What happens when you are in a stressful situation? Does your head hurt or your back ache? Does your stomach start to get upset? One of the best ways to more easily relieve your stress is to know how to define the stress you are experiencing.

Psychologists tell us there are two types of stress. One is known as distress and the other is known of eustress. They are both a result of your fight or flight response and can have the same physiological affect on your body. Even though they have the same physiological affects, they are as different as two sides of the same coin. One is actually useful to your body while the other is harmful.

Eustress is an anxious feeling that feels more like anticipation than dread. You may experience eustress before giving a presentation at work, going out on a date, before a job interview or when preparing a gourmet meal from a recipe you’ve never tried to cook before.

Although all these types of activities can give you the feeling of uncertainty, the outcome isn’t fatal. A good way to look at eustress is when a man’s hands shake as he shows the engagement ring to the one he loves. It also manifests itself as the bride’s pre-wedding jitters while she prepares to walk down the aisle. While stressful, I am sure you would agree that both these would be “good” stress because they represent taking a step toward a positive outcome.

Distress, on the other hand, is anxiety, fear, frustration and an overcoming sense of dread. One example is job burnout caused by working in a stressful environment for too long. Anytime you have continual exposure to stressful situations and people it can result in you experiencing negative stress. This negative stress can manifest itself in many ways.

There’s nothing useful about this type of stress. If you allow it to continue it can be a warm-up act for a heart attack, stroke or an emotional meltdown. And, if you say that you “work better under stress,” you probably haven’t checked in with your immune system.

Living under stressful conditions for long periods of time damages your immune system. Have you ever noticed that you’re more likely to catch a cold when you’re overworked than when you aren’t? Of course you have, that’s a direct result of your fight or flight response trying to deal with your stress overload.

A good method of dealing with stress is to keep a stress journal and, when you find yourself stressed out, writing down specific answers to these questions:

1. What is causing you to feel stressed?
2. Where are you when you feel the most stress?
3. Who is with you?
4. What are you doing?
5. Has anything changed recently in this situation?

By writing down what is happening in your life you can begin to see what is activating your fight or flight response. This way you can look for ways to change either your involvement with what is stressing you out or how you respond to it.

Also, you need to determine is whether it’s harmful stress or really eustress. If what you are experiencing is eustress, then you can begin to label it correctly. For example you can change, “I’m so stressed out about giving this presentation” to “This presentation is just what I need in order to highlight how my plan can help the company!” You will be amazed at how differently your mind and body will feel as you redefine what you are experiencing.

While dealing with stress is important, understanding and defining it correctly is just as important. You will always be influenced by your fight or flight mechanism, but as you learn to properly define it, you will be less under its control and that’s one of the best ways to relieve stress there is.

Wil Dieck is the founder of Total Mind Therapy and author of an e-Course “Steps to reducing your stress“ that you can have at absolutely no charge. Drop by http://www.beststressreliefinfosite.com/  for your copy today.