Good stress vs bad stress: Alia Crum on reading the surge

First, a word on scope. This article, like the program it comes from, is about everyday stress from the load you carry at work, at home and in caring for others. It's wellness, not health care: it doesn't give medical advice, and it doesn't diagnose or treat anything. In the program's words: "It isn't for burnout, anxiety disorders, depression or trauma."

Stress isn't neatly good or bad. The surge you feel when something lands, the faster heart and the sharper focus, is how your body meets a demand, and when the demand is met it's meant to settle. France's national institute for safety at work says it plainly: in science there's no good or bad stress, only short and long. So the useful questions are different ones. Does this surge have an end? Is there a refill after it? And is this a demand you can meet, or a load that needs sorting first?

Crum made the case in a TEDxTraverseCity talk that has been watched more than 7 million times on YouTube. Most of us, Crum said, carry one view: "If you're like most people, you have the mindset that stress is bad: bad stress" (11:45). Then came the turn: "the truth of stress is like most things in life, and that is, it is uncertain" (12:16). Crum's point: what you make of stress may change how it goes.

What is the stress surge for?

1. Know what the surge is doing

The US National Library of Medicine describes stress as "how your brain and body respond to a challenge or demand." The hormones released make you "alert and ready to act," and a little short-term stress can help: a deadline pushes you to get the work done, and "once you finish it, that stress goes away" (MedlinePlus). Germany's public health portal says much the same: a natural response in phases when a lot is asked of you (gesund.bund.de).

NIOSH, the US agency for safety at work, separates that kind of pressure from job stress. "Challenge energizes us psychologically and physically," its guide says, and "when a challenge is met, we feel relaxed and satisfied." That, it adds, is probably what people mean when they say a little stress is good for you (NIOSH). Job stress is something else: what happens when the job's demands don't match the worker's capabilities, resources or needs.

Robert Sapolsky of Stanford describes the good kind in a short clip for the Greater Good Science Center (YouTube). We pay for some stress, Sapolsky points out: a scary film, a roller coaster. It works because it's moderate, it's brief, and it happens somewhere that feels safe overall. Nobody runs a roller coaster for three weeks.

2. Look at the length, not the label

INRS, France's research institute for safety at work, takes on "good stress" and "bad stress" directly. "Il n'y a pourtant scientifiquement ni bon, ni mauvais stress, mais une réponse d'adaptation de l'organisme," it writes (scientifically there's no good or bad stress, only the body's way of adapting). What does matter, it says, is telling short stress from long stress (INRS, 2023).

A tight deadline that ends on Friday is a different thing from the same pressure every week with no let-up. The surge isn't the trouble. The trouble starts when it never gets to switch off. A French psychiatrist puts the same line in one sentence: see bad stress is when you can't adapt.

So what wears you down?

3. Find the missing refill

Work researchers Sabine Geurts and Sabine Sonnentag describe recovery as "a process of psychophysiological unwinding after effort expenditure." In their review, recovery after work matters most when the working day itself gives too little chance to recover, and long hours and mulling over work both get in its way (Geurts and Sonnentag, 2006). Effort is normal. Effort with no unwinding is what adds up.

Sonnentag later named the catch. In a review of studies, mostly with employees, the heavier the demands, the less people switched off, moved and slept well, just when they needed all three. The review's conclusion is blunt: "supporting recovery is always only the second-best option," and "it is crucial to keep job stressors within certain limits" (Sonnentag, 2018). That's why the refill needs two things: an end to the day, and a load that shrinks too.

The stress program calls this the Refill, next to the Load (how much is open at once) and the Hands (whose it is, and who shares it). If yours is the day with no breaks and no end, see how to relax after work. If the basics are what go first, see no time for yourself.

You may hear that stress is killing you, often with talk of stress hormones and frightening brain pictures. Andrew Huberman, a Stanford neuroscientist, names that frame on the Huberman Lab podcast: "I think we've all heard that stress is bad for us. We've seen these pictures intended to frighten us" (Huberman Lab, 41:17). The show carries sponsors, named in each episode. The correction here comes from the load, not the body. Public health guidance for adults in the US and Germany describes a short stress response as normal, a way of meeting a demand. And Sonnentag's review, of studies mostly with employees, points at what wears people down: load without recovery. That's where you can act.

