Understanding Your Stress Gauge

Most people believe that Stress is Bad.

However, it really doesn't work like that in Humans.

See, Stress itself is neither Good nor Bad inherently.

Stress is more about Current Capacity and Totals.

See, All Stress Adds.

Every Human Being feels Stressors through their Life.

It is not Good or Bad, it is just a Fact of Life.

Even if you Felt that you had the Best Day of Your Life, and "Everything" went Perfectly, you would still have Stressors throughout that day.

The only thing that makes a Stressor Good or Bad is the Total Amount that you Experience.

When it comes to All Stressors, there are really Three Types we have.

What Humans do Not enjoy is known as Dis-Stress.

I like to think of this as the place Dis, also known as Hell.

Essentially, it is Hell-Stress.

This is when we experience Too Many Stressors at the same Time.

Your Total is Above Your Current Capacity.

From a Physiological level, you are expending Energy (Mg-ATP) Faster than you can Produce it and Fix Stress Damage (Oxidative Stress), and your Body goes into a "High-Alert"

When we Experience Dis-Stress for too long, we eventually hit Burnout.

On the other end of this, you have Low Stress, which most people call Recovery.

Here, our Total Stressors are much Lower than your Current Capacity, and our body can Fix Stress Damage (Oxidative Stress).

Most people don't get enough Recovery in their lives, but not everything is "Good" about this.

If we experience Low Stress for too long, we actually end up in Boredom which also has Negative Consequences for us as Humans.

This isn't the end of the story though.

In between Recovery and Dis-Stress, there is a Third Zone that is Important for us to Understand.

This is generally called Eu-Stress, or Good-Stress.

What happens here is that our Total Stressors fall into an "Ideal" Zone for Growth.

This is the Zone you want to get to for Flow States, where Humans experience the Best Performance in Any Endeavor.

However, we can't be in this Zone forever.

If we try to stay in this Zone for too long, eventually our Stressors begin to Add Up, specifically, Stress Damage (Oxidative Stress) Accumulates, and we will begin to push into Dis-Stress.

So, what is the Ideal for Humans?

We should aim to move back and forth between Eu-Stress (ideally Flow States) and Recovery (after Accumulating an amount of Stress Damage).

Really, this should be happening multiple times per day.

You can think of this all as a Gauge.

To get to Flow States, you want to feel some Pressure, but not too much Pressure.

If you feel too much Pressure, you know that you're moving into Dis-Stress and you need to lower the Pressure a bit.

When you hit the Flow State, you will not "feel" Pressure in either direction, it's a function of how Flow works.

However, once your Flow State ends, you will start to Feel the Pressure again which becomes a sign that you must get Recovery.

There is one last thing you must Understand about this Stress Gauge to Maximize your Efforts.

The Gauge itself is a Moving Target.

Every Day, and even between hours at times, these Zones will move.

For instance, yesterday I experienced a "Lot" of Stressors due to Taxes.

I'm good at doing them, I just do Not enjoy working with numbers.

So today, my Zones are lower than typical days.

This means I need more Recovery today, and have to put fewer Stressors on myself.

If I were to attempt to hit my "Normal" Zones today, I would end up putting myself into Dis-Stress.

If I get the proper Recovery today and still put myself into the Eu-Stress Zone (as I do with my writing), then Tomorrow I should be closer to my "Normal".

Play in the Proper Eu-Stress/Recovery Zones for yourself, and over time your Average Stress Capacity will Increase!

To be at your Best, you always have to understand where your Zones are during a Particular moment.

The better you understand the Zones, the more you can accomplish in a Healthy way.

In the long run, this will allow you to get Significantly more Results than others, while also allowing you to feel significantly better.