First, he noted that “chronic stress,” meaning stress that lasts for days, weeks, or even years, is much worse than “acute stress,” which refers to stress that comes on quickly but does not last long, such as an ordinary playground conflict. “Under chronic stress, it is much harder to adapt, recover, and get stronger from the challenge,” he wrote. His second qualification was that “there is an inverted U-shaped pattern in the relationship between stress and well-being. A little stress is beneficial to development, but a lot of stress, acute or chronic, is detrimental.”
