Types of Stress – Eustress

Did you know there are different types of stress—and what’s more, there is a “good” type of stress?

Psychologists tell us that there are two types of stress—stress and eustress.

Eustress is a positive and useful kind of stress and is usually experienced during positive events in our lives—such as a wedding, birth of a baby, getting a promotion, winning a contest, meeting a life time goal, etc.  Eustress can also motivate us to do our best and push us toward success in our life.

Eustress may make you feel anxious, but it’s more a feeling of expectancy than dismay. We are likely to feel eustress during a job interview or when going on a first date.  These are events that may make us feel uncertain, but the outcome is not harmful to us.

This is “good” stress that represents moving toward something unknown but that will likely have a good outcome.

In the opposite, stress results in fear, anxious feelings, despair and an overwhelming sense of foreboding or dread.

An example of negative stress is job burnout which results from working in a stressful environment for an extended period of time.  Constant exposure to unreasonable demands and expectations on the job always results in negative stress.

While eustress is useful, stress is useless and is a prelude to heart attacks, emotional illness and autoimmune diseases.

Have you ever noticed that you’re more likely to catch the flu or a cold when you’re living under constant stress?  This is further proof that stress weakens your immune system and drains its ability to resist viruses and bugs.

So, how do you identify what type of stress you experience most often?

It may be very helpful to evaluate your stress patterns in a journal by answering these questions:

1.    What causes your stress?
2.    Where are you when you experience stress?
3.    Who are you with ?
4.    What activities are you involved in?

Documenting your answers to these questions and exploring your stress patterns will give you the ability to change your exposure to stress or your reaction to it.  You’ll also be better able to identify whether you’re dealing with eustress or regular stress.

Learn to identify the types of stress you experience and this alone will change the way your body reacts to each type of stress.