Understanding Anxiety: When Does Anxiety Become Good for Your Health?

Helen Holmes December 13, 2011

Did you know that anxiety can be good for your health too?

Are you always tensed and nervous when dealing with other people or doing things you don’t usually do? Did you feel the pressure during the first time you got promoted? How did you react? Did you experience having butterflies on your stomach when you were invited to speak in front of many people? Were you able to handle the situation?

On her latest article published in Daily Mail UK, the editor of Marie Claire Magazine Liz Jones shared us her own experience about anxiety. She said ‘a surgeon told me: ‘I had a patient this morning who asked me if I ever get nervous before performing an operation. I told her: “If I didn’t, I should stop doing operations altogether.” ‘Anxiety focuses your mind and makes sure you never treat an operation as routine... I’d be very concerned about a laid-back surgeon. I’d assume they simply treated patients as pieces of meat. For me, the day I stop feeling nervous is the day I stop operating’.

Anxiety can be GOOD for You!

New study found out that stress and anxiety can be good for you in some ways. It can even become your driving force to succeed and excel on what you do.

Experts categorise stress into two – the Challenge Stress and Threat Stress. The first one is what’s good for us. If you treat anxiety and stress as a challenge, you do your best to fight it back. For example, if you feel nervous because you have been assigned to handle a bigger role in your company, you make every effort to improve your skills so you can meet the expectations of your boss. There’s a scientific explanation for this. Whenever you’re scared, worried, or stressed, your brain signals your adrenaline glands to produce hormones that make your entire body alert. One of which is the hormone called cortisol. As the amount cortisol in your body rises, you mental and physical alertness reach its peak.

But if you get Threat stress instead of Challenge stress, your body reacts negatively that you find it harder to control yourself. You may experience anxiety symptoms including difficulty in breathing, abnormal perspiration, upset stomach, and body pain. This will stray you away from focusing on your work, making you less productive.

Fact: Top Professions Bear Anxiety to Succeed

Ask other people and you’re likely to hear them say that stress is bad for your health. This is a myth. Here’s the fact. If you don’t feel pressured, there’s a tendency that you don’t always give it your best shot. In fact, many people in top professions are not laid-back, chilled, super-confident types. There’s always pressure on the most difficult fields. They feel tense and worried about the outcome of their work so what they do to ensure success or survival is to do their best.

Managing Your Stress

There’s no problem if the stress you experience is the Challenge stress. Otherwise, it can negatively affect your day to day life. The key to combating the adverse effects of stress is to learn how to manage it. Here are some ways to effective manage your stress:

It is important that you identify your stress levels. You should also know when to pursue and when to stop.
Organize your thoughts. Know what your day to day targets are.
Take time to relax. Life is not all about work.
Manage your life well. Give enough time for family, friends, and work.
Maintain a healthy lifestyle.

You can never get away from stress and anxiety. But you can always control them and live a normal and happier life.