This study is one of many that show support for the idea that some moderate, manageable stress can be beneficial. This doesn’t mean that chronic, intense, or traumatic stress is good for people. But, some evidence does show that the successful navigation of stressful experience builds resilience. The graph above shows mental health levels of adults who were currently experiencing high levels of stress. Researchers wanted to understand the role that earlier life stress played in these individuals’ ability to cope with stress in adulthood. Not surprisingly, the people who had highly stressful experiences growing up (sometimes called adverse experiences) had the highest levels of stress and mental health problems in adulthood. Interestingly, those who reported the least amount of stress growing up had the next highest levels of mental health problems when confronted with stress in adulthood. The group who reported a moderate degree of early life stress showed fewer mental health problems than groups who had too much or not enough stress.

This phenomenon has been called ‘steeling’ (as in preparing or gearing up) as opposed to ‘sensitizing.” Sensitizing happens when early stressful experiences overwhelm people and render them less well equipped to deal with future stress. This may be the reason why those with intense early stress fared most poorly among the people surveyed in this study. Perhaps the group that grew up stress-free did not have the opportunity to build and practice coping mechanisms that could serve them well in later years. Those with some practice in dealing with stress were in the best position to cope with later stress. It has been suggested that practicing non-avoidance of stress, as we do in mindfulness, can steel us by presenting an opportunity to practice not turning away from unpleasant experience and thus develop the resilience that help us better handle the stressors that inevitably happen to everyone.