Bad stress is when you can't adapt: act, or drown?

In a 2022 Q&A for the French channel Brut, Dr Dominique Servant, a psychiatrist at the university hospital in Lille, answered viewers' questions about stress one by one. A viewer called Clara asked how to tell bad stress from good stress. The answer didn't come as a level or a list of signs. There is a good way to react to stress, through action, which is a good way to adapt and face different situations. And there is another way: being swamped, not acting, fighting yourself a little. Then came one sentence.

"le mauvais stress, c'est lorsque nous ne pouvons pas nous adapter"

In English: "bad stress is when we can't adapt"

Dominique Servant, Brut, 2022

The difference is what you do with it

Servant's line moves the question away from how much stress you feel and toward what happens next. A heavy demand you can meet with an action is one thing. The same demand, when you can't find a move, turns into the feeling of drowning, and into the attitude Servant describes as working against yourself and your balance.

A moment earlier in the same video, answering what causes stress, Servant pointed to something else worth hearing: often it's the accumulation of stresses, small and large, at work, at home and in worrying for the people we love, that leads to a sense of permanent stress.

What it doesn't mean

So the action Servant means isn't doing more, faster. On an overloaded day, the action that helps is usually a decision about the load: what to do now, what can wait, what can go to someone else. And "drop it" has to be said, not done quietly. In a study that followed employees for two months, trying to cut demands on their own didn't change the demands (Tims, Bakker and Derks, 2013). Only the summary of that study is available.

How this fits the Manage everyday stress program

The 1h Protocol to Manage Everyday Stress works the way Servant's answer points: it doesn't ask you to relax your way out, it gives you moves. Chapter 2 puts your load on one page with five marks, where "drop" means said openly or agreed. Chapter 6 is for the moment it all lands at once, with a sort at speed: one slow breath out as a brief brake, then write what's landing, pick the one that matters now, and give the rest a when. The program is about everyday stress from the load of work, home and caring. It isn't for burnout, anxiety disorders, depression or trauma. The first chapter is free and finds your stress pattern.

Source: Brut, Tout savoir sur le stress et comment y faire face, with Dr Dominique Servant, 12 Oct 2022 Research: NIOSH, Stress at work · gesund.bund.de, Stress · Sonnentag, 2018 · Tims, Bakker and Derks, 2013