Turn Bad Stress Good

Stress is inevitable these days, but did you know you could harness its power for the better?

- Becky Fletcher

From work deadlines, to travel stress, school holidays and family issues – sometimes it’s impossible to escape everyday tension. And you’re not alone in your suffering. A study of 10,000 people by healthcare company Bupa discovered that 44 per cent of us suffer from long-term stress and a quarter of those surveyed had felt that way for a whole year. Most of us exert energy trying to reduce stress, but what if we’ve got our tactics all wrong? Author of new book The Upside of Stress (Vermilion, £12.99), Stanford lecturer and award-winning psychologist Dr Kelly McGonigal believes, harnessed correctly, stress can make you smarter, stronger and more successful. ‘We’ve been brainwashed into believing feeling stressed out means we’ve screwed up, but that’s not how life works,’ she says. ‘The point of embracing stress is to reduce suffering when you can’t get rid of stress, which is a lot of the time,’ adds McGonigal. Instead of beating stress, maybe it’s time to manage it. Here’s what you need to know

THE GREAT STRESS MISCONCEPTION