A scientist once told me that stress is useful, and has only ever been useful since the beginning, for two things: fighting or flighting. That’s it.
Stress can be debilitating. We’ve all felt it wrap its tentacles around our mind and body, holding us back from executing. I’d argue that the use for stress, fighting or flighting, has become less evolutionary useful in the modern world compared to when our objectives were primarily to hunt or gather. Most of us live and work in front of screens, with little use for the reflex to fight or flight digitally.
Does our urge to fight or flight when we’re stressed by a proposal, overflowing inbox or presentation really help get it done? There’s really nothing inherently stressful, by definition, about any of the things we commonly stress about.
I think, in general, this is the hurdle many of us face with mental health: often what our mind and body is telling us isn’t wrong, it’s just out of context.
The way I overcome stress, specifically in the business environment, is convincing myself it’s completely meaningless at the moment. If the evolutionary directions of stress are to fight someone or flight somewhere, and neither of these actions accommodate my current objectives, I can ignore it. Stress, for the time being, is imaginary.