stress can have benefits on a person’s knowledge and well-being. Stress can be beneficial in our lives, because it can help us be determined to accomplish tasks, better our health, and increase our emotional awareness. Stress hormones increase our alertness to stay on task and battle sickness. It also can maintain a strong balance of emotion. This is important for life and in society as a whole because we can use stress as a survival instinct. It allows us to recognize our stressors and use increased energy as an advantage.
