Understanding Stress: How Our Bodies Hold It—and How We Can Heal

April is National Stress Awareness Month 2025. Of course we all know that too much negative stress is bad news, but when exactly does stress become unhealthy? And what level of stress may actually be a good thing? This blog will focus on defining stress, offering some helpful insights into our nervous system, emotional responses, and healing practices for when stress becomes overwhelming.

The Two Faces of Stress: Positive Stress vs Negative Stress

Stress is the body’s natural response to the demands and obstacles of life. There are actually two different types of stress. Understanding the roles they play are key in figuring out how to create healthy balances of each:

Positive stress (eustress) is actually helpful for your feelings of motivation. Eustress is generally short-lived, energizing, and helps move you toward completion of your goals and responsibilities. Eustress is a healthy stress, such as preparing for a big work presentation, training for a race day, or feeling excited about an upcoming vacation. 

Negative stress (distress) is what most people think of when asked to define stress. Distress causes feelings of overwhelm and generally makes people feel helpless and scared. Distress might look like relational disconnection, traumatic events, or feeling like we’re getting sick. When distress is prolonged, it becomes chronic stress.

Chronic stress occurs when our bodies are unable to close short-term cycles of distress. Chronic stress negatively impacts our emotional health, relationships, immune response, and even causes physical symptoms.  

Individual experiences like trauma, caregiving, or burnout can all increase symptoms of chronic stress. When we already have nervous systems which are vulnerable to stress, triggers might seem bigger and last longer. In other words, our perception of our stress and ability to respond with solutions to close our stress cycles, can prevent distress from becoming chronic stress.

Here are some curious questions to help you reflect on how positive, negative, and chronic stress might show up for you:

• Would you label your last experience of stress positive, negative, or chronic?

• Can you think of a current example of positive stress which is moving you toward a goal at work or in your personal life?

• When negative stress shows up for you, what kinds of emotional symptoms are your warning signs? What about physical symptoms?

• How does stress affect your relationships? Do you tend to isolate and shut down, or want to draw people closer to support you?

• What are some healthy coping skills you use when you experience stress? Which ones are less healthy and are opportunities for growth?

• When was an example where you handled stress in a way that makes you proud? What was special about this experience?