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Much of how we experience life—good or bad—is what we choose to make it. People perceive life, and react to it, in widely different ways.
You probably know people who seem stressed all the time. Plus others who have ups and downs, but are able to adapt and get by each day. And, hopefully, some who actually seem to thrive on life.
Obviously, those are drastically different ways for people to spend their time on earth. Instead of being a victim of worry, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could become more aware of how we think about stress, and choose to make a change for the better?
We can. You can. Starting now.
How We Think About Stress
Evidence shows that how we think about stress can change our life.
Kelly McGonigal is a health psychologist at Stanford University. In a TED Talk she made famous, she talks about a research study that made her rethink her approach about stress. Conducted by scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the study analyzed 30,000 American adults for 8 years to find the relationship between stress and health.
Interestingly, it turned out that the biggest factor was not how much stress a person had. It was whether or not they believed that stress was harmful to their health or not! In fact, the group with the lowest risk of dying actually experienced a lot of stress—but they did not view stress as harmful. They came out better even than people who had relatively little stress.
We can improve our health—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—by changing how we think!
Understanding Our Set-Point
There is strong evidence that how we think about stress is critical. I’ve done the research for you and even earned Facilitator Certification for “Resilience and Thriving” from the National Wellness Institute (NWI) in a course by Organizational Wellness & Learning Systems (OWLS).
There were many great tools and methodologies in the course, but one that stuck with me was the concept of “set-point.” In our personal life and at work, we all relate to stress at different levels; some of us are always distressed while others actually thrive on stress.
Our set-point is our baseline for expected happiness, or the emotional level we return to after positive or negative experiences. This set-point can be measured in the 5 ascending levels of distress, tension release, adapting, effective coping, and thriving.
We all adjust ourselves and our expectations, sort of like changing a thermostat. This works for positive and negative experiences, and we are all different in how we react to and manage stress.
Some of us develop a set-point of distress. Even if positive experiences happen, we return to that original negative level. Others expect more from life. When bad things happen, we learn to cope effectively, perhaps even thrive. Our set-point—how we experience life—is higher.
It turns out that how we think about stress can change everything!
Changing How We Think
We can learn to change how we think about stress.
We start by deciding that stress is not an enemy to be feared, but an inevitable part of life we can treat as an opportunity. And we can become more aware of how we have subconsciously established our set-point, and become intentional about raising it.
There are more ways to change how we think about stress in these STEPS Journey Blog articles:
- “Adjusting Our Perspective”– Learn to surrender our reliance on outcomes, our expectations of others, and our compulsion for happiness.
- “When Life Is Not Perfect” – Determine that we will alter our expectations, adjust our perspective, adapt our approach, count our blessings, and take eternity into account.
- “From Positive Thinking to Positive Living” – Make the deliberate choice to take back control of our internal conversations and adjust negative thinking to be more positive.
We can change how we think about stress and adjust how we experience life on a day-to-day basis. Our set-point doesn’t have to be a life of quiet desperation. Instead, we can learn to thrive!
Question: Are you willing to work at adjusting the set-point you subconsciously set for your life?
Action: Choose to change how you think about stress, and then work on it one day at a time.
