Are Stress Effects Always Bad?
Everyone will agree that “stress” is not a pleasant feeling. However, there are some psychologists who think that stress can have helpful effects in some situations. So, what is stress exactly? Can it actually be a good thing? Why the ambiguity? The answers to these questions lie in how each individual person evaluates his or her own intellectual and physical condition, as well as on the circumstances that induce stress.
There are in fact two meanings of the word “stress” that occasionally get mingled as one. One refers purely to the sensitive consciousness and the physiological symptoms produced by stress. The other is in effect, the same as the combination of anxiety and the symptoms previously mentioned. This last one can have noxious health effects, since those symptoms can actually be physically harmful. But given that we are both mind and body, and the two facets influence one another, the psychological element remains just as important.
So, when is stress “good” and when it is potentially harmful? The following example may help to understand the differences…
Picture two individuals: one a title holding skier in the Olympics ready to take his turn in the finals of the downhill competition, the other a university senior about to take a final examination. The athlete has been training for the Olympics very hard for many years of his life and is prepared, physically and emotionally, for the contest; on the other hand, the senior student has not studied very much for the important test he is about to take.
As you can imagine, both individuals will suffer from stress one way or another but at the same time, stress won’t have the same effect on each of them.
Do you want to know how stress will affect the skier and the student ? You can check it out in the article Effects of Stress at Stress-Relief-and-Management.com