Several months ago, I stumbled across a Ted talk called How to Make Stress Your Friend by Kelly McGonigal. It’s been viewed 9.7 million times so I’m not the only who is impressed by the content.

McGonigal is a Stanford psychologist and author of The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It. She specializes in providing practical strategies for health, happiness and personal success.

For most of her career, she advocated eliminating stress to be healthier and happier. She believed that stress increased your risk of getting everything from the common cold to cardiovascular disease. However, several research studies changed her view of stress. These studies suggested that if you embrace stress, it can make you stronger, smarter and happier.

With the added stress that the holidays can sometimes bring and our desire to make resolutions for the New Year, I thought this was a particularly good time to share the reasons for resolving to befriend stress in 2016.

Photocredit: Kelly McGonigal, TEDGlobal