Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, I'm going to share two different kinds of stress. So a common narrative is that stress is bad, but this is simplistic. Chances are, you've probably seen when stress has served you in a positive way. Maybe helping you to meet a deadline, maybe telling you when you need to change something in your life, maybe providing a little extra motivation to accomplish something.

So we all have stories of when stress has served us. We all also have stories of when stress has not served us, when it's been too overwhelming, maybe to the point of being debilitating. So this is where we can start to see two different kinds of stress. There's use stress and then there's distress. Use stress can be helpful.

It can be enough stress that we have some motivation for our growth or to accomplish something. And use stress is within our tolerance. It's something that we can hold internally without feeling like it's too overwhelming. It can also be a form of a cognitive enhancement. It can make us a little sharper.

Distress is stress that is too overwhelming. It's holding us back. There's too much activation in our nervous system. This is when the stress that you're feeling is not allowing you to think straight. It's causing you to maybe feel irrational in relationship to what's coming up.

Too much fear, and you're not able to do something that is a, a daily task of yours. So use stress versus distress. Usestress is essentially when the energy provided is proportionate to what is. So stress is a form of energy in the body. And so when that energy is proportionate to what is needed in the moment.

So if you think of needing to, let's say, work on a paper, you have a deadline, you need some energy to get sitting down, typing at your computer, thinking about it. A little bit of stress and activation can serve us there. But if we're feeling too stressed, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. I don't know where to start.

All of that activation can actually prevent us from being able to do anything. And then instead we, we distract ourselves, or we take a nap, something to avoid it. That's when we go into the category of distress, when the energy feels excessive and unusable. So the main takeaway for today is just to recognize that there are these two different kinds of stress: use stress and distress. And being aware of that throughout the day can be helpful for you.

One, to just have the self-awareness of like, oh, this is a, I am feeling some stress, but it's a healthy form of stress that's serving me, or I'm feeling some stress and I think it's an indication of I need to take a break, put up some boundaries, practice some self-care. Just that awareness can help you be more intentional in relationship to what's arising in your life. Thank you for your practice. Let's settle in for today's meditation.