10/15/2025

This Study Says Not All Stress Is Bad

Some might even help you at work

Most discussions of stress at work focus on how strains in the workplace might be worsening due to some societal effects, or how it can drive some unexpected employee behavior. There’s ample advice on tackling and lessening the impacts of stress in the workplace. But a new report published in the journal of the American Psychological Association concludes that some kinds of stress can be useful on the job. Next time someone stresses out in your office, it might be helpful to recall this slightly contrarian perspective.

The research from Portland State University highlights two different types of stresses: "Challenge stresses," which can represent "favorable" social exchanges between employees and the organization and "hindrance" stresses — the kind we usually associate with the word stress, and which represent "unfavorable" exchanges. 

The interesting stress effect here is, of course, the challenging one. Here a stressful interaction can actually cause someone to experience "emotional uplifts," science news site Phys.org notes.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Inc.