Wellness and Chronic Stress: Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

Discover how chronic stress holds you back and why embracing discomfort is the key to wellness and personal growth with Dr. Carla Marie Manly.

In her book Joy from Fear, Dr. Carla Marie Manly dives into the transformative power of embracing discomfort as a pathway to wellness. Read along for strategies to move beyond the cycle of stress and toward a more balanced life.

Your Overall Wellness and Chronic Stress

Given the serious effects of chronic stress, it is important to emphasize some important points before moving forward. On both physiological and psychological levels, research continues to investigate the negative impacts of chronic stress. Physiologically, chronic stress can contribute to high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Stress can have a seriously negative impact on the body’s all-important immune system. Additionally, ongoing stress can cause chest pain, fatigue, decreased sex drive, headaches, stomach irritations, and muscle tension. In the psychological realm, research shows that chronic stress can lead to anxiety issues, depression, restlessness, irritability, decreased motivation, and difficulties with paying attention. Chronic stress often results in self-isolation and a withdrawal from social activities; this is unfortunate, for humans thrive on supportive interconnection.

The joint psychological and physiological impact of stress can be readily seen in many areas. For example, chronic stress can lead to eating issues, drug and alcohol abuse, tobacco use, and other addictive behaviors. Those who are stressed often exercise less; this alone has a significantly negative impact on physiological and psychological health. Last, but far from least, is the impact of stress on sleep. Most of us are awake and busily engaged for at least two-thirds of every day. Sleep gives the body the opportunity to restore and repair itself. The human body generally requires at least seven hours of sleep for much-needed cellular repair. Among other negative effects, sleep deprivation decreases mental clarity and emotional regulation capacities.

Simply stated, your body and psyche need less stress and more sleep. As destructive fear is at the root of stress, you might think of it this way: I need and deserve less destructive fear and more friendly, constructive fear. My body and psyche crave a new way of being.

Not All Stress Is Bad: The Benefits of Optimal Stress

Now that you’ve focused on a basic outline of the negative effects of chronic stress, it’s time to tell you about an upside to stress. The concept of optimal stress—which is far different from chronic, traumatic stress—is an important one. Optimal stress is the ideal low or moderate level of stress that keeps you productive in life.

Optimal stress is that personal, necessary level of stress that gets you out of bed in the morning and allows you to accomplish tasks in a clear, beneficial, and effective manner. If the level of stress is too low, you might stay in bed or on the couch day after day. If an opportunity or challenge came your way, you would likely not have the energy or motivation to pursue it. However, if the level is too high, you might rush around feeling anxious, out of gas, or as though you were running in circles. Unlike high-level stress, optimal stress has the quality of being energizing rather than toxic to the self or those proximate to you. If you have trouble differentiating between optimal stress and chronic stress, ask yourself these questions:

1. Is the stress I feel temporary and manageable?

2. Does it propel me to take an action that is ultimately helpful?

3. Does the sense of being stressed diminish once I take action?

If your answer to these questions is “yes,” it’s likely that optimal stress is at work to help motivate you. If your answer to these questions is “no,”it’s likely that you are experiencing chronic stress.

Stressful incidents of all shapes and sizes occur throughout life; unexpected challenges and difficult situations are inevitable. We can’t prevent these life stressors from occurring, but we can learn how to effectively respond to challenging incidents. Without effective tools, life’s challenges can exact devastating physical and psychological tolls. Although we often have very little power to control the difficulties that appear on our doorstep, we do have great power to learn how to face and move through these stressors effectively, thereby minimizing or even avoiding unnecessary damage to our physical and psychological well-being.

Through the reading you have already done, it may be clear to you that the impact of a stressor is reduced when you are able to process and integrate the stressful experience.

So whether the initial focus or impact of the stressor was your physical body or your psychological being, your greatest defense is your ability to synthesize the incident—to make a congruent whole out of the fragmented pieces of the stressor.

The tools you have been accruing and practicing throughout these chapters are geared to help you process and integrate challenging life experiences more fully and effectively. As you apply them to your daily life experiences, you will find that chronic stress becomes a thing of the past. The skills you have been practicing will help make you more effective at facing life’s stressors.

This is where the concept of optimal stress can become deeply meaningful in your daily life. Indeed, you might prefer to think of optimal stress in terms of motivational energy. As a metaphor, you might envision optimal stress as the salt in your soup. You want just enough, but not a speck more than is absolutely essential, to improve the taste; too much can be disastrous. As you become more attuned to your own well-being, you will find that an intentional level of optimal stress is helpful, for this level of stress helps you grow, learn, experiment, face challenges effectively, and ultimately evolve throughout life.

Destructive fear will fight this; it will want you operating in familiar, chronic stress—stress that will harm you, hold you back, and keep you running in anxious, adrenaline-fueled circles. Constructive fear wants to be your guide and ally; it wants you to slow down. It wants you to take the time to notice your healthy and unhealthy patterns. Constructive fear wants you to nurture what works for you, and it wants you to let go of what does not—this is the essence and beauty of transformational fear.

Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

With all the background reading and hard work you’ve done up to this point, you might be ready for the next step. Indeed, this next stretch offers a provocative concept: It’s time to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. “What?” you might exclaim. “I don’t want to be uncomfortable. Isn’t the whole point of this journey to find a way to be peaceful and stress-free all the time? Isn’t being comfortable the whole point?” Yes and no.

