There are numerous scientific studies that show stress is very harmful for people’s long term mental and physical health as explained in this article – Wellness Solutions. But, there are also numerous other studies that show stress is beneficial to you. In fact, some studies show that stress can make you feel more happier and healthier. Why?
There are several reasons. Here are some beneficial reasons why!
1. Stress is important for growth
In the human body, some tissues are only stimulated or triggered by stress. One good example where stress is important for growth is muscle building. To build muscle, you have to bring stress on the muscle fibre so it can stimulate growth. It does this by damaging the muscle fibre on a microscopic level so new stronger muscle fibre can replace the damaged muscle fibre. As a result, the new muscle fibre is much more bigger and stronger than the previous muscle.
2. Stress forces you to change bad habits
Any stress, particularly mental stress is not a good psychological feeling to have. The first thing that your body does when it is confronted with stress is to avoid it. This is a good thing because it forces you to change your bad habits. For instance, if you are always running late for work and always getting told off by the boss is mentally stressful. Hence, to avoid mental stress, you need to wake up early and be more punctual for work which forces you to change your habits. If we don’t get stressed at all, then we continue to have bad habits. This can be detrimental in the long term if we don’t do anything about our bad habits because we don’t improve.
3. Stress is a good motivator
Whenever you want to complete something or get something done, you feel stress. If you don’t feel stressed at all, you will never get things done. For instance, if you forget to get some ingredients for dinner or you need to complete an assignment for class, the feeling of stress will make you complete the task. Absence of stress causes you not to be reminded of it, and as a result, you might not have dinner or you fail your course.
4. Stress releases natural happy hormones (serotonin)
When your body encounters stress, your body releases natural hormones called Serotonin. Serotonin is a natural hormone that makes you happy. But, if the body is exposed to prolonged stress, it can have the opposite effect.