by Kathy Mann, Author & Speaker
Have you ever experienced the positive push of stress where you shine in a way you never thought possible? Researchers call this the challenge stress response, designed for optimum performance. It is responsible for the butterflies you feel in your stomach before a big presentation. It is responsible for the surge of energy you feel just before a big deadline. It enables you to get a lot done in a short time. The challenge response is a gift; a blessing and I personally love the feeling.
It is common to hear about how stress triggers illness, how stress damages our health and how stress kills. It is less common to hear about how stress helps us although we have all felt this at least once in our lives. We are physiologically designed to operate under stress and it is stress that has enabled us to achieve some of our greatest accomplishments in life. When we reach for something and push ourselves outside of our comfort zones, stress is along for the ride. When adversity strikes and things don’t go the way we want them to, we feel stressed. And yet these are the situations from which we grow and learn the most.
I’m fascinated by stress and it has become my life passion to write about it, speak about it and teach people how to harness it. This passion comes from developing a lifelong stress-induced autoimmune disease. For a few years, I wanted to warn people about the dangers of stress to prevent the suffering that I endured. I wanted to save people from this experience but eventually I realised that it was a catalyst for a much better life.
After a lot of research and introspection, I came to realise that stress is really there to help us. I learnt about things like the challenge response, that has a different physiological footprint from its better-known ugly sister, fight-or-flight. The ratio of the hormones cortisol to adrenaline that are released during the challenge response are different from a fight-or-flight experience. Our brains and bodies know that we are not in mortal danger when we are about to give a client presentation. Our physiology is in fact doing all it can to boost us to perform at our best.
And yet we fight it so much. We are uncomfortable in the feeling and we resist what our bodies are trying to offer us. In the past few years, I have learnt to ride the wave of stress. I’ve learnt to harness the energy it offers me and to use it in a positive way. I acknowledge what is happening in my body. I use the energy to take action in a way that is aligned with my values and goals. My relationship with stress has shifted to a place of empowerment and it makes me feel a lot more resilient.
Much of my work entails encouraging people to see stress differently as it has made a big difference in the way I feel. I still get stressed and have bad days but I’m much more confident in my ability to handle adversity. I’d like to encourage you to embrace the challenge response the next time you experience it. When you feel those butterflies, thank them and step into the challenge ahead of you. When you feel that push of energy as you confront a big deadline, thank your physiology for giving you this strength to achieve something important. Even if you just begin by recognising it when it happens, eventually you may come to love it as I do.
Kathy Mann is an author and speaker with a special interest in stress management. She is passionate about guiding people towards their best lives possible in harnessing their strengths and innate talents. She offers a stress re-framing service, which shifts beliefs to be more constructive around stress. She does this by educating her clients about the variety of stress responses that exist and how we can benefit from them. Kathy's books Avoiding Burnout and Harnessing Stress are available at major retailers and online at Amazon. She is a wife and mother of two beautiful daughters and lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.
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