Yes - you heard that right - stress is actually critical to health and fitness! The body is specifically designed to be responsive and adjust to stressors both short and long term - the key is understanding this process so you can use stress to help you reach your goals.
You are constantly being exposed to stressors all the time such as changes in temperature, having to increase activity level when going from sitting to standing or laying down to sitting up, etc. Each of these stressors creates a demand on your body which the body must respond to in the short-term. Stress is anything that creates a demand and there are many situations which demand a response from the body.
The body must maintain tight control of many factors including temperature, pH, and energy production in order to survive. This process is known as homeostasis which is a fancy way of saying auto--regulation to maintain the internal environment in a stable state.
The body responds to short-term stressors like those listed above by making short-term adjustments such as shivering in response to cold and increasing cellular energy production when going from a lower energy state to a higher energy state.
In the case of long term stress exposure the body will try to adapt to the more constant stressor by adapting itself to be better able to handle the stress. This is what exercise is all about - exercise is a stressor that creates significant demands on the body. The key to getting good results from exercise (or any other stressor!) is exactly how the stress is applied in terms of frequency, intensity and duration of the stressor.
Frequency is how often you are exposed to a stressor. Intensity is how strong the stressor is such as light exercise versus heavy exercise. Duration is how long you are exposed to the stressor such as how long you exercise. By adjusting one or more of these factors over time you can optimize the body's adaptation to stressors.
This does not just apply to exercise - it applies to many stressors including temperature and even mental stressor such as taking tests. For example if you gradually start spending time in colder environments (such as ending your showers with a short period of colder water) and gradually increase the frequency, intensity, duration of exposure your body will adapt to cold water exposure by making longer term physiological changes to the point that you can handle colder water for longer periods of time more frequently without falling apart. In fact we know that this type of exposure can dramatically boost brown fat levels with a corresponding big increase in calorie burning!
There are many other examples of positive adaptation to stress including tolerance to toxins such as alcohol - we all know that if you regularly drink alcoholic beverages you tend to develop a tolerance to them as the body ramps up the production of enzymes for the breakdown of alcohol. In fact it applies to ALL stressors to some extent.
At the same time to much stress to soon and/or too often and the body cannot adapt and grow stronger and you go in the wrong direction. This is often referred to as "hormesis" which refers to the fact that the response to a stressor tends to follow a biphasic curve - low doses result in stimulating an adaptive response while high doses/exposure can cause weakening of the system.
This is also true of many beneficial plant compounds which are in fact poisons that plants make to prevent being eaten. In the relatively small doses we encounter when eating these plants these chemicals produce a hormetic effect and actually strengthen the body. An example is horseradish and broccoli which both contain a class of plant chemicals that would be toxic in really large doses but in smaller doses actually stimulate the body to ramp up detoxification which results in many benefits including cancer prevention.
So when you think of stress - don't think good or bad - think how much, how often, and for how long. Great coaches learn how to use appropriate stressors (both mental and physical) to help their clients adapt and become mentally and physically stronger and more resilient!
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