{"id":36050,"date":"2021-05-31T17:48:13","date_gmt":"2021-05-31T21:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=36050"},"modified":"2021-06-06T21:21:07","modified_gmt":"2021-06-07T01:21:07","slug":"can-stress-be-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/can-stress-be-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Stress Be Good? Experts Say We Need It to Grow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Can stress be good? How can experiencing stress help us grow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the book <em>Antifragile<\/em>, stress can be good. We benefit from stress because it helps us perfect our systems and find better ways to live and to cope. People will naturally rise to challenges and adapt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, can stress be good? Find out the answer below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Why Stress Can Be Good<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Modern life, in many ways, tries to remove the stress and randomness from life.<\/strong> We schedule our every move: when we work, when we eat, when we sleep, not to mention <em>how <\/em>we do all of those things. Even our entertainment is scripted and scheduled, like going to the bar after work and to movies on the weekends.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This process could be called <em>touristification<\/em>: Tourism is like adventure with all of the risk and unpredictability removed, and modern society tries to make us tourists in our own lives. Someone who doesn\u2019t take well to the touristification, who finds herself unhappy or unable to focus, will probably seek out medication to help herself fit in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The side effect of this lack of struggle is a lack of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-grow-as-a-person\/\">personal growth<\/a>, of artistic expression and in many cases, of valuable lessons. For example, one learns a language best by being immersed in it, by making mistake after mistake before learning <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-communicate-effectively\/\">how to communicate effectively<\/a>. However, to avoid that embarrassment and struggle, we teach languages in classrooms using books and rules, and we get much worse results.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>As complex living things, humans benefit from\u2014and secretly hunger for\u2014some amount of risk and chance.<\/strong> Someone who can\u2019t find the energy to go to a preplanned gym session could lift a car off of a trapped child, if need be. Someone who can\u2019t stick to a diet will skip meals quite easily if there\u2019s simply no food to be had.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/long-term-stress\/\">chronic stress<\/a> injury <\/em>happens when someone repeats the exact same movement too many times in a row, like walking on a randomness-free treadmill. A great deal of modern life consists of chronic stress injuries, both literal and metaphorical\u2014such as long-term dissatisfaction with one\u2019s job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In short, people will rise to naturally occurring challenges and grow stronger from them; conversely, they become weak and unfocused when the environment doesn\u2019t provide such challenges. This is part of why stress can be good and why we need it to thrive. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can stress be good? How can experiencing stress help us grow? According to the book Antifragile, stress can be good. We benefit from stress because it helps us perfect our systems and find better ways to live and to cope. People will naturally rise to challenges and adapt. So, can stress be good? Find out the answer below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":36053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,43],"tags":[295],"class_list":["post-36050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology","category-self-improvement","tag-antifragile","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Can Stress Be Good? Experts Say We Need It to Grow - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Can stress be good? Yes\u2014and in fact, stress may be a necessary part of how and we are able to grow and adapt. Read more.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/can-stress-be-good\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can Stress Be Good? Experts Say We Need It to Grow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Can stress be good? Yes\u2014and in fact, stress may be a necessary part of how and we are able to grow and adapt. Read more.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/can-stress-be-good\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-05-31T21:48:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-06-07T01:21:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/man-stressed-sunset.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"522\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/can-stress-be-good\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/can-stress-be-good\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Carrie Cabral\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2ababb7c63a94ff5d2190f71dc417d56\"},\"headline\":\"Can Stress Be Good? 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