10 Ways to Use Stress to Your Advantage by Craig Robin

Win the race - When you're competing and determined to win, stress triggers the release of adrenalin which boosts your performance. Only get worked up about important races, the ones you really need to win.

Work deadlines - Providing you've agreed them, deadlines create positive stress as they approach, spurring you into action. You'll often produce better work when up against a deadline. Try setting your own!

Love - We need strong relationships and, naturally, love can sometimes be stressful. Use your stress together to work through the issues that are blocking the way.

Fight/flight - Without those inbuilt biochemical responses to danger, we would not be so well prepared to recognise and escape real perils. You don't need to use stress if you're being threatened, it happens automatically.

Traffic jams - Of course you could accept the delay and listen to some music. Use the time to do something relaxing and positive, and benefit from what otherwise would be a stressful experience.

Overwork - If your workload is stressing you and you recognize that fact, you can do something about it. Workloads can grow almost unnoticed, but stress flags this up when it reaches a critical level. Use stress as a warning sign that you're doing too much.

Be a hero - You're walking down the road and a child runs out into the road. Your stress response gives you the strength to catch the child before it reaches the traffic.

Good stress is healthy - Researchers have shown that your body benefits from some exposure to.stress. In other words, you can be too laid back for your own good. Learn to manage positive stress.

Remember more - Stressful events are easier to remember. The scene somehow burns itself into your memory. A benefit of this stress response is that you learn from mistakes faster.

Revisit the goal - If you keep pushing and not succeeding, use stress as a trigger to stop and think again. Don't let the stress wind you up; take it as a signal to review, not as a threat to your success.