Stress and Performance

For years, I’ve used the inverted U model of the relationship between stress and performance, also known as the Yerkes-Dodson Law. Although most people believe that stress is always bad and needs to be eliminated entirely, I tell patients research has shown that stress can actually enhance performance. Stress motivates people to act. 

Of course, too much stress is harmful to the body and mind. It can lead to feelings of being overwhelmed and also affect our physical health. The relationship between stress and performance resembles a bell curve, as seen below.

I tell my patients who are stressed and working to control that stress that the key to optimum performance in any situation is the ability to keep stress at the right level. The “right” level of stress is different for everyone and different, too, for each of us at different times of life. The optimum level of stress changes depending on the circumstances. 

So yesterday, I was explaining this to my (non-mental health professional) husband because I was feeling unmotivated and tired. I was lamenting that, as I wind down my clinical practice and no longer need to keep a full schedule to keep the wolf from the door, I am finding that I am not as efficient:  I forget to go to the post office on the way home from the office to mail a package; I go to the grocery store without the list I made and don’t get everything we need; I have numerous projects going that seem to take longer to get to. 

In general, I complained, I’m not the efficient working-mother-machine I once was. At the same time, I’m enjoying sipping my coffee while reading the New York Times online in the morning rather than hitting the deck running, but still…I miss some of the stress of earlier years.  I groused that maybe I’m not challenged enough, that I’m bored. 

Of course, I have recently agreed to write this blog regularly and have to work to stay ahead of deadlines. I’m also participating in a webinar in late September, something new for me and for which I haven’t started preparing – the stress isn’t quite high enough yet.  Oh, and last weekend I took a welding course (pictures available!). If that isn’t stress, I don’t know what is. 

In what ways have you found stress to help and/or hinder your performance as a clinician? 

Leslie Durr, PhD, RN, PMHCNS-BC is an advanced practice psychiatric-mental health nurse with a private psychotherapy practice in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the blog post author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Psych Congress Network or other Psych Congress Network authors.