If you could do something to decrease your risk of memory failure, to increase your self-confidence, to be a better public speaker, to improve your brain, to help you deal with back pain, to bust out of your comfort zone, to make your children more resilient … would you do it?
What if it involved embracing what we all to our utmost to steer clear of – namely, stress?
Yeah, always a catch. Think about it though – which Irish psychologist Ian Robertson, author of “The Stress Test: How Pressure Can Make You Stronger and Sharper,” has done as well as studied quite extensively. And you might remember quoting, oh once or twice, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
The statement, Robertson says, “has always intrigued me.” He’s also fond of quoting golfer Tiger Woods: “I’ve always said the day I’m not nervous playing is the day I quit.”
Granted, stress before a golf tournament isn’t exactly a life-or-death situation, but the premise is along the same lines.