Optimizing Stress to Fuel Success

Everybody is familiar with the negative consequences of experiencing too much stress in daily life, from feeling "burnt out," choking under pressure, to frequent illnesses. Contrary to common beliefs, though, not all stress is bad for you. In fact, without experiencing stress people would not leave the safety of their comfort zones, thus abandoning goals and limiting innovation. Advancing one's education, tackling difficult assignments at work, resolving relationship problems, or welcoming a new member to one's family all require actively addressing demanding stressors.

The centrality of stressful experiences in the process of personal growth, however, does not align with typical, negative ideas about the nature of stress. As a result, rather than using stress responses to support goal attainment, people spend countless hours and resources avoiding stressors and minimizing stress responses. Relying primarily on stress avoidance and mitigation to resolve demanding situations can accumulate into poorer health, stunt personal growth, and lead to "stress about being stressed."

Stress is Not Inherently Negative

Researchers define stress as "the nonspecific response of the body to any demand made upon it." This means that stress can be bad, good, or even neutral. The focus on bodily responses suggests that psychological experiences of stress impact how a person responds biologically, and highlighting concepts of demands indicates that stress responses are directed at specific, wide-ranging stressors, such as taking a difficult exam, interviewing for a job, resolving an argument with one's partner, or even the pressure that accompanies posting content to social media. Research from my lab and those of my colleagues is grounded in a biopsychosocial (BPS) approach, which emphasizes the multifaceted nature of stress and stress responses and provides a framework for understanding how psychological factors can shape stress responses.
At the core of this approach is the idea that people appraise whether they can handle the stressors they face. People take stock of how demanding the stressors are, including how evaluative of the self they are, how much effort and time might be required, and whether the situation is familiar or not. People also take stock of their resources, including their knowledge and skills, prior experiences and expertise, and social supports.

Weighing Demands Against Resources

How a person weighs demands against resources produces either challenge or threat.

• Challenge is experienced when one feels that resources outweigh demands, so that one says "I can handle this." Interestingly, challenge responses are often not thought of as stress responses. For instance, people do not say they are stressed when experiencing excitement. 
• Threat is felt when demands are perceived as exceeding resources, leading to changes in the body designed to help protect a person from harm and defeat. This experience is what people most often label as "stress."

Over the past several years, stress researchers have sought to spread the word about challenge versus threat stress responses to help people function better in pressurized situations. A key component of this messaging is that people can thrive and grow not despite stress, but because of it. Stress can be fuel for achievement and perseverance. Thus, instead of just focusing on coping with stress or "getting by," people can also focus on engaging with stress—leading to thriving and "optimizing."

A Real-Life Demonstration

To illustrate, consider a community college student facing coursework that will shape their future educational attainment. If the student passes the course, they can matriculate to more advanced coursework, learn needed skills, and earn their degree. If the student fails, their educational journey ends and avenues for employment are more limited. Thus, exams can present substantial demands for these students.

Recent research by our group demonstrated potential benefits of stress optimization approaches in community college students. First, we measured their classroom performance and physiological indicators, and then we gave them our "optimization" advice immediately before a classroom exam. We guided some students to think of their body's stress responses (racing heart, sweaty palms, rapid breathing) as useful resources that help them perform their best by delivering more oxygen to their brains and releasing growth-supportive hormones. Our post-exam measures showed improved physiological stress functioning during the exam in the students who received our advice. Furthermore, they also performed better on their exam and exhibited better study practices in the remainder of the course.

Here, we focused on studying community college students partly because of their heightened anxieties about performing in an academic setting. There remains much we do not yet know about who might benefit the most from the kind of reframing we offered them. Stress optimization is not a "silver bullet" that solves all problems of stress and is not applicable to all stressors. Instead, it is a targeted approach aimed at encouraging people to "lean into" their stress responses and use those as fuel to help them achieve in pressurized evaluative situations.

For Further Reading

Crum, A. J., Jamieson, J. P., & Akinola, M. (2020). Optimizing stress: An integrated intervention for regulating stress responses. Emotion, 20(1), 120–125. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000670

Jamieson, J. P., Black, A. E., Pelaia, L. E., Gravelding, H., Gordils, J., & Reis, H. T. (2022). Reappraising stress arousal improves affective, neuroendocrine, and academic performance outcomes in community college classrooms. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 151(1), 197-212. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000893.

Yeager, D. S., Bryan, C. J., Gross, J. J., Murray, J. S., Krettek Cobb, D., HF Santos, P., ... & Jamieson, J. P. (2022). A synergistic mindsets intervention protects adolescents from stress. Nature, 607(7919), 512-520. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04907-7

Jeremy Jamieson is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Rochester and studies how social stressors impact our emotions, decisions, and performance.