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Tuesday, September 03, 2019
This is why you should learn to embrace stress (rather than fight it)
www.fastcompany.com: Stress in the United States is at one of its highest points ever. According to a report by the American Psychological Association, over 60% of people are stressed about the future and money. Significantly, 61% of Americans are also stressed about their work.
This is a very necessary article for people to read, especially regarding students enrolled in Carnegie Mellon’s overall intense curriculum. Overall, students will find themselves fighting to reach a due date, finish a project the night prior, or struggling to find time to sleep during the course of a regular school week. This article rather helps put things into a healthy perspective for students. Stress isn’t always an unhealthy thing. Without stress, people may not complete some projects or things to the best of their ability. Similar to most other things in life though, anything can go awry due to overuse. Examples of such include caffeine, Netflix, sugar, love, etc. Stress is no alien to this list. Without various stresses in life, one may not experience any challenges, hence limiting what they may learn from any given situation. To clarify my overall opinion, stress is a good thing when monitored or kept in check. There can be negative stress too though, especially when too much piles up. The easiest way to avoid such is to be realistic about stress levels, which even the best of us may struggle to do. All we can do is continue to try and get better in the end.
I agree that stress isn't always bad, but in this climate I think it's important to know when to give up. This program has a lot of talented artists who are perfectionists. People who always strive for perfection tend to do better work, but at the cost of never being done. I think it is certainly a skill to throw your hands up in the air and say "close enough." That is one of the things I really like about theater is that we can get away with that (sometimes.) Of course, that isn't always true. I learned a little bit over the summer about the difference between Eu-stress and Distress. Eu-stress is the butterflies in your stomach showing that you care. Unfortunately, this often leads into distress, which is when you break down. Working on identifying the tipping point from Eu-stress to Distress is important.
Stress is a major motivator of mine, but it can quickly get out of hand and rise to unhealthy levels. Personally, I work better under pressure and stress because it accompanies outside expectations that need to be met. I don’t think stress itself is the problem, but how we are taught to handle it. Throwing yourself nonstop into your work as a response to stress leads to burnout, but giving up and quitting is usually not an acceptable response either. As seen in the article, stress can arise from overwork or underwork, and it is tempting to just shoot in the opposite direction without a thought, thus creating a bounce-back cycle of over- and under-stimulation. We need to learn how to respond to stress intuitively and consciously, without a knee-jerk reaction.
This article highlights the importance of embracing stress in a way that is both incredibly beneficial and detrimental. There is a balance, as with all things, where too much is not okay, and by saying that being stressed means you are committed, connected, and accepting challenge is fostering an environment where you are also saying that being overly stressed is not just normal but also beneficial to work, and I would highly disagree with that. While the author does add a quick disclaimer at the end of the article, the damage is already done because prior to it labeled stress as a sign of success. Signs of stress definitely should not be ignored, because they can lead to much bigger issues such as anxiety and depression. There is such thing as caring about your work and what you are putting out in the world, but that doesn’t mean you have to be stressed about it (even though we all either consciously or unconsciously are).
I always associate stress with negative feelings. Just saying the word stressed can make me stressed. I do like how this article talks about the ways healthy stress can be beneficial. I just don't think 'stress' and healthy should be together. I think passion and motivation are better words to use when talking about feeling the heat when it comes to deadlines for projects we are invested in. If I like the project and am invested in it with my mind and body, then the stress becomes more of a motivation to do good. It is less stress than it is passion. However, if I don't like the project or aren't invested in it completely, then passion becomes stress. Healthy stress stems from passion and motivation, whereas unhealthy stress stems from anxiety and feeling overwhelmed. I also like that this article talks about how healthy stress can change a person's mindset or actions towards a specific project. It could motivate you to find a new challenge for yourself, or to change the way you think about something that bothers you. Feeling anxious about an idea or person might just mean that you don't like it or them. It's nice to think about stress in a different context then working against the clock.
I think that I thrive in stressful situations or situations where I am consistently busy. Often though, and I think we all deal with this, the stress becomes more of a hinderance than a help, which is something that is described in this article. Something that seemed particularly interesting to me was the notion that stress is a sign that we need more challenge in our lives. I feel like I have experienced the kind of boredom stress that the article describes. Embracing this kind of stress and using its energy as a motivator to complete large projects is something that is discussed in the article. There is a very narrow boundary between this kind of stress and the stress that is overwhelming. That's the kind of stress the article describes as indicating a need for change. Following these feelings will help to manage ourselves, especially in an intensive program like the one we are all in.
