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All Stress is NOT Distress

all stress is not distress

All stress is not distress! Lead strategist from the Henry Wong Team® at Harcourts Beyond, real estate agent Henry Wong is explaining here the two different kinds of stress and how to manage them better.

“Hi, I’m Henry Wong. We’re here today to talk about stress. Now, we all go through different stresses in life, but I’m here to talk about two different kinds of stress.

You see, the most common form of stress that we associate with is called distress. So distress is negative stress. It’s when you’re feeling a bit anxious, you’re feeling a lot of concern about where things are going to go. You’re looking at things that may surpass your capabilities. There’s a lot of unpleasant feelings, so you could be stressed because of work. You could be stressed because of relationships. You could be stressed because, “Hey, look, I’m really worried I can’t get things done. I really don’t know what to do.” Or it could be, “Look, things aren’t going according to plan, I’ve just lost my job. There’s a lot of pressure.” That’s called distress.

There’s another form of stress, which you may or may not have heard. It’s called eustress. So when I said eustress, that’s E, U. Eustress is the positive form of stress. It’s a kind of stress where it’s usually last for short term. It’s a feeling of excitement. It’s perceived as something within of your coping capability and it energizes and motivates you. So an example of eustress could be, “Ah, look, I need to get things in order so that I can purchase my next car.” Or, “Let’s get things packed. Can’t wait to go into my new house.” Or, “Hey, I really can’t wait to organize all this things about the accommodation we’re going to book, where are we going to go to, the flights we’re going to do. Are we doing business class or economy class? Because I’m organizing things for my holiday and there’s a booking deadline.” That is called eustress. Have you heard of the saying, “Diamonds require pressure to be made”? That’s a form of eustress.

If you actually fill your life out more so with eustress, it becomes a lot more positive, you feel more upbeat, you get a lot more things done, you increase your performance. If you fill your life out with distress, you tend to not perform as well and things not going so well. So there you go. This is the two different definitions of stress. You have the distress, which is what we generally associate with. And then you have the eustress. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact me.”