Stress can charge you up instead of wearing you down

At a global financial firm, managers were reporting crippling fatigue, headaches, and back pain. Every quarterly review brought the same grim list of stress-related health claims—and with them plummeting performance metrics. HR started delivering standard "stress management" seminars, which reiterated harrowing facts: stress causes six of the leading causes of death, up to 90 percent of doctor visits are stress-related, and so on. Ironically, those sessions only darkened the mood—employees left clutching stress balls, stewing over each frightening statistic.

Enter a small Yale-led experiment to reframe the narrative. Instead of horror stories, employees watched brief video clips showcasing stress as a catalyst: surging adrenaline that boosts thinking speed, hormones that sharpen memory, and research proving that stress can speed recovery after surgery. A week later, fatigue dropped by 23 percent and productivity shot up nearly 30 percent—just by shifting the lens from "stress is toxic" to "stress is power."

Behind these results lies a simple principle from positive psychology: stress is neither friend nor foe in itself but a neutral energy source. How you interpret it determines its effect. By labeling stress as an ally rather than an enemy, you unlock reserves of focus, determination, and resilience—transforming every tight deadline, demanding meeting, and complex challenge into an opportunity to thrive.

Each time you feel stress, pause and label the feeling—alert, energized, or motivated. Then reconnect with its deeper meaning by asking why moving through this challenge is important to you, and say your own positive mantra (“This push fuels my growth!”) as you touch a daily cue, like your phone wallpaper. This simple reframing will help your brain see stress as a catalyst for success, not a barrier.