Book review for The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It by Kelly McGonigal

Synopsis: What is stress? It is how we react when something in our life is threatened. If you experience too much you death risk can increase. But that’s only if you view stress as a negative. People who don’t view it as a negative have a very low risk of death because “mind over matter.” Being positive can be beneficial since it impacts how healthy you are because it plays a large role in our feelings, behaviors, and thoughts.

The book discusses how different stress responses help us connect, age, and grow. While fight or flight has its place, stress can help us work through challenges and become better people. The author writes that when life is stressful, it frequently is more meaningful. Even thinking about stress differently can help us cope with it. Resilient individuals can recognize that life goes on, no matter how stressful things get because more often than not, they went through hard times in the past. The author includes many examples and studies to back up her points.

So how do we benefit from our anxieties? Embrace them. Repeating positive mantras channels stress and turns it into strength. Embracing it can prevent us from getting into the anxiety-avoidance cycle. And when we have real interactions with other, stress becomes something different. It turns into knowledge, confidence, and courage. So, a better way to deal with stress is to reach out to other people.

When we see the ways stress can benefit us, we can bounce back from it more effectively. So, when we take a moment to evaluate how the situation is ultimately good for us, thinking through the problem at hand will help us better deal with the stress and help us in the future. While I enjoyed this book, the author’s Ted Talk was also good. To read this book in its entirety, get it here.

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