Does Stress Have Positive Sides?

Most people think that stress leads to more negative consequences and perceive stress as totally negativity. The reason for this idea is that stress is seen as the underlying cause of many problems such as psychical and psychological diseases, and neurologic traumas but this kind of stress is chronic. Some experts say that stress is divided into two: positive stress and negative stress. This positive stress is called “eustress”.

The most important positive aspect of stress is that stress is a source of motivation. According to research on the relationship between academic stress and course point, although students have negative thoughts about their future, this academic stress leads them to success and get good marks. Some researches show that academic stress, which was seen as a threat, has made students more motivated and have had to do their best for their academic future. Stress puts pressure on the person and enables the person to achieve what he/she wants to achieve and motivates the person in this way. 

Second, stress can strengthen memory and help the person to learn quickly. When the person is under stress, the neurons in the brain work to reduce the stress. The brain releases cortisone hormones during stressful times. This hormone, which is harmful in case of extreme stress, alarms the hippocampus region of the brain against stress in times of balanced stress. Thus, the hippocampus stores the stress and events as memories and goes into the process of remembering. In this case, the memory of the person can improve and strengthen under balanced stress. What’s more, some studies claim that memory works better during stressful times and students achieve better success during these times.

        Another positive effect of stress is that the person becomes more social and learns to share problems with others to solve them. The fact that the person is in a difficult situation during stressful periods makes the person feel the need to tell someone about his/her problems. When a person tells his/her problems to someone else, stress gives the person an instinct to share their problems with someone else. In this case, the person tends to socialize in stressful times, avoiding negative thoughts and learning to cope with stress. According to some studies, stress enables a person to make more friends in difficult times and makes friendships strong. The person starts to trust people around him/her more in difficult times and does not have as much difficulty in mentioning his/her problems to someone as in the normal period. Stress allows a person to rely on others to cope with difficulties. Sharing problems and negative thoughts with someone also helps to reduce stress. 

        Additionally, stress makes the brain more active and solution-oriented. Being active in the brain, which is a positive side effect of stress, helps the brain cope with negative thoughts and lets the person manage stress easily. Thanks to the alarming hormones released during stress, the brain works solution-oriented by helping the person focus on the problems. This stress-related activity helps a person to have a positive view of the negative thoughts of others in his/her normal life and allows the person to touch other people's stressful processes. In addition, the alertness of the brain is effective in revealing negative and positive thoughts and focusing on the positive ones.