Stress enhances motivation While heightened stress can feel overwhelming and decrease motivation, a little bit can go a long way when it comes to kickstarting your work. “Medium levels of stress can enhance our motivation,” Gunthert says.

Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend Stress. It makes your heart pound, your breathing quicken and your forehead sweat. But while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case.

This Incredible TED Talk Shows How Changing Your Perception Of Stress Could Save Your Life. Kelly McGonigal YouTube/TED When Kelly McGonigal first told her audience that a belief in the harmful effects of stress — and not stress itself — was a serious health risk, many people laughed.

oxytocin
Some people have even suggested we should snort oxytocin… to become more compassionate and caring. But here’s what most people don’t understand about oxytocin. It’s a stress hormone.

Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal says that viewing stress more positively seems to encourage people to cope in ways that help them thrive. “Once you appreciate that going through stress makes you better at it, it can be easier to face each new challenge.”

My confession is this: I am a health psychologist, and my mission is to help people be happier and healthier. But I fear that something I’ve been teaching for the last 10 years is doing more harm than good, and it has to do with stress. Basically, I’ve turned stress into the enemy.

This stress actually supports us in moving forward and creating a new circle of friends. Stress triggers what has been termed ‘social approach behaviour’, which operates as a potent stress-buffering strategy in humans.