“Desserts” spelled backward is “stressed.”Isn’t life like that? Even the good things in life—fine wine, rich food, sex—can stress you out.

There is just no escaping stress, and some experts even suggest that a little stress is good for you. In my view, that idea is flawed—the misleading result of ­averaging data across many individuals. Yes, high levels of stress are harmful to most people, adversely ­affecting health, mood and productivity. And yes, most people perform and feel better when faced with moderate levels of stress. And sure, very few people know how to be productive when they are not being pushed by stressors—but it can be done. Just as some people are able to perform well under highly stressful conditions (think Olympic athletes), it is also possible to perform well when relaxed (think masters of kung fu). That should be the goal, in my opinion: a life that is productive but also virtually stress-free.

This article was originally published with the title Fight the Frazzled Mind.

4 Comments

1. 1. lirael 12:41 AM 8/27/11

   My experience has been, that avoiding stress can be stressfull in itself and that the amount of stress I could handle decreased. I wouldn't be surprised if Kung Fu masters have 'simply' learned to deal with stress effectively.

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2. 2. mesmoiron 02:16 AM 8/27/11

   My experience is twofold I either work in my mediative mode (the best for me) or I have a stressed mode with is more prone to mediocer work. Some say that bipolarity has something to do with it. But when properly managed the flow of uptime with a mediative mind is both a boost for creativity, problem solving and virtuosity. The drawback is; it is impossible to create the same conditions in the office setting. Maybe indeed some people have to be pushed to do something, whereas I belong to the self driven group. Like artist who are responsible for the beginning and the end of their work. It prevents alienation of the self; something hardly anyone talks about.
   
   Stress can induce a lot of disfunction and when it strikes a person than it also causes disfunction in communication with others. Memory loss, changing of the voice, mimics of the eyes and face, all kinds of symptoms that won't work for the better. Maybe stress became chronic in a way because we are the only species that have taught ourselves to stay put under stressfull situations. Whereas all wild animals flee when they can to avoid interaction. That is not counted the specific situations when they do look for confrontations.

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3. 3. Chris Miller 04:10 PM 9/16/11

   It seems to me that if you can spare 30 minutes a day to sit quietly and think of nothing, your life really isn't all that stressful.

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4. 4. bucketofsquid 05:20 PM 9/19/11

   Stress is part of life and avoiding stress is avoiding life. In a modern industrial society most stress is self induced and imposed by outside standards of "success". Meeting the basic requirements of life does not require a high power job or a highly skilled career. We choose to create expectations for ourselves and stress when we can't meet these expectations. If you ate today and have shelter from the weather you are successful. Anything beyond that is self imposed requirement and means little to nothing. I have a lot of stress because I set very high requirements for myself and rarely meet them.
   
   The only legitimate causes of stress are real threats to survival. Threats to social status are irrelevant.

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