Yes, Eustress is necessary for getting activated to do something; and distress eats away the vitals that are requisite for successfully doing some work. Often, people feel a sense complacency and do not feel a sense of urgency. When one feels a sense of urgency for doing an activity or achieving a goal, that person has a short-term stress, which is often of positive nature. But when people get worried and stressed due to various reasons, say, due to over work, incompetence to do the work, hindrances created by a person or system or for any other reason, s/he is said to be in distress. The longer the distress higher is the negative impact of it on that person's capability to do the job.

As a species we seem to seek out stress as a stimulant.  We watch horror movies and go on scary rides which causes increased heart rate and many other symptoms of stress related to Adrenocorticotrophic hormones.  This is a temporary state and the system returns to normal shortly after the stimulation.

As the researcher suggests this is clearly different to the negative types of stress where constant elevated levels of ACTH can cause permanent injury and conditions such as Selyes General Adaptational Syndrome. 

We could perhaps link so called good stress with addictive behaviour or even self harm where it is very excessive.  It may also be an illusion that good stress improves our performance.  Some people think that alcohol improves their performance when all it does is fool us into think that because of its effect as a mood altering drug and a stimulant.

Interesting Sundar, and I did not know about this. When I started reading about it, stumbled upon this paper:

Le Fevre, M., Matheny, J., & Kolt, G. S. (2003). Eustress, distress, and interpretation in occupational stress. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 18(7), 726-744.

Their conclusion is “there would appear to be little or no evidence in the occupational stress literature to support the assertion that a reasonable amount of stress, pressure, or anxiety in the workplace leads to high performance as suggested by the Yerkes Dodson Law. We suggest, therefore, that it may be time to explicitly reject this stance.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerkes%E2%80%93Dodson_law

Anything you work upon which gives you good re

As I know, the positive effects of  stress is called Eustress, while the bad effects is called disstress.

Anything you work upon which gives you good results is stress taken for a good cause. Talking about medical conditions sudden catecholamine surge due to sudden stress can cause stress cardiomyopathy too. 

Dear @Sundar, this is also good reading :Types of Stressors (Eustress vs. Distress)! "Stressors are not always limited to situations where some external situation is creating a problem. Internal events such as feelings and thoughts and habitual behaviors can also cause negative stress."

In your previous thread I have attached a paper about stress that is not always bad!

http://sevencounties.org/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=15644&cn=117

It is an example of fine research : Eustress: An Exploratory Regulated Process!

http://eustress.org/Exploring_eustress.htm

Dear Nageswara Rao - Thanks a lot for your reply and the link. This query is an outtake of my study of Modern Management. Best wishes, Sundar

Dear Ljubomir Jacić - Thank you for the reply on my query. The figure you linked is very interesting - Sundar

Yes, Eustress is necessary for getting activated to do something; and distress eats away the vitals that are requisite for successfully doing some work. Often, people feel a sense complacency and do not feel a sense of urgency. When one feels a sense of urgency for doing an activity or achieving a goal, that person has a short-term stress, which is often of positive nature. But when people get worried and stressed due to various reasons, say, due to over work, incompetence to do the work, hindrances created by a person or system or for any other reason, s/he is said to be in distress. The longer the distress higher is the negative impact of it on that person's capability to do the job.

I have a somewhat different take on this--I have a chapter in the Neuroeconomics of the Firm on the subject. I see only one kind of stress that is a "stressor" to the body and depending on the hormonal (understand neurotransmitters in the brain) genetic ability, one either thrives under that stress (Eustress) or gets bothered by the stress (Distress). 

In this light, the same stress can make one person very sick and nervous and another quite comfortable. 

For example, taking the stress of financial investment in the stock market: some people will choose that field and will excel and others who choose that field get "traders' burnout" and get sick. Same stressor, different stress response based on the individual. 

Angela commented - "the same stress can make one person very sick and nervous and another quite comfortable."

This is very much true in the case of "Mathematics", which is my favorite subject, and which I apply to solve various problems in chaos and control systems. My late guide, Dr. Byrnes, and I shared a great liking for differential geometry and differentiable manifolds. We had some intense calculations involving centre manifold theory. However, when I share the same details to my students, they get distress in manifold degrees. Your point is very well-made. Thank you!

