I’m mostly talking about social interactions mostly – like when you forget the most important thesis during exam, getting pizza sizes wrong when ordering or when prompted a question “what are chips made from?” and you answer “fries”
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There is two aspects to this, partially it is what the other person said. Stress was designed *specifically* for life-or-death situations, not test taking. Stress was meant to help us survive but is not well adapted for modern stressors, like test taking or being suddenly told you get two sides with your meal instead of one. So, the responses stress causes aren’t really designed to help in those situations, it’s just the only reaction the body is designed to have.
Additionally, there are two types of stress. Acute and chronic. Acute stress is what you think of fight or flight and is caused by epinephrine/adrenaline (your body releases cortisol too, but the feeling you have is mainly caused by adrenaline). This is the one that makes your heartbeat faster, gives you a burst of energy, etc. This, again, was designed to help you fight for your life, not pass a test. Cortisol causes mostly *chronic* stress, which is something we really aren’t adapted for at all. When you constantly have stressors over a long time, your body constantly releases cortisol. This has negative impacts on your blood sugar, immune system, blood pressure, weight, mood, impairs your sleep cycle, etc. Allowing yourself to be too constantly stressed out and have too much cortisol flowing all the time causes more long-term effects than anything, and can cause long term impairments to both your physical and mental health.
This is why stress management is important, and having stress outlets improves both physical and mental wellbeing.
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