[shlape]

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Thus, the questions I propose to you are:

• What is stress?
• Are there such a thing as good and bad stress?
• How can/do we use stress to improve ourselves
• How can we relieve “bad” stress?



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What is stress? I can tell you about the bad stress, as I've had plenty of experience with it.
The stress I speak of (I believe) comes from a lack of acceptance of the things you can't control coupled with a distorted world-view or "how things should be".

Good stress: short but brutal gym workout. Short sustainable exposure without wearing yourself out.
Bad stress: see the earlier definition. Prolonged, unrelenting stress without relief.

Personally, stress served as a wake-up call, but not before some serious health issues creeped in; not to mention years of wasted effort trying to bulk up but not dealing with the stress outside the gym. It ultimately becomes a life-changer from your 'old ways'... whether it happens after a nervous breakdown or just before. I think I came close.

How do you clean up weeks / months / years of habitual (bad) stress? In a word, meditation. For me, it's a work-in-progress.