When two lawyers face the same difficulty, the one who perceives the situation negatively experiences anxiety and adverse symptoms, while the other who views it as an opportunity and challenge gains even greater motivation
Source of stress
Stress is more about perception and reaction than events themselves
Our relationship with stress
The degree of control matters
Perceived control plays a crucial role in coping with stress
Able to exercise some degree of control——minimize the negative consequences of stress
Passive and helpless——cope worse with painful or threatening stimuli
Supporting experiments and examples
Experiment——when both mice received simultaneous electric shocks, the mice with control over the switch suffered significantly less physical damage than those without
Example——loud music from your iPad may not bother you, but if it's coming from your neighbor's house, you'll likely find it objectionable. This is because you can simply turn off the music from your iPad, while you have no control over your neighbor's noise
Predictability
Unpleasant events tend to be less stressful if they are predictable
Supporting experiment
When two mice experience the same shock, the one that anticipates it will suffer less damage than the confused one
Supporting example
Similarly, the unexpected loss of a loved one is more painful than an anticipated death, just as a surprise test can be harder for students to handle than a scheduled one
Personality factors
Some individuals with a stress-resistant personality are committed, feel in control, and embrace change and challenge
Author's expectation
Refute the misconception that you should avoid as much stress as possible if you want to stay healthy.
This leads to missed potential opportunities. Trying to achieve this goal is not realistic, and can lead to a lack of passion in life or physical damage
What people should do.
Avoiding stress is impractical. Everyone should find ways to cope with stress by managing the right amount of pressure to achieve progress and seize opportunities