Best wishes

Sundar

Eustress, or positive stress, has the following characteristics:

In contrast, Distress, or negative stress, has the following characteristics:

Both are constraints, but Eu stress is a DRIVER  while Distress is BLOCK.

This is another of those topics that can be abused by HR and management. As mentioned by Angela it is widely recognized that different people experience the same situation differently, this can be used to facilitate a better compatibility between employee and role. This can be both functional and appropriate from an organizational point of view. However it does not *necessarily* mean that it is a good thing - because we can also ask ourselves if some of the coping with situation is based on *lack of empathy*. It is not necessarily always a good thing (from a societal point of view) that such coping mechanisms are appropriate in all roles where they may be common. Perhaps some of those decisions *should* be made with *more* care for the consequences they have on others. Perhaps some of those decision making activities should be scrutinized more closely from a critical point of view which includes a social responsible point of view of other stakeholders in society. Now if we  do want someone to be a good mass murderer as an employee - we may choose to hire a psychopath. But then we have no moral right to be surprised of the consequences... Or the other way around - if we hire a psychopath - do not be surprised about the consequences for other people...

We should also distinguish between different types of stress (environmental, psychological, health-related,etc), how they interfere and then take into account the timing, duration and intensity of each of them.

Stress (be it negative or positive) may not always have serious consequences but it is very often a tirgger for diseases and weakened immune system. Here below some facts on the impacts of stress: http://www.heartmath.com/infographics/how-stress-effects-the-body/ 

Dear Hristina Petrova - thank you for the link on the impacts of stress - Sundar

One of the biggest challenges in healthcare for both health experts and patients is to isolate stress (or 'stresses') from other symptoms and be able to recognize its presence and importance. Some may be underestimating it while others may be overestimating it. 

For instance, patients may be convinced that a disease is based solely on emotional stress and while worrying too much about their health could indeed bring some (increase in) stress, it may turn out that certain medications or family history is the main and only cause for the disease.

In other cases, patients may be too busy (or careless) to notice they are under chronic stress. If they get ill and try to heal without isolating perceived stress as much as possible (take a break, work less, get more sleep, etc.), it may be difficult or late for both patients and physicians to tell apart the various signs and causes that led to the diseases in question (there is often more than one disease).

Personal initiative is very important as is moderate risk experimenting. Patients have to be informed about and aware of their health as much as possible, independently of a health expert's advice. A vacation and a change of climate may be all one needs even when the doctor has not advised so. From the point of view of a patient, it could prove more useful to personally keep a health diary and archive medical history rather than simply leave that to a medical professional.   

Eustress are realistic while Destress are not confound and manipulative

Sundar, You described both stresses very well. Empirically, harmful effects of  distress are well documented. However, in my view if distress helps in meaning making, or it triggers reflection/ contemplation and deliberate rumination, then this distress is more contributory than eustress. Currently, for last 2 decades, few researchers have shifted their attention on the positive by products of stress/distress. They coined different terms like stress-related growth, post traumatic growth, positive by-products,  flourishing, positive psychological changes adversarial growth, etc.

Dear Krishnan - kindly see the reply by Naeem Aslam just below your comment. There is active research going on stress/ distress especially how stress can be used in a positive manner. With wishes - Sundar

Hristina you put it very wisely. It is very correct that in healthcare the distinction is not made well sometimes at all and sometimes with difficulty between the cause and the symptom and often we symptom manage without any concern to cause. There are some illnesses--fibromyalgia is one example--that probably fits one of the stress profiles you noted very well and probably has specific stressors not yet identified and thus they end up being symptom treated, causing bigger harm in the process!

I am actually working now on this very disease and found it amazing how many doctors (and researchers) still consider it a disease of the mind (as in "psychiatric case") rather than a biochemical one based on some stressors. 

True that eustress is positive and distress is negative. But physiologically both are associated with autonomic hyperactivity. Is constant autonomic hyperactivity in long run good? can it be considered always positive ? Even cigarette smoking causes eustress. Thus the positive effect of eustress also has limitations. 

Attached a link on Eustress / Distress

http://www.outstand.org/index.php/2013/06/how-to-deal-with-the-stress-of-work-overload/