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The tightness at the back of my neck used to start when I was at my desk.

Now it’s there when I wake up. 

My over-thinking, second-guessing, and doom-scrolling have skyrocketed. 

I’m more scattered, tense, weepy, and way more tired than, well, ever.

I. Am. So. Stressed.

You, too?

Massive uncertainty, that’s unlikely to let up any time soon, is sparking massive stress. 

The kind that can wreck your digestion, weaken your immune system, cause weight gain, trigger a heart attack, sideline your sex life, and cover your face in adult acne while also enhancing your wrinkles. 

Even as it shortens your life.

Then again, stress might not be the real problem, at least according to what researchers call the new science of stress.

Are you a good stress or a bad stress?

In her book The Upside of Stress, health psychologist Kelly McGonigal – who literally made her living teaching people how to manage stress – describes a study that changed her thinking about stress.

In 1998, thirty thousand adults in the US were asked two questions: how much stress have you experienced in the past year and do you think that stress is harmful to your health. 

Eight years later, the researchers determined how many of those thirty thousand had died, and discovered that high levels of stress increased the risk of dying by 43 percent.

Duh, right? 

But wait. There’s more. 

That 43% increase in the risk of dying only applied to people with both high levels of stress and also a belief that stress was harmful to their health. 

Stress alone wasn’t killing people at higher rates.

Stress plus believing that it’s harmful was. 

Sounds like a new age-y, wishing-will-make-it so fantasy, right?

Wrong. Significant peer-reviewed research over the past fourteen years supports that, when it comes to the negative effects of stress, our mindset about stress is key. 

Stress Mindset

Dr. McGonigle’s definition of stress:

Stress is what arises when something you care about is at stake.

So it’s not a weakness or an evil plot to make you miserable.

It’s a signal to pause and consider your values, the people, things, and ideals that you care about. 

And it goes hand in hand with having a meaningful life. 

You don’t stress about things you don’t care about, and you can’t create a meaningful life without experiencing some stress.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that stress isn’t going away.

And that’s not a bad thing. 

Changing your stress mindset is a first step toward not only minimizing its negative effects, but also growing well-being and resilience. 

So, the next time you feel that tension in your neck or want to hit something or scream or cry or long for Calgon to take you away, pause and ponder what you care about and how it’s at stake. 

That thing that’s stressing out just might be there, not to steal your joy, but  to help you more fully appreciate, honor, and value that thing that you hold so dear. 

Image: Meslissa Askew @ unsplash

I was working at my desk, frustrated by a tedious project, when I thought I heard a tap at my front door. 

I ignored it. It happened again. I ignored it. Three more times. 

On the way to the mailbox a while later, I almost tripped over an bundle of carrots on the front step, complete with a note: Merry Christmas Bunny. 

I later discovered that my next-door neighbor got way too many carrots in her grocery order, so she gifted my bunny with what was basically the equivalent of a six-month supply. 

Her act of kindness was small, but it had a big impact. 

Kindness Amid Chaos

If you’re thinking, yikes, now she’s going to tell me that doing a small act of kindness will end the pandemic, save democracy, and make my life stress free, spare me already, I get it.

I’m not here to tell you that a single act of kindness is going to heal the world.

It’s going to take way more than one kind act.

But here’s what a single kindness can do: it can fuel both the giver and the receiver to better navigate life’s inevitable challenges. 

And a whole bunch of single acts of kindness strung together – an uprising of kindness – just might go a long way toward healing the world. 

Better to Give Than to Receive

In a workplace study in Spain, people were asked to be deliverers of kindness, by performing acts of kindness for colleagues, or be receivers, counting the number of kind acts received from coworkers. 

Who do you think benefitted more, the givers or the receivers?

Surprise! The adage turned out to be true in this study, since, while the receivers of kindness did become happier, the deliverers – the givers of kindness – benefitted even more.

The participants who performed kind acts for others experienced more happiness, less depression, and boosts in both job satisfaction and life satisfaction. 

There was also a ripple effect in which the receivers of kindness were likely to pay kindness forward, thus becoming deliverers as well.

Which is pretty important when you figure that, if we were all waiting around for someone to be kind to us, it wouldn’t take long for acts of kindness to go the way of civil debate over, well, just about anything. 

So notice the kindness you receive, but do kind things for others, too. 

Snippets of Kindness

Wait, I’m stressed from the chaos in the world and exhausted from way too many Zoom meetings. I don’t have the time or the energy to add a whole new project to my life.

Take a breath. 

It’s easier than you think to inject your days with snippets of kindness-giving. 

You can:

• Be intentional about letting someone go ahead of you in traffic. Bonus points if you were really in a hurry.

• Look the cashier in the eye and smile (behind your mask, of course) and mean it when you say “have a good day.”

• Ask a coworker how their day is going and really listen to their response. 

• If there’s a spoiled house rabbit in your neighborhood, you could even leave extra carrots on their doorstep, but greens would be even better.

An Uprising of Kindness

It’s no secret that we’re living in incredibly challenging times.

And that it’s going to take way more than snippets of kindness to solve our really big problems.

It’s going to take getting excited and being uncomfortable, learning and humility, listening and acting, holding internal boundaries and working relentlessly for social change, and doing it poorly and trying again and getting better at it, over and over and over.

I believe it’s also going to take an uprising of kindness.

Let’s get started.