Book SummaryThe Upside of Stress, by Kelly McGonigal

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Upside of Stress

The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal goes beyond fight-or-flight to explore the nuances and overlooked benefits of stress. McGonigal claims that with a balanced understanding of stress and a positive mindset, you can transform your stress into a resource that gives you the courage to act, helps you build stronger relationships, and guides you to a life of greater meaning.

McGonigal is a health psychologist and professor at Stanford University. Early in her career, McGonigal subscribed to the conventional view of stress: that it causes illness and early death, and that people should avoid it.

However, McGonigal’s perspective on stress changed when she encountered a study that showed high levels of stress were strongly associated with earlier mortality—except in people who didn’t believe stress was harmful. In fact, the study found the lowest risk of death in the latter group. Therefore, stress didn’t appear to be the killer, but rather, people’s mindsets. This study inspired McGonigal to critically...

The Upside of Stress Summary What Is Stress?

First, we’ll discuss McGonigal’s understanding of stress as both potentially harmful and beneficial. To do this, we’ll distinguish the traditional idea of stress from McGonigal’s definition. Then, we’ll discuss the different forms stress can take and how these affect you.

A Traditional—but Limited—View of Stress

McGonigal spent the early part of her teaching career spreading a common, cautionary message about stress: Stress is bad for your health, and you should try to avoid it. Although stress can be harmful, McGonigal now teaches that the research supporting this negative view misrepresents stress’s true, nuanced nature.

McGonigal argues that our fear of stress is largely based on irrelevant research. She claims that most theories describing the negative effects of stress on human health are informed by extremely stressful animal studies (mostly involving rats) whose results aren’t applicable to humans. The stress tests performed on animals were sporadic, uncontrollable, and lacked any meaning for the animals involved. These conditions caused a chronic fight-or-flight response, which led the animals to develop serious health issues like ulcers, depression, and...

The Upside of Stress Summary Why You Should Embrace Stress

Not only can stress empower you in a variety of ways, but it’s also natural and inevitable. Therefore, McGonigal argues that avoiding stress is futile and harmful. She claims that to resist stress is to resist living a full life. So, it’s important to embrace the benefits of stress in order to live meaningfully. In this section, we’ll first explain how avoiding stress causes more harmful stress and unhappiness. Then, we’ll talk about why McGonigal claims a stressful life leads to happiness and meaning.

Like McGonigal, ancient philosophers since early human civilization have claimed that stress is simply a part of life. Today, research echoes this idea, showing that the most reported causes of stress are everyday, uncontrollable forces like inflation, supply chain issues, and uncertainty about global events.

So, if the causes of stress are inevitable, how can we reduce the impact of stress? One health care organization suggests measures like[ regular exercise, a healthy diet, meditation, and connecting with others can be effective at reducing...

The Upside of Stress Summary Your Mindset Makes All the Difference

To unlock the benefits of stress, McGonigal encourages you to change your perception of it. She explains that you can achieve this through a mindset shift that primes you to react to stress with a challenge or tend-and-befriend response rather than chronic fight-or-flight responses. In this section, we’ll explain what a mindset is, why it’s important for transforming stress, and how to change it.

What Is a Mindset?

According to McGonigal, a mindset is a set of beliefs that influences your perception of reality. McGonigal explains that you probably have a lot of beliefs, but not all of your beliefs are mindsets. For example, you might believe honey goes better with peanut butter than jelly does, but this belief doesn’t affect your outlook on life or influence your daily decisions (except during lunch, maybe).

In contrast, a mindset is a pervasive philosophy that determines your thoughts, goals, and actions. For example, if you believe college is a transactional experience, in which you go through the motions to earn your degree, you’ll probably do whatever’s necessary to make passable grades. However, if you believe college is an opportunity to explore your...

The Upside of Stress Summary Transform Your Stress Mindset

Now that you understand why mindsets are important, we’ll discuss how to transform your mindset on stress. First, we’ll discuss why it’s important to focus on your resources. Then, we’ll talk about connecting with others and keeping your highest values in mind. Finally, we’ll explain why you should always try to look for a genuine silver lining in your stress.

Focus On Your Resources

In order to prompt a challenge response when you’re facing a stressful situation, McGonigal suggests taking account of your resources. Research shows that the most important determinant of your response to stress is your mindset about your ability to handle a given situation. If you don’t feel like you have the resources necessary to handle a given situation, you’ll induce a threat response. On the other hand, if you feel like you’re capable of taking on a situation, you’ll be more likely to induce a challenge response. In order to trigger the latter response when you’re faced with a difficult situation, McGonigal says to keep the following resources in mind:

• Acknowledge strengths that can help you.
• Think of moments in your past when you’ve handled similar situations well.
• Think...

Shortform Exercise: Transform Your Stress

In The Upside to Stress, Kelly McGonigal argues that to benefit from stress, you need to change your mindset about it.

Think of a time when you were very stressed. What was the situation? Did you feel like you could handle it? What was your response?