Christopher Ellis explains why eliminating all stress backfires: some stress is actually good for you. Cut the pointless stuff like shouting at the TV or doom-scrolling news, then build coping strategies for what remains. He uses a stress bucket metaphor to show how removing avoidable stressors and expanding your capacity keeps you from overflowing.
If you're trying to eliminate all stress, you might be chasing the wrong goal. Some stress is good. That's what's called eustress. But it's really all about eliminating the unnecessary stressors. For example, shouting at the TV, watching the news. What do you stand to gain from that? Probably nothing but elevated blood pressure. Why get into internet debates? That stuff's all useless. So it's all about eliminating what is unnecessary and then developing coping strategies and learn to mitigate the stressors you have. But you don't want to eliminate everything altogether. What you want to do is create a bigger bucket, right? So if this is your bucket and this is your capacity, stress goes in. Once you exceed that capacity, you develop symptoms. So what you want to do is eliminate the unnecessary ones and then eventually learn to build a bigger bucket and have greater capacity.
