Are you constantly battling the negative effects of stress, feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or even experiencing physical health issues? Most of us view stress as something to avoid. But what if stress could actually be good for you? This "Good Stress: Embracing Eustress to Improve Your Life" course challenges conventional wisdom, revealing that a healthy type of stress, known as eustress, offers numerous benefits for your well-being and performance.

Comprising 5 lessons across 6 pages with graded assessments, this course will equip you with a profound understanding of what separates eustress from its damaging counterpart, distress. You'll gain practical, actionable strategies to cultivate more positive, constructive stress in your life while effectively managing the negative kind.

In this transformative course, you will learn to:

• Distinguish Between Eustress and Distress: Understand that distress is harmful, decreasing performance, harming health and well-being, and often stemming from unrealistic or unattainable goals, leaving you feeling anxious, depressed, or overwhelmed. Chronic stress also falls into the category of distress. In contrast, eustress is good stress, increasing performance, fostering personal development and growth, and leaving you feeling motivated, engaged, excited, inspired, or fulfilled by challenging but attainable goals. The key distinction lies in individual perception, feelings, reactions, and outcomes, as a stressor can be motivating for one person but depleting for another.
• Embrace the Power of Eustress: Discover why a healthy level of stress is crucial for motivation, sustained engagement, and continuous personal and professional growth. Learn how eustress can serve as the "fire under your feet" to achieve ambitious dreams and build resilience. Without eustress, it's easy to become bored, disengaged, and under-stimulated.
• Actively Add More Good Stress: Implement strategies to boost your eustress levels, particularly if you're feeling bored, disengaged, or stagnant. This includes:
  • Learning or trying something new: Step outside your comfort zone by learning a new skill, starting a new hobby, or pursuing a personal or creative project.
  • Setting more ambitious goals: Choose goals that are just beyond your current capabilities but still within reach, and break them down into attainable steps.
  • Voluntarily putting yourself in uncomfortable situations that are ultimately good for you: This could involve attending a networking event, volunteering for public speaking, joining a new club, or travelling abroad.
• Effectively Reduce Bad Stress: Master techniques to decrease distress when you're feeling emotionally or physically fatigued, overwhelmed, anxious, or depressed. You'll learn to:
  • Decrease your demands: Practise saying "no," delegate responsibilities, and postpone non-urgent or non-important tasks.
  • Increase your resources: Seek additional help at work or home, reach out for emotional and social support from friends, family, or a professional therapist, and learn specific coping techniques such as meditation, mindfulness, relaxation, or improve sleep hygiene and exercise habits.
  • Remove yourself from the situation: If a situation, such as a toxic work environment, becomes too harmful to your health and well-being, consider changing departments or jobs.

By the end of this course, you will be empowered to reframe your relationship with stress, leveraging its positive aspects to enhance your performance, foster personal development, and achieve greater well-being and satisfaction in both your professional and personal life. Transform your understanding of stress and unlock a more engaged, fulfilling existence!