Stress Needs a Better PR Agent (It’s Not the Villain You Think It Is)

The Most Misunderstood System in Your Body

Stress has the worst public relations team in the history of human biology.

Seriously, think about it. Your immune system gets celebrated for “fighting off infections.” Your cardiovascular system gets praised for “pumping life through your body.” Your nervous system gets admired for “controlling complex functions.”

But stress? Stress gets blamed for everything from heart disease to hair loss, treated like a toxic invader, and labeled the enemy of productivity, happiness, and basically everything good in life.

As a stress physiologist, I’m here to tell you that stress has been criminally misrepresented. It’s time we set the record straight.

The Great Stress Misunderstanding

Here’s where everyone gets it wrong: we’ve been labeling stress itself as “good” or “bad” when stress is actually neutral. It’s just information. It’s your body’s response system, like your phone’s notification system.

When your phone buzzes, you don’t call the notification good or bad—you look at what triggered it. A text from your best friend? Different response than a work email at midnight. Same notification system, different information, different action required.

Your stress response works exactly the same way. The physical sensation—increased heart rate, heightened awareness, energy mobilization—is just your internal notification system saying, “Hey, something’s happening that requires attention.”

Fire Alarms Aren’t the Enemy

Imagine if we treated fire alarms the way we treat stress. Picture a building where everyone spends their time trying to silence the alarms instead of addressing what triggered them.

“These fire alarms are so disruptive to our productivity! We need fire alarm management workshops!”

“I’m stressed about my fire alarm going off. How can I make it stop beeping?”

“Our building has a fire alarm problem. Let’s install sound-dampening technology so we can’t hear them anymore.”

You’d think these people were insane, right? The alarm isn’t the problem—it’s the information delivery system. Yet this is exactly how we approach stress in our personal and professional lives.

The Stressor vs. The Stress Response

This is where stress’s PR problem really becomes clear. We use the word “stress” to describe two completely different things:

1. The stressor (the trigger): Your demanding boss, financial pressures, health concerns, relationship conflicts, a promotion, a pregnancy, a new opportunity
2. The stress response (your body’s reaction): Increased heart rate, muscle tension, heightened alertness, energy mobilization

The stressor might be problematic. Your toxic boss? That’s a legitimate issue. Financial instability? Real concern. Family crisis? Absolutely challenging.

The stressor might also be a good thing! (something we rarely give any heed to but…something to discuss in another blog post).

But your stress response to these situations? That’s just your biology working exactly as designed, preparing you to deal with whatever you’re facing.

When Good Stressors Get Bad Press

I was recently working with a startup founder who told me, “I’m so stressed about this investor presentation. I know I shouldn’t be—it’s a good opportunity.”

Hold on. She was feeling guilty about having a stress response to something that could dramatically impact her company’s future? That’s like feeling guilty that your heart rate increases when you exercise.

Her stress response was perfect. A high-stakes presentation should activate your nervous system. You want increased blood flow to your brain, heightened awareness, and energy mobilization when the outcome matters.

The problem wasn’t her stress—it was her relationship with her stress. She’d been conditioned to think that any stress response meant something was wrong.

The Oxygen Parallel

I opened this piece talking about stress needing better PR, and I mentioned oxygen earlier for a reason. Oxygen has excellent PR despite being literally toxic.

Oxygen creates free radicals that damage our DNA, proteins, and cellular structures. The oxidation process ages us and eventually kills us. From a purely chemical perspective, oxygen is far more dangerous than most things we’ve labeled “toxic.”

But oxygen also powers cellular respiration, enables brain function, and keeps us alive. So we don’t talk about oxygen as “good” or “bad”—we talk about it as essential, while being aware that balance matters.

Stress deserves the same nuanced understanding.

The Media’s Role in Stress’s Bad Reputation

Here’s how stress gets characterized in most media coverage:

“Study Shows Stress Kills” “10 Ways to Eliminate Stress from Your Life”
“Is Stress Destroying Your Health?” “The Stress Epidemic Ruining America”

Compare this to how we talk about exercise, which creates the exact same physiological responses—elevated heart rate, muscle tension, increased cortisol, temporary inflammation:

“Study Shows Exercise Extends Life” “10 Ways to Add More Exercise to Your Day” “Is Exercise the Key to Better Health?” “The Exercise Revolution Transforming America”

Same biology, completely different framing.

What Stress Actually Does

When we strip away the moral judgments and look at what stress actually accomplishes, the picture changes dramatically:

Enhanced Memory Formation: Moderate stress improves both memory encoding and recall. This is why you remember important events more vividly than routine ones.

Immune System Optimization: Short-term stress boosts immune function, preparing your body to handle potential threats or injuries.

Increased Focus and Attention: Stress narrows your attention to relevant information, filtering out distractions when focus matters most.

Energy Mobilization: Stress makes stored energy immediately available, providing the fuel needed for enhanced performance.

Social Bonding: Stress triggers oxytocin release, strengthening connections with others who support you during challenges.

Growth and Adaptation: Stress signals areas where development is needed, driving learning and resilience building.

None of these functions are inherently good or bad—they’re adaptive responses that can be helpful or problematic depending on context, duration, and your interpretation.

Rewriting Stress’s Story

What if we started talking about stress the way we talk about other adaptive systems?

Instead of “I’m stressed about this deadline,” try “My system is mobilizing energy for this important project.”

Instead of “This job is too stressful,” try “This role is demanding significant adaptation and growth.”

Instead of “I need to manage my stress,” try “I need to channel this energy effectively.”

The physiological experience doesn’t change, but the meaning does—and meaning determines whether stress helps or hurts you.

The New Stress Narrative

Here’s the story stress’s new PR agent should be telling:

Stress is your body’s sophisticated information and preparation system. It activates when your brain detects something that matters, mobilizing resources to help you respond effectively. Like any powerful system, it can be helpful or problematic depending on how it’s understood and applied. The goal isn’t to eliminate stress but to develop a more skillful relationship with it.

What This Means for You

Stop trying to eliminate your stress response and start getting curious about what it’s telling you. When you feel that familiar sensation—heart rate increasing, attention focusing, energy rising—ask yourself:

What is my system responding to? What does this situation require from me? How can I use this energy effectively? What would change if I saw this as preparation rather than problem?

The Bottom Line

Stress doesn’t need to be defeated, managed, or eliminated. It needs to be understood. When you stop fighting against your stress response and start working with it, everything changes.

Your stress isn’t broken. Your relationship with stress might need some work, but the system itself is functioning exactly as evolution designed it.

It’s time we gave stress the PR campaign it deserves: not as villain or hero, but as the sophisticated, neutral, adaptive system it actually is.

Ready to develop a better relationship with your stress response? Learn more about my keynotes and programming that focus on understanding rather than elimination.