Not all is negative: enjoying stress

We are told all the time that stress is bad, a danger threatening health that should be avoided at all cost. This is an unbalanced view of stress. Not only can stress lead to positive things, stress can even be enjoyable. Many of us search for stress to feel good! Have you ever tried bungee jumping?

How do you feel when thinking about stress?

If you haven’t read our previous articles on stress, you probably associate stress with negative feelings. Stress at work, in a relationship, family stress or financial stress can indeed be difficult to deal with, and can be upsetting. You might even feel depleted of energy and perhaps even depressed.

Stress can indeed cause physical and mental strain. This is when stress becomes chronic, or long-lasting. When you are in a condition of chronic stress, you have not been able to solve the problems that have caused your stress. The ugly reputation of stress is rooted in the negative physical and mental consequences of chronic stress.

However, in many cases, stress enables you to deal successfully with a problem. The stress reactions in your body will give you the energy and focus to find solutions. If these solutions are effective, so that the problem disappears, your stress will stop.

Thus, whenever you feel stressed, think of the good side of stress: successfully dealing with problems. At work, in a relationship or within the family, or financially.

Looking for stress to enjoy

Stress is thus first and foremost something good. So good, that many of us are actively looking to get stressed! They probably don’t realize this when they undertake adventurous activities such as skydiving or bungee jumping.

I personally have never fallen for the charm of bungee jumping, but people who have told me that the first time they jumped they were full of fear and stress, some even close to panicking. Looking down from the platform, it seems an awfully long fall to the end of the rope! During the fall, most screamed, felt adrenaline rushing through their body. After reaching the end and starting to go up again, it is quite common to start maniacal laughing. This reflects stress relief, and feelings of euphoria may set in. Euphoria is almost always felt after the jump has ended, and almost everybody feels high for the rest of the day, sometimes for a week. And many want to do it again!

They want to get back on the platform and go through the cycle of stress and euphoria over and over.

Skydiving and bungee jumping for stress relief?

Some skydiving and bungee jumping adepts go still a step further, and propose that both activities could help to relieve stress.

The idea is that skydiving will make you forget your problems in life at the moment you go down. You will feel stressed, and adrenaline will rush through your veins. As with bungee jumping, you will feel euphoric after you have landed safely on the ground. You will realize, the argument goes, that your problems may not be as insurmountable as they may seem. By jumping out of a plane at high altitude, you will accomplish something dangerous and special. This will boost your self-confidence, making you ready to deal with any other problem that may cross your path.

Experienced skydivers say that their sport is comparable to meditation, one of the most relaxing things you can do. As in meditation, you will apparently change your mindset, from the inability to focus on a single thing as you drop to the ground at lightning speed to a sense of complete calmness as the parachute opens and you float gently through the air. Paratroopers say that skydiving requires intense control of the mind, and that you develop a greater awareness of anything that surrounds you. You will forget about the problems that cause stress in your daily life, and the euphoric feeling once you have landed safely on the ground will boost your positive emotions, and fill you with energy.

Pleasure hormones: endorphins and dopamine

If you think about it, it is quite counterintuitive that undertaking a stressful, potentially dangerous activity, makes you feel less stressed and gets you in a state of euphoria. Scientists can explain this paradox. Research has shown that several chemicals in the brain are involved. One of these is the small protein endorphin. Another one is a molecule that resembles the stress hormone adrenaline, and is known as dopamine.

Let’s look at endorphins first. Endorphins are released in your body when you feel pain or stress. They are also released when you are doing pleasurable activities such as physical exercise, massage, eating and sex. Endorphins help to relieve pain, reduce stress and make you feel better emotionally.

Endorphins are produced in the hypothalamus and pituitary gland. You may recall that both also produce the stress hormones CRF and ACTH, which ultimately stimulate the release of the stress hormone cortisol from the adrenal glands (read our article about the HPA-axis here). Endorphins can bind to opioid receptors in the reward center of the brain, making you feel good. In fact, the name endorphin comes from “endogenous” (meaning within the body) and “morphine” (the well-known opiate pain reliever). The name endorphin has thus been well chosen: endorphins relieve pain and stress, and make you feel better, just as morphine does.

Dopamine is a chemical in the brain that makes you enjoy the things you do. If you are chronically stressed or suffering from depression, dopamine signaling in the brain is reduced. Therefore, you will enjoy life much less than someone who is not depressed or under chronic stress. Rather, you will feel down and depleted of energy, and not wanting to do the things you enjoyed before the stress set in. To get your dopamine system going again, you would have to motivate yourself to do sports, pour yourself a good glass of wine or spend a romantic evening with your loved one. As with endorphins, doing things you like or searching for serious distraction (like skydiving or bungee jumping if you feel up to that) from your problems may give your dopamine system a boost. The dopamine system is also known as the reward system of the brain. So reward yourself, do things you like, and get your stress levels down.

Reward as a consequence of stress

Stress is a condition of the body that helps us to overcome problems. The stress systems in our body help us to survive difficult times. From a biological point of view, the stress systems are so good at what they are doing, that they can be found in any vertebrate species on the planet. Thus instead of fighting stress off, we should embrace stress as something useful. Stress only turns bad when stress becomes chronic.

The positive role stress plays in our lives can be exploited and turned to our advantage. Stress-provoking and potentially dangerous activities such as bungee jumping and skydiving  are extreme examples of this. They not only evoke stress, but also induce euphoria through the signaling of endorphins and dopamine in the brain. These activities can even become addictive because of the actions of endorphins, just like you could get addicted to morphine treatment to reduce pain. This is why people doing physically or emotionally dangerous things (speeding on the highway, or betting a lot of money in a poker game) are looking for stress, and the thrill that follows.

Enjoying stress may thus (paradoxically) be a way to reduce stress. But if you are not an adventurous person, don’t worry. Find things you like doing (eating, massage, traveling, or whatever hobby or activity you can think of), and the endorphins and dopamine will make you feel better.

Or think of it this way. How do you feel when you have accomplished something difficult that stresses you out? I bet that you feel excited, perhaps even euphoric! Exactly the same as bungee jumpers who are enjoying stress, but possibly less extreme. The stress you experience when faced with everyday problems will engage the reward system of your brain when you have managed to solve them. This will lift your spirits up and give you more self confidence when you face similar problems in the future. Isn't stress a beautiful thing?