The Stress Sweet Spot
'People seem to be more worried than ever about stress. We hear that stress can lead to everything from depression to cancer. Especially when it comes to kids, we have moved from the “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” ethos of the baby boom generation to helicopter parenting, shielding children from as much adversity as possible.
But the right kind of stress can actually be beneficial. And it’s particularly important for young people, whose brains and bodies are uniquely sensitive to the impact of experience.
Stress is really just our body’s response to a challenge. The key to good stress is that the challenge be something you can manage and even master.
We all have experienced the relationship between a challenge and the degree of stress we feel in response. It follows an “inverted U” function: As the pressure goes up, so does performance — but only to a certain point. Beyond that, greater pressure causes performance to drop.
That’s why a challenging teacher who incites mild anxiety is more effective than one who is either permissive or terrifying. Good teachers know how to push students without making them so anxious that they give up. They have found the sweet spot for stress: Too much or too little and people don’t do their best.
When humans are under acute stress, their bodies secrete the hormones cortisol and adrenaline. This helps them respond to the demands of the situation. A burst of cortisol mobilizes glucose for energy and stimulates the immune system, while adrenaline increases attention.
But chronic stress — when adrenaline and cortisol levels are persistently elevated, as they are for children growing up in neglectful or abusive circumstances — can lead to health problems like obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure, while also impairing cognitive abilities.'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/opinion/stress-students-kids-brains-sleep.html?
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