How to do more and not feel 'stress' - Understanding eustress

‘I’m stressed’. We’ve all felt it at some point. But do you know the difference between stress and eustress? Thanks to Tim Ferris, God of many things including working more efficiently, making this distinction has changed my life for the better.

Stress, by definition is ‘pressure or tension’.

Eustress is ‘beneficial stress—either psychological, physical or biochemical’

If you've been reading my steemit articles, by now you may have realised I'm constantly doing something - and usually for work.

image via Pintrest

Although I try to keep a work/life balance, I tend to focus my 7 days each week on what many of you may consider to be 'work'. 
Currently I work 1 full time job (running my own company) and 2 part time jobs. The part time jobs only take up 3 days per week in total. I have also just started running projects for women around the world. (Check out the feature here if you missed it.) This and other side projects eats up about 1-2 days per week of time - if you add up all the hours. Then there's all the non-work projects such as steemit etc.

Apart from that I am now focusing time on self development and professional growth. I invest quite a lot of time into learning and also try to fit in eating intuitively (and meal prepping), exercising and socialising. I am in no way bragging about how busy I am, in fact, many people have highlighted they view my lifestyle as ridiculous or unsustainable.
But by changing the way I view my life and starting to acknowledge eustress, instead of stress, I was able to do more and feel better about it.

The truth is, the more I get to know myself, the more I realise I'm one of those people who always feels like they have room to take one other thing on and these days it very rarely makes me 'stressed' or overwhelmed.

image via Pintrest

Why?

The simple answer is I know what I am capable of. Where I am in my life right now is no where NEAR where I thought I would be at this age. I thought I would be far more accomplished, in many ways. Therefore, because I know my capabilities, I know I am able to juggle what most people may consider as ‘a lot’ at one time. I like to have a few balls in the air. It keeps me on my toes and leaves little time to mess around.


When I find myself pondering whether I should do something now or later, I know I don’t have enough on and that for me is a signal to get another project on the go. I work better with positive stress and feeling eustress keeps me motivated.

Has it always been this way?

No. At one point I remember I lost my way. Whilst I was still doing the same amount of stuff, I found it to be stressful and it caused me some real issues. I felt angry that I wasn't getting enough time to myself, even though I had chosen to be as busy as I was. Just by changing my perception on the same things, I was able to enjoy a better quality of life. Which leads me on to my next point..


What's the solution?

I have found comfort in feeling what some of you might label as being ‘overwhelmed’. By renaming the feeling, we allow for attitude towards that feeling to change. Rather than saying I felt ‘overwhelmed’, I started to say I was ‘engaged’ or 'busy' but saw it as a blessing rather than a curse. The key thing here is to consciously make mental note of the feeling you are experiencing, whatever it may be.
When I'm in a state of eustress, all my senses are alert and I feel like I don’t have much room to drop any of the balls. I'm motivated to do everything and anything. Does that put pressure on me? Yes, but in a good way. If  I start to label it as ‘stress’ I will in turn probably start to see it as a negative thing and I will handle things differently. Keeping a positive attitude towards being busy is incredibly important. 

Even if you are doing what you love, there are always challenges. Always things you might not want to do. But by changing your attitude towards how you view your time being consumed, I can guarantee you the outcome will be very different. 

How do you guys feel about eustress? Is this something you were aware of before?

Yasmine