As you read the preceding chapters and bravely engaged in the exercises, you have already been developing your ability to sit with discomfort. I didn’t note early on that you were experimenting with the concept of “being comfortable with being uncomfortable.” This was intentional, as this might have brought up unnecessary fear and actually made you too uncomfortable to progress.

Indeed, this is another way that destructive fear can sneak in; it can make you so afraid of what might be coming that you don’t allow yourself the full benefits of whatever the actual experience might be.

In actuality, it is possible to become so anxious that the fight-flight response is triggered just by the idea of potential discomfort. For example, imagine that you’ve prepared yourself well for an activity, such as giving a speech or performing on stage; you may be quite comfortable with your ability to do the task. In your mind, you know that you’re capable, but the mere idea of the activity makes you so uncomfortable that your actual performance falters. This is destructive fear at work. It sidles into your body and mind to trigger self-doubt.

As you walk into the room to give your well-prepared speech, destructive fear would want you to focus on what might go wrong. It would want you to get stuck in some sort of discomfort—whether the thought of a knot in your stomach or the possibility of forgetting an important topic. Destructive fear would try to convince you that your discomfort is too much to bear. It might make you want to vomit or run from the room. Destructive fear does not want you to be able to tolerate the idea of being uncomfortable. Destructive fear wants you to be uncomfortable with being uncomfortable.

Interestingly, destructive fear also wants you to be uncomfortable with being comfortable. Imagine slowing down and pausing to breathe before giving your speech or performance—trying to calm yourself and become comfortable. Destructive fear might very well creep in to undo your efforts—it would want to make your anxiety and stress level rise.

Destructive fear, in short, does not want you to be comfortable in any way at all.

As you are learning, the focus of constructive fear is far different. It wants to help you move out of these destructive cycles; its goal is to help you transform. Constructive fear knows that new behaviors are unfamiliar and uncomfortable by nature. It knows that change and growth are simply not possible without some degree of discomfort. Constructive fear knows this sad truth: so much potential is never fulfilled—in the self or in relationships—because people run from discomfort. Whether we do not tolerate the discomfort of a rough patch in a relationship, the difficult discomfort of letting go of an addiction, or the discomfort of a change in life, so much beautiful life potential is lost to the voice of destructive fear that demands complete comfort or unsettled discomfort.

Constructive fear wants you to notice the negative messages of destructive fear, and it wants you to learn from them. Using another example, imagine having a difficult heart-to-heart talk with a loved one. Perhaps deep conversations are not your forte, and that the mere idea of moving into the intimate, emotional realm is frightening. Maybe you’re more accustomed to talking of work, sports, or more superficial matters. Destructive fear might want to raise your anxiety. It would want you to view the talk as a threat. It would creep in to warn you, “Heartfelt talks are bad! They’re unnecessary! They are no fun! You’d better fight or run. Get out of this unfamiliar territory in any way you can. Get out now!”

Constructive fear would help you see through this negative, destructive tactic. It would help you to compassionately slow down—to take a step back to notice your discomfort without judgment. It would help you become aware of your emotional state and how destructive fear is trying to take over.

Constructive fear might say, “Heartfelt discussions are simply new and unfamiliar to you. You learned as a child and through adulthood to be frightened and to avoid these discussions. Yet you can learn to become more comfortable with them only by practicing. Just notice that you are a bit anxious and scared. Breathe. Pause to check in with how your body feels. Remember that intimate discussions are actually very healthy; they are a vital and essential element of truly bonded relationships. You have the courage and ability to talk about intimate matters—the most important elements of life.

Take a step forward into this new behavior. It is natural to be a bit uncomfortable. Allow yourself to tolerate the discomfort; you have what it takes to be ‘comfortably uncomfortable.’ You will transform and grow as you strengthen this ability. You will build true confidence in your power to speak your truth—to safely and securely talk about anything with dignity, courage, compassion, and respect.”

In many ways, we get too used to being “comfortable” in life. As humans, we generally want to be comfortable all of the time. Couple this with our culture’s “quick fix” mentality and the idea of learning how to be comfortably uncomfortable goes by the wayside. When we have a headache, we reach for a pill. When we are lonely or sad, we reach for a pint of ice cream. When work is stressful, we reach for a box of cookies or a bag of potato chips. If we are unhappy, we reach for an antidepressant. If we are anxious, we reach for an anti-anxiety pill. And so it goes. We down pills, drink booze, have hookup sex, overeat, and overshop to avoid discomfort. None of these tactics work to tackle the underlying issues.

By refusing to get to the bottom of what’s causing the issue, we do not address the discomfort. We get caught in the vicious cycle of running from discomfort and running into it again.

There is a far different, more conscious and powerful way to move through life. With constructive fear at your side, a healthy threefold process becomes your ally in learning to utilize discomfort. These three steps are simple yet highly effective.

1. Let constructive fear help you investigate what causes the discomfort— the underlying messages of destructive fear.
2. Use the voice of constructive fear to guide you into noticing options that don’t keep you stuck in old patterns that are deeply unhealthy and uncomfortable.
3. Practice being uncomfortable in a healthy way. Build your ability to tolerate the discomfort that arises as you approach your life experiences in a new way. You may even enjoy it as a sign of positive growth.

Remember, destructive fear wants you to be uncomfortable with the slightest discomfort. It wants you to run away. It wants you to stop conversations with yourself and others that might help you change negative pathways. Constructive fear will help you become aware that learning to be comfortably uncomfortable is a vital element of your transformative journey.

Discover More Ways to Be Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

^{Excerpt from Joy from Fear by Dr. Carla Marie Manly.}