Most people think stress is bad, but what if the way you see stress determines how it actually affects your body? In this episode, I’ll show you why your mindset, not the stress itself, decides whether it breaks you down or builds you up. I’ll share how your brain and body release cortisol and DHEA during stress, and what happens when that balance is off. You’ll also discover how simple mental reframes can turn anxiety into energy and pressure into purpose.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Okay, so you've probably heard that stress is bad for you. And there's a lot of negative connotations when it comes to stress because it is bad for your immune system, it causes you to be anxious, have burnout, and it drains your energy. But I want to clear up some of the misconceptions when it comes to stress and specifically cortisol. Because when we think about the word “stress,” we think of it as a negative, but it's actually neutral.
And that’s because the definition of stress is just your body mobilizing energy to meet a challenge or demand. This isn’t good or bad, it’s about how you perceive or believe that demand to be. And that’s where your mindset plays a huge role in how stress impacts you.
Let’s take two people at work who need to meet a deadline. One person can view this deadline as something highly stressful in a negative sense. They're unprepared, overwhelmed, and that causes them to view the stress as a threat.
On the flip side, the other person could view the same deadline as excitement, something that gives them energy and meaning. Because of that, their physiology will be different; they're rising up to the challenge, but they're still under stress. So what ends up happening is two different people having two different responses to the same stressor.
Now your body releases three primary chemicals when it comes to stress by your adrenal gland, which is cortisol, adrenaline, and also something called DHEA.
Cortisol really gets a bad reputation because it's often called the stress hormone. But cortisol is actually what helps you wake up in the morning. Usually, 30 to 45 minutes before you wake up, cortisol spikes while you're sleeping. That’s what mobilizes energy so that you can be alert and ready for the day.
That’s why if you've ever taken melatonin to go to sleep, melatonin is what helps you rest, while cortisol helps you rise. There’s a balance between your cortisol and your melatonin.
Now the thing is, when it comes to cortisol, when cortisol increases, this is what helps to kind of suppress some unnecessary immune functions at that point in time. Because when your cortisol levels raise, your heart races, blood pressure rises, and glucose gets flooded into your system basically to help you to rise up to the challenge.
And that's where that idea for cortisol and stress is that these stress responses either fight, flight or freeze, or in another sense, for focus. So when you think about cortisol, cortisol isn't bad. It's only bad when it's prolonged. Just like stress isn't bad, it's only bad when it's chronic stress, which is prolonged durations of elevated cortisol levels, which can equate to what we call burnout.
So that's when it starts to become bad. Because you're wired but tired and your immune system starts to break down because you are in this heightened state for an extended period of time and you're not releasing that cortisol. And that is what becomes a negative impact on your body.
Now, when I mentioned earlier about one of the other three stress hormones, which is DHEA. This one goes in conjunction with your cortisol. So it's usually more of a ratio issue than whether you just have cortisol in your body, because cortisol is what shuts down your immune function and mobilizes energy.
While DHEA, on the other hand, this is what helps with brain repair and immune function. So it's more of a balance between the ratios. So going back to an example of if someone is stressed but they're viewing the stress as bad, then usually their cortisol ratio will be higher cortisol and less DHEA versus someone who is viewing the stress as a challenge. Then they're actually viewing it from a different lens.
And because of that, you can have more DHEA in that ratio. And that's where you can actually have recovery and build resilience through that stress. So it's really about how you frame the stress in your mind that changes the overall outcome of whether that breaks down your body or helps you to grow and also learn from the stress or challenge that you've been given.
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Start the ResetAnd that's kind of what I want to talk about today because I think cortisol and stress get a bad rep. And that's not always the case. And the thing is, having a healthy amount of stress is actually good because if you really think about it, in the scenario of two people working and one is stressed out of it feeling bad and one stressed because it's exciting.
The thing is, in both those cases, the reason why they're feeling stressed is because they care. That means there's meaning assigned behind what they're doing, which is creating stress because they care about their job. And that is what's creating the stress. But the physiological response to that stress is the difference that I want to point out, which is in relation to your mindset around it.
