Seek Out Eustress

EUSTRESS: a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

First coined by the pioneering Hungarian endocrinologist, Hans Selye, it consists of the Greek prefix “Eu”meaning good and “Stress.”  It literally means “good stress.” (The opposite is “Distress” or “bad stress.” It leads to negative symptoms like depression, illness and anxiety.)

We cultivate eustress when we seek out challenges, leave our comfort zones and grow as human beings.

Examples include learning a new skill, engaging in athletic competition, traveling to a foreign country, making a career change, and yep, you guessed it…

…Making our art.

Yes, it’s hard. Yes, we’ll have growing pains. Yes, we’ll feel stress.

But it’s the good kind. The Eustress.

Seek it out. As often as you can.