Managing Stress

Stress is good for you. Ultimately stress should go up and down, and some stress every day is healthy; it builds resilience. What is not good for your body is DISTRESS, which is chronic stress overload from continuous, over the top, stress. FET teaches us that stress balanced with recovery helps you grow.

• Things that push us the most often help us the most. Full engagement requires that energy expenditure be balanced with intermittent energy recovery. Pushing ourselves outside our comfort level allows us to expand our capacity.
• Stress affects student achievement. It is well known that chronic stress contributes to over half of all school absences (Johnston-Brooks, et al. 1998). The ways to reduce this in the classroom include more physical activity, greater sense of control, including decision-making, responsibility and improved coping skills.
• Chronic stress has gender differences. This plays out in academic performance and internal distress (Pomerantz, Eva M.: Altermatt, Ellen Rydell; Saxon, Jill L.). Girls outperform boys in school, but paradoxically, girls are also more vulnerable to internal distress (depression, anxiety, etc.) than boys.
• Chronic stress levels can be reset in your body, like a thermostat. Homeostasis only happens sometimes. The longer you are in any physiological state (e.g. depression, anger, happiness), the more stable that state becomes. That is why, if you become depressed, you should get help immediately.
• Chronic stress can lead to weight gain. The more stressed you get (especially chronic stress); the harder it is to regulate your weight. Your brain constantly is sending you the message” to prepare for dealing with stress” by eating more.

Learn more about managing work-place stress, click here.