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Stress is Good
Everyone’s convinced stress is this outdated evolutionary
technology—poorly calibrated to modern life, something to avoid at all
costs. The story goes that it evolved to help us run from tigers, but
now it’s just triggered by email notifications. This is nonsense. Stress
is the only thing that gets us to perform at all. It’s the most valuable
biological technology we have. This lecture walks through the
Yerkes-Dodson Law—a simple, 100-year-old model that explains how stress
actually works, why we need it, and how to use it well.
Further reading: - The Betterment article
that inspired this - More on
stress and cognitive flexibility - Why
the amygdala doesn’t work the way you think
References: - The
Atlantic Article, demonstrating the typical approach to stress -
Sapolsky’s book Why
Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers - Yerkes Dodson
Law - Vartinian
et al. (2020), Goldfarb et
al. (2017), Lenow et
al. (2017) or this
commentary on the relationship between low stress and cognitive
flexibility - Eustress
(Hans Seyle, 1976). More modern developments would be Cognitive
Appraisal Models and Attribution
Theory - Chronic Stress
and Allostatic
Load
View all episodes
By Dorian MinorsEveryone’s convinced stress is this outdated evolutionary
technology—poorly calibrated to modern life, something to avoid at all
costs. The story goes that it evolved to help us run from tigers, but
now it’s just triggered by email notifications. This is nonsense. Stress
is the only thing that gets us to perform at all. It’s the most valuable
biological technology we have. This lecture walks through the
Yerkes-Dodson Law—a simple, 100-year-old model that explains how stress
actually works, why we need it, and how to use it well.
Further reading: - The Betterment article
that inspired this - More on
stress and cognitive flexibility - Why
the amygdala doesn’t work the way you think
References: - The
Atlantic Article, demonstrating the typical approach to stress -
Sapolsky’s book Why
Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers - Yerkes Dodson
Law - Vartinian
et al. (2020), Goldfarb et
al. (2017), Lenow et
al. (2017) or this
commentary on the relationship between low stress and cognitive
flexibility - Eustress
(Hans Seyle, 1976). More modern developments would be Cognitive
Appraisal Models and Attribution
Theory - Chronic Stress
and Allostatic
Load