Is stress a good thing?

Tell me, what percentage of the USA population actually goes mountain biking and/or skiing?

I can envisage a lot of them watching high adrenaline sport whilst having a hotdog, but actually partaking?

Those who aren't actually mountain biking, skiing, playing football and the like, still enjoy the stress of such activities vicariously both through television and through video games. 58% of Americans actively play games, and 68% of these are over the age of 18.
https://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2013.pdf

Just about everyone I know does one or both of these things.

Anyway...

I think these kinds of physical activities reduce stress, not add to stress.

People are often confused about discriminating between stress and distress. What most people have and (actually benefit from) daily stress in their every day jobs/ and/or routine, whether it's exercise or activity.

Those that complain about job stress may have legit complaints...but are generally dealing with stress - not actual distress. Those that are actually dealing with distress, may have the wrong job but are locked into the job due to bad economy or the inability to make a change. Furthermore, constant distress yield eventually can lead to DIS-ease!

However, what is destructive behavior or activity is the prolonged exposure to distress. TIMHO, that's what can contribute to elevated levels of damage, subtle or not so subtle. We've evolved as a humans over the millennium to handling stress. Our grandparents generations handled the increased physical activity (no cars, hunting/harvesting fields, chopping wood etc.) with tougher skeletons and muscles and diets that had far less insults from environmental issues (for the most part). It seems we need stress as it toughens us and adds to our ability to survive and prosper.

Many people I know from their 2-s to 70s are engaged in activities such as brisk walking to mntn biking or bike touring and health clubs. I'd say it's the majority that do.

I find this pleasantly surprising and hope that your experience is the norm.
Our young in Britain could do with a good kick up the arse and chucking out of the door on regular occasions, as the dreaded PC Game monster seems to be fast taking over, creating a fair number of limp limbed pallid geeks under the age of 20, I'm afraid.

Saying that, I have a massive Rugby Club that adjoins my back garden, and there is an all weather hockey pitch as well as football and cricket as weather allows. It's always busy, with lots of loud grunting noises emanating from their killing grounds, so all hope is not lost yet.

That's a charmingly British-sounding word sequence: "limp-limbed pallid geeks..."

Physical stress is fine, but emotional stress is a killer.

Actually, stress is not avoidable in life. There are good stress that motivates one to perform well in their jobs or sports, and there are bad stress that can result in depression or can be a killer.

I wonder if it's actually the same kind of stress, except that we can't act on that stress in an office environment.
Maybe keeping it bottled up is the problem.

The kind of 'good' stress I'm addressing are those that pushes one to perform at the top of their abilities - called motivation to succeed.