Goldilocks and her relation to StReSs

read if you are curious to better understand your stress spectrum and what the hell that has to do with GOLDILOCKZ

Ah. A fresh page and a juicy topic. My favorite. I’m currently penning this while sitting at one of my favorite coffee shops in the city, sipping on a warm green tea, watching the snow trickle from the sky in chunky flakes. The coziness level at the moment is off the charts.

Which is perhaps the perfect time to talk about StReSs. Which is what this musing is about. Specifically, the Goldilocks Principle of Stress. The principle states – that just like Goldilocks and her porridge temperature- there’s a ‘just right’ amount of stress that should be present in each of our lives. And in my opinion, it’s up to us to find that just right spot. Turns out that picky betch was onto something… ;)

Let’s backtrack a momento to the point where I discovered this principle. The organization I work for shuts down two times per year for a week each (absolutely love this perk, BTW) and the second week falls over the winter holiday season and I usually fly back to Arizona to spend time with family. This most recent trip I flew a good 4-5 books down and a few journals with high ambitions of using my extended free time to plow through books I’ve had on my shelf for a minute, journal a ton, write a bunch, and just be uber creative. However, when I got there, I was navigating a few unexpected emotions and just absolutely didn’t feel like doing anything. Not in an “ahh, I’m going to relax and do nothing and let that fill my cup”, kinda way…but a “fuck. I just feel so off and am not motivated to do anything I had originally planned to” kinda way.

I chat with my life/leadership coach 2x a month and when we discussed this experience I was also comparing it to how purposeful I felt to be back at work and working towards work and personal goals. She helped me name the difference between the experiences and we discussed how this was a spectrum and the topic of the Goldilocks Principle of Stress came up. The idea that I wasn’t ‘stressed enough’ at home when I wanted to be was so WEIRD to me…but actually made sense. I compared that feeling to the feeling I have when I get back to my life in Boston – my job, friends, creative pursuits, workouts – and could FEEL the difference. My life in Boston has a certain level of stress that SERVES me. Sometimes too much…but that’s the spectrum, baby!! The level of stress serves me because it keeps my plate full enough of things that fill me up for the most part and that keeps the ball of momentum ROLLING. Gosh, I love momentum. There’s plenty of time for rest and mindfulness and slowness and breath in this life of mine I’ve built, but it’s the momentum, the fluid movement of everything I’ve got on my plate that really freaking serves me and lights me up.

So, being able to name this experience I had felt was wicked inspiring and naturally, I immediately had to share it with everyone I knew. Including you, reading this, so you’re welcome. Lol.

Anyways, here’s some thoughts I wrote up for my organization to better understand this principle as well…

Before we dive in, let’s familiarize ourselves with what stress is/ what happens to us when we experience it.

When the brain perceives physical or psychological stress, it starts pumping the chemicals cortisol, epinephrine (adrenaline), and norepinephrine into the body which instantly cause our hearts to beat faster, our blood pressure to increase, our senses to sharpen, and a rise in our blood glucose levels. This is necessary for our bodies – it invigorates us to be able to leap away from a car or survive a dog attack.

The idea behind the Goldilocks Principle of Stress is that this RX in our bodies is a good thing, in the right dose. In the right dose, this RX in our bodies is a burst of energy, helping us to be more motivated, and driven.

I’m sure you may have also become familiar with the other ends of the stress spectrum- one end where stress is prolonged or too high- which leads to sickness, burnout, and overwhelm. And the other end is where stress is absent or there’s too little of it resulting in disinterest, being unmotivated, or not being driven.

So, obviously, there is a sweet spot in the middle. The best part about this middle ground is that it’s a spectrum. Looking at the spectrum above, you see that the ‘just right’ space isn’t just a single point. It’s not as if you can only be at 88% capacity or else you’ll be disinterested or overwhelmed – even the sweet spot has some space to be a spectrum.

As I was learning about this principle in early January and reflected on my own spectrum, I think my sweet spot is 75-90% capacity meaning that when my plate is that full professionally and personally, I’m at my best. This looks different for each of us, though, and perhaps might take some time to understand and see the trends!  

So how do you understand what your personal Goldilocks sweet spot of stress is? Here are some tips from me (who’s not a DR, just sharing what worked for me, so take what you need and leave what you don’t):

1)      Do some consistent and quick reflection. How stressed did I feel this day/week using spectrum? Record for 30 days and see what trends emerge.

2)      Do a quick run-through of the things that you identify as stressful and see what kind of stress they are. Meaning, what’s short-term performance-enhancing stress, and what’s long-term damaging chronic stress?

3)      Think of the times in your life when you had stress that left you burnt out and compare that to the times when you might not have had enough and lacked drive and motivation.

Once you’ve done your reflection on where your sweet spot is, I think it’s also important to give ourselves grace as we weave that into our lives. There are going to be times in our lives when we have too little or too much stress – that’s all OKAY. Remember, life is a journey and we won’t be able to be in our sweet spots 100% of the time – that’s not realistic. What is key is the AWARENESS of what that spectrum looks like for you, because then you’ll be better equipped to handle the navigation of that spectrum.

Perhaps in a future musing, I’ll pivot into a robust conversation about how to deal with stress, but we need to start here first. Crawl before we walk. We need to understand what our stress spectrum is, what is short-term vs long-term stress for us, etc. to be able to better understand what needs to be tuned up or tuned down.

Cheers to the journey, baby!!! To living life in the sweet spot when we can and appreciating the moments outside of it for their lessons, too.

Xoxo.