A little flutter before a presentation.
Tension before a race.
The focused edge that helps you get things done.
That’s not dysfunction. It’s your nervous system mobilizing energy.
Short-term, manageable stress can actually support growth and adaptation, while chronic, unrelenting stress wears the system down. The difference isn’t whether stress exists. It’s whether we can move through it and recover.
Think of it like goldilocks and activation.
Too little arousal → disengaged.
Too much → overloaded.
Just right → engaged, focused, alive.
Too little activation and we feel bored, flat, unmotivated. Too much and we feel overwhelmed, anxious, or frozen. But somewhere in the middle, in that “just right” range, stress sharpens attention, strengthens memory, increases motivation, and enhances learning and creativity. The “sweet spot” is what athletes, artists, and high performers often describe as flow - a state where arousal is present but not overwhelming. The nervous system is activated, but regulated.
Learning to regulate your nervous system doesn’t mean eliminating stress. It means working with it. Through breath, movement, attention, cognitive reframing and recovery practices, you can fine-tune your level of activation so it energizes rather than depletes.
The goal isn’t calm all the time. The goal is flexible activation.
So, the next time you feel that tension before a workout, a performance, or a big decision, consider this: your nervous system is giving you exactly what you need to rise to the challenge.
Stress in the right dose is not a flaw.
It’s fuel.
(Yerkes & Dodson, 1908; McEwen, 2007)
