Achievements, Travel, Weddings, and Newborns: The Complex Nature of Eustress
Stress. We all have it. We all avoid it and live with it all at once. Daily stress, major life stress, past stress, future stress.
Even just typing the word stress repeatedly is making me a little anxious.
Stress is unhealthy. We all know this. It kills us. Literally. It is (or should be) the top health concern of humanity aside from our unalterable (for now) genetics. Stress is bad; it is all bad, all of it. We hate it. Evil, evil stress!
Or, at least, we categorize it that way most of the time, but stress is an umbrella term for both distress and eustress. Distress — that’s what we understand stress to be all the time. Stress is distress! But then what exactly is this odd-sounding eustress business?
Eustress is a positive kind of stress.
It is the stress of dealing with the often happy and momentous occasions of our lives; it is the stress that follows accomplishments, new experiences, celebrations, and family transitions.
