Hi, welcome back to

your Daily Mindfulness.

In today's session, we're

going to talk about the minimum

effective dose of stress.

Now, there are some people who might

say that we don't need any stress.

We should to be able to go throughout

the world in a more Zen calm state.

But that hasn't been my experience.

I have sometimes found that a little

bit of stress can be useful for me.

And I have found this for a

lot of other people as well, at

least through their self report.

I think for many of us though, we

tend to associate a level of stress

with being able to do something well,

especially if it's something that

is important, like a deadline or

remembering to take care of someone.

All of those things often make us feel

like, Oh, I need to be in a stressed out

state in order to stay on top of this

or to make sure I don't forget about it.

And so let's start by honoring

that maybe that's a possibility and

let's evaluate the level of stress

we need on a level of one to ten.

So if we think about a recent scenario

where we felt like we needed to be a

little bit stressed in order to do that

thing well, what you can do for yourself

right now, Assess on a scale of one to

ten, how much stress did do you think

you need in order to do that thing well.

Where ten is the maximum amount of

stress and one is no stress at all.

So let's say what comes up is a seven.

Seven, good amount of stress helps

me do this thing really well.

First question I want you to ask is how

come I chose a seven and not a nine?

What is it about a nine that tells me, Oh,

that's too much stress, but seven is good.

And then you can ask, well, why did

I choose a seven and not a five?

Can I do what I need to

do at the level of a five?

And explore what would it be

like to try to be productive

with a little bit more stress.

There's no right answer to this, but

assessing your stress on a number

line from one to ten, seeing what you

perceive you need and then exploring

what would it be like to drop it down

a level or two levels or three levels.

And can I still do what I need

to do at a lower stress level?

It might give you some

interesting responses.

Sometimes we do need

stress to be productive.

And sometimes we just think we

need stress to be productive.

So you can use this technique throughout

your day and your week to explore how

much stress is actually necessary for you.

And what you might find it's

less than you think you need.

Thank you for your practice.

And I'll talk to you

soon in the meditation.

Take care.