Please, Make Yourself Uncomfortable!

We humans are hardwired to avoid discomfort. When something hurts physically, we stop and pull back. We also find ways to avoid painful emotions. It makes no sense to willingly move toward what hurts!

When things feel hard, we assume something is going wrong. When life feels easy, we assume we’re doing well. We work to avoid effort and challenges, but those are exactly what make us stronger. When our legs hurt after a run, it means we’re building muscle. After a breakup, we learn how to cope with loss, an almost inevitable part of life.

In “The Case for Discomfort” (Psychology Today, September 2025), T. Alexander Puutio, Ph.D., writes, “Too often we see difficulty as a pathology, not as a signal of possibility. In fact, in the right amount, problems start systems of adaptation and growth.”

Even a little stress can be a good thing. Puutio cites psychologist Alia Crum’s work at Stanford University showing that participants who reframed stress as a challenge rather than a threat went on to have lower cortisol levels and better performance.

Our culture places a premium on comfort, making it easy to follow the herd and opt out of challenges. We need to remember that avoidance comes with a cost, and we tend to value most what we’ve worked hard to achieve. As Puutio writes, “Effort, when chosen deliberately and applied wisely, is a system that wakes up ancient systems for growth that otherwise lie dormant.”

So, avoid unnecessary suffering, but don’t miss out on something meaningful just because it might be hard. Whether we choose it or it’s forced upon us, discomfort has something to teach us.