I really appreciated this article. We often look at stress at a very extreme angle, like stress is bad in general and should be eliminated. While stress does become a wrecking force that stops people from living healthily and happily, a little stress is necessary and healthy. But in some ways, stress motivates you too. It keeps you going, pushing you to get through challenges. Sometimes it might get you to work just to get out of being stressed. Point 4 of the article, “it’s a sign that you need to change”, was especially meaningful to me. I hadn’t thought of it in this way. Stress can act as an indicator that you might need to change your methods or address a reoccurring problem that you seem to have. In short, makes you reflect. However, let’s not forget that at the same time, there are people who operate well under pressure/stress and people who don’t.
This article makes sense to me, and I agree with a lot of its points, but I think there is a bigger issue around stress in our country than this article gets into. Sure small amounts of stress can be a good indicator that something is not quite right in your world and you may need to make some course corrections to help alleviate it or figure out ways to control it and use it to your advantage, but this does not help with chronic stress that is due to factors out of your control. For people who are continually stressed, it can be hard to tell what those cues are trying to tell you. And quite often, this stress can be caused by things that you do not fully have command of, such as course load or work load. Granted, you could change your job or school, but for many people this is simply not an option. Stress culture is talked about a lot and people try to make it easier by giving tips and tricks to deal with it, but this is just addressing symptoms and not causes which is really what should be focused on. I don’t have an answer to this problem. I just think that it is the one we should be looking at instead.
This article makes very good points about how stress can be a good thing for us. To me, it basically says “If you are stressed out, you care.” I think it is smart for the article to also point out the negative aspects. We at Carnegie Mellon in the School of Drama take on stress in many different capacities. We have school/class work, production work, and our own personal lives that feed into our overall stress. Some areas are more stressful than others, but the effect on our health is the same regardless. I think it is important for us as individuals to become more aware of what the ‘tipping point’ is for ourselves. Once we have an idea of what that is, I believe it becomes easier to manage our stress at a ‘normal’ level so we can still be productive and work in our very high paced environment.
I really appreciated this article, and even more that it was posted amongst a sea of arts news. I've often had friends and family tell me that my stress is always unhealthy, and it was reassuring and important to read that it doesn't always have to be a bad thing. My stress is something that drives me to succeed. Point number 1, a sign that you're committed, perfectly applies to me. I get stressed because I care so much about projects that I work on that I push myself to get work done and done well. The article discusses stress as a connection to others, because even as an "independent worker" there are always others involved in the process. As a theatre maker, I am a collaborator in everything I do, and so many other people in the process will be dependent on my work. That in itself stresses me out, but it's not negative stress—it is what pushes me to get it done. I do believe that there are negative stresses, and that overworking oneself exists. A healthy balance is important, and that can only be done when people are educated on their stress to be aware of it—this is why this article is so important.
This article was very interesting and gave insight on the good aspects of stress. I have been conditioned to see stress as a bad thing and when I started to read the article I was a little skeptical but as I kept on reading I realized stress cannot be a bad thing. "Good stress" can cause people to work harder and do better at what they are doing. To me, the bottom line of the entire article is that stress can and should be maintained because it can work for the betterment of an individual. The author ends the article with a statement that intrigued me and gave me a little bit of peace "The ideal is to avoid unnecessarily stressing about stress and pay attention to the positive signals it may be sending." Finding the point where stress can escalate into something that is unhealthy and recognizing when is very important and is a skill that we all have to develop. It something that happens over time and deciding not to ever go back down the scale is very helpful.
While I understand most of the points that this article is making about stress, I think it’s hard to relate it to our academic life in Purnell. Mainly because this article focuses on describing stress coming from one source, and in our passing through CMU we manage many sources of stress. We have our academic stress, classes and homework, we have our crew stress or production stress, and our personal life stress: all the other things we are neglecting because we are focusing on the previous two. However, understanding your stress sources can be one of the first steps to learn how to cope with it. Keeping in mind, and accepting that you won’t have it all together at all times, can help as well. Also, changing the perspective from “This stress is going to kill me” to “this stress is making me stronger” can improve your performance.
