There are six major types of stress each of which can have a positive or negative impact on our body depending on the magnitude and frequency of the dose.
- Physical stress
- Psychological stress
- Chemical stress
- Electromagnetic stress
- Nutritional stress
- Thermal stress
In most instances too much or too little of the stressor is bad for our health and well-being. Instead we should seek out the goldilocks zone in the middle where our exposure to the stressor is just right.
Examples
A complete lack of physical stress causes us to get fat, weak and unfit. On the flip side excessive physical exercises causes fatigue, burn out and injuries.
Eat too few calories and our metabolic rate slows and valuable muscle tissue is lost. Eat too many calories and we gain weight plus trigger potential metabolic damage.
Spend too long indoors out of natural sunlight and we can become insufficient in vitamin D. Head on holiday and spend too long in the scorching sun and our skin will burn.
In all these examples there is a sweet spot in the middle where we get optimum benefit from the stressor with fewest negative side effects.
More Info
Paul Chek has an excellent chapter on this topic in his book How To Eat, Move And Be Healthy.