Eustress, the Good Stuff

“Eustress is a term that is sometimes referred to as Good Stress.  Rather than being the root cause for discomfort or emotional stress, Eustress motivates people to continue moving forward and enjoy actions and events that require some effort but ultimately provide a great deal of satisfaction. The term appears to have originated with Hans Style, an endocrinologist who wrote about the affects of stress on the mind and the body.”

Just as there are many stressful situations that can lead to the development of depression, anxiety, and apathy, there are also types of Eustress that promote general emotional and physical well being. Physical exercise is an excellent example of this kind of good stress.

There are other examples of Eustress that many people encounter throughout their lives. All of them ultimately provide some degree of happiness and well being. Graduating from high school or college, the birth of children, and securing a highly desirable job are all events that come with some amount of stress, but ultimately provide a positive emotions that help people to find meaning and value in life.”   From Wise Geek

I hold that the types of lives we lead from living in the box causes bad stress and living from inspiration causes good stress. When we choose  the path that best expresses who we are, we are  living up to our own expectations. When we live the lives others expect us to lead, we are living up to their expectations. In the box we usually set goals that once achieved will make us happy and then we can be proud of ourselves.

We start life in the box.  Being raised by our parents, going to school, getting a job. These are all on the normal path. It comes with expectations because we are always living up to someone elses expectations, parents, teachers, bosses.

If along the way we connect with why we are here and that we are part of a much larger scheme and the best way to become part of it is to express appreciation and who we are, there is less bad stress and more good stress. The quicker we realize that we are not what we do and what we achieve, the less stress we will have with our identity and others’ expectations. We are here to be happy everyday. We are here to be happy because we are alive and perfect and just a player in a very big drama. We are here to live inspired everyday.