This TED Talk is complimentary to this article: https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend?referrer=playlist-the_most_popular_talks_of_all
12 comments:
This is a very necessary article for people to read, especially regarding students enrolled in Carnegie Mellon’s overall intense curriculum. Overall, students will find themselves fighting to reach a due date, finish a project the night prior, or struggling to find time to sleep during the course of a regular school week. This article rather helps put things into a healthy perspective for students.
Stress isn’t always an unhealthy thing. Without stress, people may not complete some projects or things to the best of their ability. Similar to most other things in life though, anything can go awry due to overuse. Examples of such include caffeine, Netflix, sugar, love, etc. Stress is no alien to this list. Without various stresses in life, one may not experience any challenges, hence limiting what they may learn from any given situation.
To clarify my overall opinion, stress is a good thing when monitored or kept in check. There can be negative stress too though, especially when too much piles up. The easiest way to avoid such is to be realistic about stress levels, which even the best of us may struggle to do. All we can do is continue to try and get better in the end.
I agree that stress isn't always bad, but in this climate I think it's important to know when to give up. This program has a lot of talented artists who are perfectionists. People who always strive for perfection tend to do better work, but at the cost of never being done. I think it is certainly a skill to throw your hands up in the air and say "close enough." That is one of the things I really like about theater is that we can get away with that (sometimes.) Of course, that isn't always true. I learned a little bit over the summer about the difference between Eu-stress and Distress. Eu-stress is the butterflies in your stomach showing that you care. Unfortunately, this often leads into distress, which is when you break down. Working on identifying the tipping point from Eu-stress to Distress is important.
Stress is a major motivator of mine, but it can quickly get out of hand and rise to unhealthy levels. Personally, I work better under pressure and stress because it accompanies outside expectations that need to be met. I don’t think stress itself is the problem, but how we are taught to handle it. Throwing yourself nonstop into your work as a response to stress leads to burnout, but giving up and quitting is usually not an acceptable response either. As seen in the article, stress can arise from overwork or underwork, and it is tempting to just shoot in the opposite direction without a thought, thus creating a bounce-back cycle of over- and under-stimulation. We need to learn how to respond to stress intuitively and consciously, without a knee-jerk reaction.
-Bridget Doherty
This article highlights the importance of embracing stress in a way that is both incredibly beneficial and detrimental. There is a balance, as with all things, where too much is not okay, and by saying that being stressed means you are committed, connected, and accepting challenge is fostering an environment where you are also saying that being overly stressed is not just normal but also beneficial to work, and I would highly disagree with that. While the author does add a quick disclaimer at the end of the article, the damage is already done because prior to it labeled stress as a sign of success. Signs of stress definitely should not be ignored, because they can lead to much bigger issues such as anxiety and depression. There is such thing as caring about your work and what you are putting out in the world, but that doesn’t mean you have to be stressed about it (even though we all either consciously or unconsciously are).
I always associate stress with negative feelings. Just saying the word stressed can make me stressed. I do like how this article talks about the ways healthy stress can be beneficial. I just don't think 'stress' and healthy should be together. I think passion and motivation are better words to use when talking about feeling the heat when it comes to deadlines for projects we are invested in. If I like the project and am invested in it with my mind and body, then the stress becomes more of a motivation to do good. It is less stress than it is passion. However, if I don't like the project or aren't invested in it completely, then passion becomes stress. Healthy stress stems from passion and motivation, whereas unhealthy stress stems from anxiety and feeling overwhelmed. I also like that this article talks about how healthy stress can change a person's mindset or actions towards a specific project. It could motivate you to find a new challenge for yourself, or to change the way you think about something that bothers you. Feeling anxious about an idea or person might just mean that you don't like it or them. It's nice to think about stress in a different context then working against the clock.
I think that I thrive in stressful situations or situations where I am consistently busy. Often though, and I think we all deal with this, the stress becomes more of a hinderance than a help, which is something that is described in this article. Something that seemed particularly interesting to me was the notion that stress is a sign that we need more challenge in our lives. I feel like I have experienced the kind of boredom stress that the article describes. Embracing this kind of stress and using its energy as a motivator to complete large projects is something that is discussed in the article. There is a very narrow boundary between this kind of stress and the stress that is overwhelming. That's the kind of stress the article describes as indicating a need for change. Following these feelings will help to manage ourselves, especially in an intensive program like the one we are all in.
