STANFORD, Calif., May 14 (UPI) -- For decades, researchers have repeated the notion that stress is hard on the human mind and body. And while some still hold that view, at least one health psychologist now believes stress can be extremely healthy -- if you handle it correctly.
The psychologist, Kelly McGonigal, says as much in a new book titled, "The Upside of Stress: Why stress is good for you, and how to get good at it," which was reviewed Wednesday by the Financial Times.
A teacher at Stanford University, McGonigal encountered indicators a few years ago that suggested stress is only bad for you only if you allow it to be.
"Stress is harmful, except when it's not," she says in the book. "Choosing to see the upside in our most painful experiences is part of how we can change our relationship with stress."
Some might think that's an unusual concept, but experts say it's hardly surprising once we are reminded how much power the mind holds over our lives.
The key in preventing damage, she says, is understanding the stress. The book says many people deal with stress by unsuccessfully trying to ignore or suppress it. That, McGonigal notes, is what invites harm.
However, she argues, recognizing why you are stressed, accepting it and becoming motivated to overcome it brings extremely healthy benefits. In fact, McGonigal cites scientific research that suggests people who live with normal stress but do not view it negatively are the healthiest people of all.
Also, the book says, many people make the mistake of viewing stress as something to avoid rather than acknowledge: She says the proper mentality is to realize you're stressing over something you care about something.
That, she says, invites good.
"You don't stress out about things you don't care about, and you can't create a meaningful life without experiencing some stress," McGonigal writes.
Undoubtedly, one person's stresses may differ from another's, and it is universally agreed that stresses carry significant potential to harm. But, McGonigal says, at least some of the old research on the subject may be invalid -- an apples-to-oranges comparison.
Hungarian endocrinologist Hans Selye performed extensive research on mice in the 1930s, to study the rodents' behavior when they experience stress. His conclusion was that the mice responded badly from the experiment -- the implication being that if stress is bad for mice, it is likely bad for humans.
However, McGonigal illustrates, Dr. Selye's experiments on the animals included stresses like random electric shocks and near drowning -- extreme traumas that human beings will likely never experience.
"It's not that the research that stress is harmful is all wrong. But it really needs to be put in context," McGonigal told the Washington Post this month. "That science is largely based on animal studies that are largely based on a model of torturing animals -- depriving them of social contact, restraining them."
McGonigal's book suggests a three-step process for people to start experiencing good stress.
First, acknowledge the stress when it sets in. Second, welcome the stress by understanding that it's an extension of something you care about. And third, make use of the energy it gives you.
"Trust your human capacity to transform stress into something good -- compassion, hope, meaning," she said.
Better handling of stress, she says, "could even mean the difference between having a heart attack at 50 or living into your nineties."
Also, McGonigal makes clear that you shouldn't feel bad if you can't process some stresses positively -- because it's not a 'one stress fits all' solution.
"You shouldn't force a positive interpretation on every instance of suffering," she writes.
"When stress feels against your will and out of your control, if it's completely devoid of meaning and if it isolates you from others, that's ... a toxic relationship to stress."