Another example is if you think about working out. Someone could be sedentary, sitting at a desk working, and they're stressed and feeling burnt out, so their cortisol levels are rising and they stay elevated. And that's more bad for you than someone who's exercising. But they're still feeling that same stress because the way that they're perceiving the stress is ultimately different.
And that is what changes it. But in terms of the physical response, it could be the same. Two people could be exercising and one person seeing it as dreadful and the other person seeing it as exciting, and they're both under stress and under physical stress and mental stress, but they're viewing it differently. And because of that, the way that their body responds over time is drastically different.
There's a Stanford research study that showed this where people who viewed stress as a threat tend to die faster than people who viewed stress as a challenge. And just that mental reframe alone is what kind of increased the mortality rate of the people who viewed stress as a threat.
So this is really the power of your mind when it comes to stress. And that's why certain people handle stress a lot better than others. And it all comes from their viewpoint of their stress.
This is not to put down or make it sound like stress is easy. It's definitely not. And stress can be bad for sure. And in many cases we do experience negative stress. So stress is a bad thing in many ways, but changing our relationship to the stress and having that reframe to view it from a threat to being something that's exciting can help to increase the DHEA levels in your body, to balance out the cortisol.
And that is just something that you can do within your head, which will change your whole biological response. So that's all I wanted to say about stress and why it is neutral. It's not something that's bad or good. It's just your body's response to gear up for rising up to the occasion for a challenge or demand. But how you perceive it has a greater impact on your overall health.
So I hope this helps you.
My name is Dexter Lam and have a wonderful day.
Bye bye.
Not inherently. Stress is neutral: it's just your body mobilizing energy to meet a challenge or demand. What decides whether it breaks you down or builds you up is how you perceive that demand. Viewed as a threat, stress wears on your body. Viewed as a challenge, the same stress can fuel focus, growth, and resilience.
Both are released by your adrenal glands under stress, but they play opposite roles. Cortisol mobilizes energy and temporarily suppresses immune functions so you can rise to the challenge. DHEA supports brain repair and immune function, which is where recovery and resilience come from. Your stress outcome depends less on either hormone alone and more on the ratio between them.
Cortisol gets a bad reputation it doesn't fully deserve. It's actually what wakes you up: it spikes 30 to 45 minutes before you wake to mobilize energy for the day, balancing melatonin, which helps you rest. Cortisol only becomes harmful when it stays elevated for prolonged periods. Like stress itself, it's the chronic version that hurts you.
When you view a stressor as a threat, your body tends to produce a ratio that's heavier in cortisol and lighter in DHEA. When you view the same stressor as a challenge, DHEA rises in the ratio, which supports recovery and builds resilience. The reframe happens in your head, but it changes your biological response.
Stress is a short term mobilization of energy. Burnout is what happens when that state never switches off: chronic stress with prolonged elevated cortisol. You end up wired but tired, and your immune system starts breaking down from being in a heightened state too long. If you're stuck there for a while, it's worth getting proper support.
Yes. A Stanford research study found that people who viewed stress as a threat tended to die sooner than people who viewed it as a challenge. That single mental reframe shifted mortality outcomes. It shows why some people handle pressure so much better than others: the difference starts with their viewpoint, not the stressor itself.
Take two people facing the same deadline. One feels unprepared and overwhelmed, so their body processes it as a threat. The other feels energized and finds meaning in the challenge. Both are under stress, but their physiology diverges because perception shapes the stress response. Same stressor, two different biological outcomes.
Often it means the opposite. You feel stress about your work, your deadline, or your workout because you care. There's meaning assigned to what you're doing, and that meaning creates the stress. A healthy amount of stress is good. The question isn't how to eliminate it, but how you relate to it when it shows up.
The lever I focus on is mindset. When you reframe a stressor from a threat into a challenge or something exciting, your body can shift the balance toward more DHEA relative to cortisol. That supports brain repair, immune function, and recovery. It's a reframe you do in your head that changes your whole biological response.
Your adrenal glands release three primary chemicals under stress: cortisol, adrenaline, and DHEA. Cortisol raises your heart rate and blood pressure and floods glucose into your system so you can fight, flee, freeze, or focus. Adrenaline gives you that immediate surge. DHEA is the counterweight that helps with brain repair and immune function.
