The Upside of Stress ─ Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It

The author of The Willpower Instinct delivers a controversial and groundbreaking new book that overturns long-held beliefs about stress.

More than forty-four percent of Americans admit to losing sleep over stress. And while most of us do everything we can to reduce it, Stanford psychologist and bestselling author Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., delivers a startling message: Stress isn’t bad. In The Upside of Stress, McGonigal highlights new research indicating that stress can, in fact, make us stronger, smarter, and happier?if we learn how to embrace it.

The Upside of Stress is the first book to bring together cutting-edge discoveries on the correlation between resilience?the human capacity for stress-related growth?and mind-set, the power of beliefs to shape reality. As she did in The Willpower Instinct, McGonigal combines science, stories, and exercises into an engaging and practical book that is both entertaining and life-changing, showing you:

• how to cultivate a mind-set to embrace stress
• how stress can provide focus and energy
• how stress can help people connect and strengthen close relationships
• why your brain is built to learn from stress, and how to increase its ability to learn from challenging experiences

McGonigal’s TED talk on the subject has already received more than 6 million views. Her message resonates with people who know they can’t eliminate the stress in their lives and want to learn to take advantage of it. The Upside of Stress is not a guide to getting rid of stress, but a guide to getting better at stress, by understanding it, embracing it, and using it.

Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., is a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University, as well as a fitness instructor and meditation teacher. Her work has been included in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, TIME, Psychology Today, Reader’s Digest, and O, The Oprah Magazine, as well as on NPR and MSNBC. Her research has appeared in journals such as Motivation and Emotion, the Journal of Happiness Studies, and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. McGonigal lives in Palo Alto and New York City.