Stress

Chronic stress is harmful yet moderate levels of acute stress helps you grow

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him” Viktor Frankl

“We live well enough to have the luxury to get ourselves sick with purely social, psychological stress.”

“This brings up a key concept, namely the inverted U. The complete absence of stress is aversively boring. Moderate, transient stress is wonderful—various aspects of brain function are enhanced; glucocorticoid levels in that range enhance dopamine release; rats work at pressing levers in order to be infused with just the right amount of glucocorticoids. And as stress becomes more severe and prolonged, those good effects disappear (with, of course, dramatic individual differences as to where the transition from stress as stimulatory to overstimulatory occurs; one person’s nightmare is another’s hobby).” $$ “if you’re stressed like a normal mammal in an acute physical crisis, the stress response is lifesaving. But if instead you chronically activate the stress response for reasons of psychological stress, your health suffers.”

Sapolsky