I talk so much about the detriments of stress, you probably believe I think ALL stress of ANY kind is bad and should be obliterated from your life.
That’s actually NOT true, and here’s why.
Our body’s capable of a stress response for a reason. Our stress response is not “bad” in and of itself.
What’s bad is when we live with high stress levels for prolonged periods of time, which most people in today’s world do, even though we’re not literally out in the jungle fighting for our lives. Our bodies were never meant to exist at sky-high stress levels 24/7. When we live in a high-stress state a majority of the time, it wears out our adrenals and breeds disease, obesity, and problems with our mental and emotional health.
But that doesn’t mean ALL stress is bad for you ALL the time.
Putting ourselves under smaller amounts of intermittent, healthy forms of stress can actually be GOOD for us. We can grow and develop physically, mentally, and emotionally by challenging ourselves with healthy forms of stress.
Take, for example, cold showers.
They don’t feel very good even on hot days, but cold showers put your body under a GOOD kind of stress. They reduce inflammation, kill off weak mitochondria, and wake you up. Your body rises to the challenge.
Exercise is another kind of good stress. (Disclaimer: We do not exercise for weight loss on Code Red, because you do not need ANY exercise to lose all the weight you want. Exercise has several benefits, but it is not a way to address a weight problem.)
When done safely, exercise reduces negative stress, combats depression, challenges your muscles so you become fitter and stronger, and helps your cardiovascular system get stronger.
Provided you don’t let it get out of hand, good stress can also come in the forms of competition, deadlines, sales commissions, games, and getting outside your comfort zone in a variety of situations, to name just a handful of examples.
Without enough GOOD stress in your life, you start settling, getting complacent, and falling into a rut – in your life, your job, your relationships, and of course, your health.
If your physical wellness isn’t what you want it to be, you probably have too much negative stress, and not enough good stress.
Flip that stress scale the other way, by reducing (and processing) negative stress, and finding simple ways to infuse some good stress into your life!
Have you created your free Code Red Lifestyle™ network account yet? If not, here’s how to get your account!
1) On your computer, create your account at www.CodeRedLifestyle.com/App.
2) If you want the network on a mobile device, go to the App Store or Google Play Store and search for Code Red Lifestyle.