I really appreciated this article. We often look at stress at a very extreme angle, like stress is bad in general and should be eliminated. While stress does become a wrecking force that stops people from living healthily and happily, a little stress is necessary and healthy. But in some ways, stress motivates you too. It keeps you going, pushing you to get through challenges. Sometimes it might get you to work just to get out of being stressed. Point 4 of the article, “it’s a sign that you need to change”, was especially meaningful to me. I hadn’t thought of it in this way. Stress can act as an indicator that you might need to change your methods or address a reoccurring problem that you seem to have. In short, makes you reflect. However, let’s not forget that at the same time, there are people who operate well under pressure/stress and people who don’t.
This article makes sense to me, and I agree with a lot of its points, but I think there is a bigger issue around stress in our country than this article gets into. Sure small amounts of stress can be a good indicator that something is not quite right in your world and you may need to make some course corrections to help alleviate it or figure out ways to control it and use it to your advantage, but this does not help with chronic stress that is due to factors out of your control. For people who are continually stressed, it can be hard to tell what those cues are trying to tell you. And quite often, this stress can be caused by things that you do not fully have command of, such as course load or work load. Granted, you could change your job or school, but for many people this is simply not an option. Stress culture is talked about a lot and people try to make it easier by giving tips and tricks to deal with it, but this is just addressing symptoms and not causes which is really what should be focused on. I don’t have an answer to this problem. I just think that it is the one we should be looking at instead.
This article makes very good points about how stress can be a good thing for us. To me, it basically says “If you are stressed out, you care.” I think it is smart for the article to also point out the negative aspects.
We at Carnegie Mellon in the School of Drama take on stress in many different capacities. We have school/class work, production work, and our own personal lives that feed into our overall stress. Some areas are more stressful than others, but the effect on our health is the same regardless. I think it is important for us as individuals to become more aware of what the ‘tipping point’ is for ourselves. Once we have an idea of what that is, I believe it becomes easier to manage our stress at a ‘normal’ level so we can still be productive and work in our very high paced environment.
I really appreciated this article, and even more that it was posted amongst a sea of arts news. I've often had friends and family tell me that my stress is always unhealthy, and it was reassuring and important to read that it doesn't always have to be a bad thing. My stress is something that drives me to succeed. Point number 1, a sign that you're committed, perfectly applies to me. I get stressed because I care so much about projects that I work on that I push myself to get work done and done well. The article discusses stress as a connection to others, because even as an "independent worker" there are always others involved in the process. As a theatre maker, I am a collaborator in everything I do, and so many other people in the process will be dependent on my work. That in itself stresses me out, but it's not negative stress—it is what pushes me to get it done. I do believe that there are negative stresses, and that overworking oneself exists. A healthy balance is important, and that can only be done when people are educated on their stress to be aware of it—this is why this article is so important.
This article was very interesting and gave insight on the good aspects of stress. I have been conditioned to see stress as a bad thing and when I started to read the article I was a little skeptical but as I kept on reading I realized stress cannot be a bad thing. "Good stress" can cause people to work harder and do better at what they are doing. To me, the bottom line of the entire article is that stress can and should be maintained because it can work for the betterment of an individual. The author ends the article with a statement that intrigued me and gave me a little bit of peace "The ideal is to avoid unnecessarily stressing about stress and pay attention to the positive signals it may be sending." Finding the point where stress can escalate into something that is unhealthy and recognizing when is very important and is a skill that we all have to develop. It something that happens over time and deciding not to ever go back down the scale is very helpful.
While I understand most of the points that this article is making about stress, I think it’s hard to relate it to our academic life in Purnell. Mainly because this article focuses on describing stress coming from one source, and in our passing through CMU we manage many sources of stress. We have our academic stress, classes and homework, we have our crew stress or production stress, and our personal life stress: all the other things we are neglecting because we are focusing on the previous two. However, understanding your stress sources can be one of the first steps to learn how to cope with it. Keeping in mind, and accepting that you won’t have it all together at all times, can help as well. Also, changing the perspective from “This stress is going to kill me” to “this stress is making me stronger” can improve your performance.
This TED Talk is complimentary to this article: https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend?referrer=playlist-the_most_popular_talks_of_all
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