Does changing how you see stress help?

4. Read the racing heart as getting ready

Kelly McGonigal's TED talk, "How to make stress your friend", is the most-watched version of this idea. McGonigal walks the audience through a lab stress test, the pounding heart and the fast breath, and asks: "But what if you viewed them instead as signs that your body was energized, was preparing you to meet this challenge?" (TED, 2013, 4:51). McGonigal later expanded the talk into a book, The Upside of Stress (2015).

The study behind that moment was small. Fifty young adults in the Cambridge, Massachusetts area, average age about 22, took a stressful speaking and arithmetic test in a lab. Those told to see their arousal as "functional and adaptive" had more efficient heart responses during the task and were less drawn to negative words than those given no instructions (Jamieson et al., 2012). One session, in a lab: it shows a direction, not what happens across a working week.

Crum tried a version with employees after the 2008 financial crash, who had just heard about layoffs. Half watched short clips framing stress as debilitating, half clips framing it as enhancing. In Crum's account, the second group reported more engagement and better performance at work over the following weeks (14:54 to 15:28). The published paper's summary reports that the short films shifted how people saw stress (Crum et al., 2013).

5. Keep the effect to its size

The best summary so far is a 2024 meta-analysis of randomized trials: 35 studies, 5,638 participants with an average age of 22.6, none of them clinical samples, mostly exam, test and speaking tasks. Reading the surge as useful improved performance by a small amount (d = 0.23 on a standard scale), a bit more for tasks done in front of others (d = 0.34) than for written ones. The six studies that only told people "stress is enhancing" didn't show a reliable effect on their own. The authors' verdict: these short interventions are cheap and promising, but they "should not be perceived as 'silver bullets'" (Bosshard and Gomez, 2024).

In related lab experiments, saying "I'm excited" before karaoke, a speech or a math test worked better than trying to calm down (Brooks, 2014; summary only). That suits a moment you can't avoid, not a week that's too full.

Crum is honest about the limit too. "So is the power of mindset limitless? Probably not," Crum says near the end of the talk (17:35).

You may hear that stress only harms you if you believe it does. It's the best-known line from McGonigal's talk. It rests on one survey of US adults, asked once about their stress and beliefs and then followed. A belief measured once can't show that changing it changes anything, so this article leaves that claim and its figures aside. What trials have tested is narrower: when you have to perform, reading the surge as energy helps a little.

When does "good stress" become an excuse?

6. Don't push through a load you can't meet

You may hear that some stress is good, so push through. INRS's answer is above: there's no good or bad stress in science, only short and long. And a review of studies of employees found that demands that motivate, the stretch kind, went with better performance but still added strain, while hassles and obstacles only dragged people down (LePine et al., 2005; summary only). NIOSH draws the same line: a challenge you can meet is one thing, demands that don't match your resources are another.

So "it's good stress" is no reason to keep piling on. If the load is more than the week can hold, the move is to sort it, say what can wait, and raise what isn't yours: see feeling overwhelmed and how to say no at work.

7. Use the surge, then sort

The stress program puts the two ideas together for the hard moment it calls the collision, when one more demand lands on a full day. First, one slow breath out. In trials, slow breathing lowered stress a little, so it's a brief brake, not a fix (see box breathing). Then the sort at speed: write what's landing, pick the one that matters now, and give the rest a when or someone to hand it to. And if something has to happen right in the middle of it, a call or a meeting you can't move, read the surge as energy for that one task.

The surge will still be there. The aim isn't to feel calm first. It's to decide anyway.

When is it more than everyday stress?

Everyday stress comes and goes with the load, and this article is about that kind. In the program's words: "If stress doesn't ease, or it starts getting in the way of your daily life, or what you're trying yourself isn't helping, see a doctor."

