How to Make Stress Work for You

Stress Isn’t the Problem.
It’s a Signal.

Stanford psychologist Alia Crum studies how mindsets affect human behavior and health outcomes. Her research shows that the way we perceive stress changes how our bodies and brains respond. When we see stress as a challenge, not a threat, we activate brain systems related to learning and resilience. Stress can actually help us focus and rise to the moment.

Watch Dr Crum’s TEDx talk on how our stress beliefs shape biology and behavior.

The Brain’s Response to Stress

When we encounter a stressful situation, our brain’s prefrontal cortex, responsible for planning, behavior, and cognition, signals our adrenal system to release cortisol, the primary stress hormone. Cortisol prepares the body to respond to immediate challenges by increasing heart rate, elevating blood pressure, and redirecting energy to systems essential for survival. If you’re alone in the savanna trying to avoid a lion, you want to have cortisol onboard to help you stay vigilant.
While this stress response helps us in the short term, sustained or chronic stress has a very different effect.

A sustained increase in cortisol leads to more cortisol receptors being produced in brain cells. This causes structural changes, such as the shrinking of dendrites, the branches that help brain cells communicate. In effect, stress doesn’t just change how we feel. It physically alters the brain.

A key study by Chetty et al. (2014) found that prolonged stress creates hardwired connections between the hippocampus (which processes memory) and the amygdala (which processes threat and emotion). This hardwiring results in the brain remaining on high alert, even when no actual danger is present, a state often referred to as “chronic fight-or-flight.”

This can manifest in daily life as hypervigilance and reactivity. In the workplace, it may look like constantly putting out fires, making quick, short-term decisions, and struggling to shift into strategic or creative thinking.

The same study also found that sustained stress impairs the conversion of stem cells into neurons and disrupts their connection to the prefrontal cortex. Over time, this can negatively impact memory, decision-making, and emotional regulation.

These effects make it even more critical to build skills and routines that allow us to pause, reframe, and reconnect so we can counteract the effects of chronic stress.

It’s important for us to take preventative action to reduce our elevated level of stress and re-engage our brain’s higher functions through mindfulness exercises, physical exercises, taking a break, doing something that supports your wellbeing.

Good Stress Fuels Growth

There is a form of stress that benefits us. Known as eustress, this is the kind of pressure you feel when starting something new or tackling a challenge that matters. It increases alertness and helps you focus, making it a catalyst for positive change.

When you’re just beyond your comfort zone, your brain is primed for learning and emotional growth. This is where emotional intelligence competencies such as Exercise Optimism and Navigating Emotions come into play. These skills help you make thoughtful choices and stay present, even when the pressure rises.

The trick of course is to learn to recognize the “sweet spot” for you to reach eustress zone. Try journaling in your daily schedule times of day (or tasks) that felt most motivating, exciting, challenging for you. When were you feeling the extra push from eustress? When were you feeling too relaxed or in a “calm”, disengaged state? These phases can be more challenging for us to recognize than the “distress” state because we are so familiar with that frazzled feeling.

Stress Connects Us to Others

One surprising benefit of stress is that it motivates connection. During stress, your brain releases oxytocin, a hormone that promotes trust and connection. This “tend and befriend” response helps us seek support and strengthens social bonds.

Instead of isolating under stress, we can harness this built-in hormonal response and use it as an opportunity to connect. A simple conversation can restore emotional balance and deepen trust. Emotional intelligence skills like empathy and active listening are key skills to exercise.

Stress Can Shrink Our Thinking Unless We Pause

Under stress, your brain switches to short-term survival mode. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for planning and long-term thinking, becomes less active. Meanwhile, your reactive brain, the amygdala, takes over.

This is why we often make impulsive (and often short-term) decisions during high-stress moments. We become focused on immediate relief, rather than long-term values and outcomes.

One of the most important things you can do during stress is to pause and reconnect with your Noble Goal. This Six Seconds competency encourages us to reflect on our deeper purpose before acting.

Ask yourself:
“Will this decision support my long-term purpose, or is it just a quick fix for a short-term problem?”

Reconnecting with your Noble Goal restores clarity and gives you access to higher-level thinking.

Reframe Stress to Reclaim Your Power

Stress is a biological reality, but it doesn’t have to control us. When we shift our stress mindset, understand the neuroscience of stress, and apply emotional intelligence skills, we gain a powerful advantage.

Instead of being hijacked by reactivity, we can respond with clarity. Instead of burning out, we can find purpose and direction. Stress can be the moment we check in—not check out. It can become the signal to realign with what matters most. The question is not how to eliminate stress entirely. The real opportunity is learning how to make stress work for you.

Want to take the next step? Download the Stress Toolkit (see form above) and begin transforming your stress into strength today.