“One of the effects of the biological stress response is to make you more open to your experience. You feel things more, and your ability to notice expands. You are more sensitive to other people and to your environment. This increased openness is helpful, but can be overwhelming.”
“One particularly impressive study conducted through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, in Palo Alto, California, followed more than one thousand adults for ten years. At the beginning of the study, researchers asked the participants about how they dealt with stress. Those who reported trying to avoid stress were more likely to become depressed over the following decade. They also experienced increasing conflict at work and at home, and more negative outcomes, such as being fired or getting divorced. Importantly, avoiding stress predicted the increase in depression, conflict, and negative events above and beyond any symptoms or difficulties reported at the beginning of the study. Wherever a participant started in life, the tendency to avoid stress made things worse over the next decade.
Psychologists call this vicious cycle stress generation. It’s the ironic consequence of trying to avoid stress: You end up creating more sources of stress while depleting the resources that should be supporting you. As the stress piles up, you become increasingly overwhelmed and isolated, and therefore even more likely to rely on avoidant coping strategies, like trying to steer clear of stressful situations or to escape your feelings with self-destructive distractions.”
“As psychologists Richard Ryan, Veronika Huta, and Edward Deci write in The Exploration of Happiness, “The more directly one aims to maximize pleasure and avoid pain, the more likely one is to produce instead a life bereft of depth, meaning, and community.”
“Although avoiding stress can seem like a rational strategy, it almost always backfires. One of the benefits of embracing stress is that you find the strength to pursue goals and endure experiences that are difficult but meaningful.”
“Missed opportunities: What events, experiences, activities, roles, or other opportunities have you turned down or cut out of your life because you thought they were (or would be) too stressful?
Has your life been enhanced or narrowed by these choices? What is the cost to you of missing these opportunities?"
“Avoidant coping: What activities, substances, or other “escapes” do you turn to when you want to avoid, get rid of, or numb thoughts and feelings related to the stress in your life?
Are these coping strategies a good use of your time, energy, and life? Do they enhance meaning or help you grow? Are any of these coping strategies self-destructive?"
“Limiting your future: Is there anything you would like to do, experience, accept, or change, if only you were not afraid of the stress it might bring into your life?
How would your life be enhanced by pursuing any of these possibilities? What is the cost to you of not allowing yourself to pursue them?"
“The biggest problem with trying to avoid stress is how it changes the way we view our lives, and ourselves. Anything in life that causes stress starts to look like a problem. If you experience stress at work, you think there’s something wrong with your job. If you experience stress in your marriage, you think there’s something wrong with your relationship. If you experience stress as a parent, you think there’s something wrong with your parenting (or your kids). If trying to make a change is stressful, you think there’s something wrong with your goal.”
-----
grok:
"The core message is that attempting to control, eliminate, or avoid stress is not only ineffective in the long run—it actively makes life worse by narrowing it, depleting resources, and generating more stress.
- Biological irony of stress
The stress response heightens sensitivity and openness to experience (you feel and notice more). This increased awareness is evolutionarily useful, but when we treat it as something to shut down, we fight against our own biology.
- Long-term consequences of avoidance (the landmark VA study)
A 10-year study of over 1,000 adults showed that people who reported trying to avoid stress at the start:
- Became significantly more depressed over the decade
- Experienced rising conflict at work and home
- Had more negative life events (fired, divorced, etc.)
Crucially, avoidance predicted these outcomes even after controlling for initial levels of depression or life difficulties. In other words, wherever you start, a habit of stress-avoidance reliably makes the future worse.
- The vicious cycle: “Stress generation”
Trying to dodge stress → creates new sources of stress → depletes your emotional and social resources → leaves you more overwhelmed and isolated → makes you even more likely to rely on avoidance → repeats and worsens.
Psychologists Ryan, Huta, and Deci summarize it bluntly: “The more directly one aims to maximize pleasure and avoid pain, the more likely one is to produce instead a life bereft of depth, meaning, and community.”
- How avoidance distorts perception
When your main goal is “no stress,” anything that produces stress starts to look like a threat or a flaw:
- Stress at work → “My job is bad”
- Stress in marriage → “My relationship is broken”
- Stress in parenting → “I’m a bad parent” or “My kids are the problem”
- Stress while pursuing a goal → “This goal must not be right for me”
Over time, life itself begins to look like a minefield of problems to be avoided rather than a landscape of meaningful challenges.
- The alternative: Embracing stress
Accepting stress as part of meaningful pursuit gives you the resilience to engage with difficult but valuable goals, relationships, roles, and experiences.
Reflective Questions Posed in the Text (condensed)
- What opportunities, roles, or experiences have you already rejected or abandoned because they felt “too stressful”? Has your life become richer or narrower as a result?
- What substances, activities, or distractions do you use to numb or escape stressful feelings? Are they life-enhancing or self-destructive?
- What would you do, change, or accept if fear of stress weren’t holding you back? What is the current cost of not doing it?
Bottom-line takeaway
Avoiding stress feels rational in the moment but almost always backfires. It doesn’t reduce suffering—it multiplies it while shrinking your life. Embracing stress, on the other hand, is what allows a deeper, wider, and more meaningful existence."