Back to the question

Good vs bad turns out to be the wrong split. The surge is how you meet a demand. What wears you down is the long version: load with no end and no refill. Crum's uncertainty is the honest place to stand. Use the surge for the moment, and work on the load for the week. For the whole picture, start with how to manage stress.

To work this out on your own days, try the 1h Protocol to Manage Everyday Stress, a program of practical education for adults 18 and over. The first chapter is free and finds your stress pattern: the Pile-up, the Always-On Day, the Out-of-Your-Hands Load, the Carrying-It-Alone Load or the Squeezed Basics, or the Tune-up when nothing stands out, with one first step. The full program takes about an hour. It follows a loaded day of yours to the collision and then tells it again with your plan in it. You leave with a plan built from your own answers: your load on one page, what you'd ask for about the demands others set, one line in your own words for the moment it all lands at once, and fourteen days to try it, with reviews on days 7 and 14. Short check-ins follow by email on days 1, 7, 14 and 30. Start free

Frequently asked questions

Is all stress bad for you?

No. The short surge is how you meet a demand, and once the demand is met it's meant to settle (MedlinePlus). What wears people down is load with no recovery afterwards (Sonnentag, 2018).

What is good stress?

Usually a challenge you can meet, short and with an end: a deadline, a performance, a roller coaster. France's INRS says science doesn't split stress into good and bad, only short and long (INRS).

Should I try to lower my stress hormones?

This article doesn't make claims about hormones. The short response is a normal way of meeting a demand. The part you can work on is the load and the refill: how much is open at once, whose it is, and whether your day has breaks and an end.

Can changing how I think about stress help?

A little, in the moment. In trials, mostly with young adults, reading a racing heart as energy improved performance slightly, more in front of others, and the researchers call it no silver bullet (Bosshard and Gomez, 2024). It doesn't change a load that's too big.

Should I just push through?

Not if the load is more than you can meet. Demands that motivate still add strain (LePine et al., 2005). Sort what's open, say what can wait, and raise what isn't yours. If stress doesn't ease, or it starts getting in the way of your daily life, or what you're trying yourself isn't helping, see a doctor.

Sources

This article draws on talks by Alia Crum, Kelly McGonigal and Robert Sapolsky, a Huberman Lab episode, public guidance from the US, Germany and France, reviews of recovery research, a lab experiment and a meta-analysis of trials on reading stress as energy.

• Alia Crum, Change your mindset, change the game (TEDxTraverseCity talk, 2014)
• Kelly McGonigal, How to make stress your friend (TEDGlobal talk, 2013; the mortality claim is corrected above)
• Robert Sapolsky, When is stress good for you? (short talk, Greater Good Science Center, 2012)
• Huberman Lab, Tools for managing stress and anxiety (podcast episode, 2021)
• MedlinePlus, Stress (public health page, US National Library of Medicine, 2023)
• gesund.bund.de, Wie sich Stress auf Körper und Psyche auswirkt (public health portal, German Federal Ministry of Health, in German, 2026)
• NIOSH, Stress at work (US agency booklet, 1999)
• INRS, Stress au travail, ce qu'il faut retenir (French national institute for safety at work, in French, 2023)
• Geurts and Sonnentag, Recovery as an explanatory mechanism (theory review, Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, 2006)
• Sonnentag, The recovery paradox (review of studies mostly with employees, Research in Organizational Behavior, 2018)
• Jamieson, Nock and Mendes, Mind over matter (randomized lab experiment, 50 young adults, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2012)
• Bosshard and Gomez, Reappraisal and stress mindset interventions on task performance (meta-analysis of randomized trials, 35 studies, 5,638 participants, Scientific Reports, 2024)
• Brooks, Get excited (lab experiments, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2014; abstract only)
• Crum, Salovey and Achor, Rethinking stress: the role of mindsets (three studies, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2013; abstract only)
• LePine, Podsakoff and LePine, A meta-analytic test of the challenge stressor and hindrance stressor framework (meta-analysis of studies of employees, Academy of Management Journal, 2005; abstract only)