by Lauren Muney
What an ominous title this article has . . . and I meant to do this. I meant to scare you to reading the article, possibly, and decide for yourself whether you fall into these categories:
Do any of these describe you?- I work for a company which piles work on top of me, so that I can barely think about each project completely, much less finish each one properly -- or even have a rest between projects. I am asked to work late frequently, and/or work through lunchtimes and break-times.
- I feel I have to do everything at home - take care of all the chores, whether I do them 'perfectly' or not - and everything still piles up.
- My partner (spouse, significant-other, etc) is always pressuring me to keep up my end of the relationship. I feel I am so busy with the stress of work and projects, this request is simply adding to that stress.
- I am frustrated by difficulties with my child (or children). There are problems with his/her behavior, and it's adding to my stress.
- When I get stressed, the first thing I discard is any sense of healthy food or exercise. I keep reading how much these elements will help me --they will make me feel energized and help me reduce stress further-- but I tend to skip meals or just grab sugar and coffee to keep me awake and alert.
- I have to travel for work, and the constant stressors attached to travel simply add to the work problems, relationship issues, food/exercise issues, and trying to raise good children.
- I'm in the middle of a vast life-change (job change, marriage, divorce, moving, grief from death, medical issues) and that new stressor is compounding my other stresses.
- I cannot keep up with the financial demands being placed on me, and this is yet another stress on top of the stresses!
- I handle stress just fine. I have an activity that I can escape into, and I spend a lot of time there. It calms me down. Sometimes I spend more times there than others. In this way, I don't have to think about my stresses. (ie: television, Internet, eating, drinking, pornography, gambling, working more, shopping, 'collecting', even intense exercise or dieting).
And the list goes on...
Pushing a stressor aside because it stresses you, does not solve the problem -- in fact, it may make a snowball effect. Surprised? Probably not, as you may discovered that during stress, everything becomes a yet another stressor.
There are so many articles written about the effects of stress, one of which is an excellent, easy-to-read document by Psychology Today: "Stress: It's Worse Than You Think"
Extreme stress releases cortisol, one of the hormones released by the adrenal glands, which are long known to be our "fight-or-flight" mechanisms. "Fight or flight" are the fear feelings when we feel threatened or stressed: we either want to "fight back" or "run away" (fight or flight).. However, cortisol (and other adrenal hormones) was created for our cave-dwelling ancestors to help him run away from a bear, not to be constantly running from all-day everyday stress. Cortisol regulates of blood pressure and cardiovascular function, as well as regulation of the body's use of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. The overstressed body tries to regulate the overflowing stress chemicals; not only are you dealing with the stressor itself, but now the body is unbalanced by its own overflowing hormones.
If your body is constantly bombarded by cortisol (and other stress hormones) that were meant only as a momentary rush of energy, the constant rush of hormones all jeopardize the body and mind themselves!
(Here is a great description of cortisol and the way stress works in the body: from About.com's Stress: Cortisol)
I have a theory that our brains actually shut down in the presence of stress - that we can only focus on the task at hand, simply to preserve our brain cells. In other words, it's as if we go into 'lockdown' mode, to keep our brains from flooding. This is not a proven scientific fact, but it's a good image to keep in your mind when you are stressed: that your body is safely only trying to focus on one thing at a time.
Stress is different for every person, and stress even varies for YOU at different times. One thing that you'd handle very smoothly on one day, may be a heart-pounding stressor another day. It's up to you to understand your limits, watch the stressors carefully, and make changes accordingly so that a minor easily-solved inconvenience doesn't because a major trigger!
Imagine: you are under stress from a project or a situation. You need all your energy, all your thoughts, all your perfect functioning. However the length of that stress, is eating away at your brain and body -- so that you are not only sub-optimally functioning on the project, but you are actually destroying yourself in the process. The destruction is an ongoing process, leaving you vulnerable for the next time a difficult situation pops up: like a stretched rubber band, weakened.
Here is a very good scientic article on stress (acute and chronic), from Reuters Health: STRESS
This seems like a Prozac world all of a sudden. But "depression" isn't just 'getting the blues': depression is actually a chemical inefficiency which produces the same responses as if we had the 'blues'. Without getting into the specifics of depression, it's can be from several different chemical difficulties, which is why you might hear about so many different types of medications.
How does stress affect depression - or even cause depression? "Stress", once again, is simply the body's outpouring of hormones (chemicals) in response to events (the stressors). "Depression" is the brain's neurotransmitter's response to too many (or not enough) chemicals. So you can become "depressed" simply from too much stress, worry, or overwork.
As if feeling overwhelmed and depressed isn't as good enough reason to start managing your stress, maybe you should remember that your body does not function optimally when its hormones are overflowing. The typical "cleaning" processes in your bloodstream are temporarily suspended, as are many other biochemical functions. In other words, your body stops doing 'natural' things until the threat (the stressor) has passed. Your blood vessels might not be able to handle the threat of the too-often-rapidly-beating heart, or they may not be able to clean the typical fats which flow in the bllodstream. These issues can cause high blood pressure, brittle veins or arteries, and collected fats in those arteries - atherosclerosis. Think about that: stress might bring on a stroke or heart attack.
You can't put the body under stress and not have a reaction! You cannot deny the body healthy food without something breaking down inside, and you cannot press weights (ie: stress) onto the body without something 'giving-way', including patience, compassion, common-sense, civility, loving-speech, calmness while driving, and other details of an advanced society. . . . and if you are depressed, or in any way affected by neurotransmitter issues, you may find that your whole brain feels better when you are eating well and rested, rather than stressed and sugared-up.
However this column is not about chiding you for having a job, projects, or a family. The column is about telling you of the dangers of ignoring the warning signs in your life.
Many stressed and overworked people take or drink some form of caffeine to feel alert. Caffeine stimulates the adrenal glands, and is also a diuretic - meaning it extracts water from the cells and makes you want to pee. Caffeine creates the same "fight or flight" mechanism in our body as stress does:
a) the body isn't meant to be running on adrenaline for more than a few minutes, and
b) the more caffeine, the more it leeches water from the cells -- water that the cells need desperately to work well.
Most of us who want to work through high stress (and little sleep) take some form of caffeine to stay alert and awake: coffee, tea, soda, even the "energy drinks" have high amount of caffeine and guarana, of the same chemical composition as caffeine, 'theine' (tea) and cocaine!
The problem is not simply one cup of caffeine; it's the detail that caffeine is highly addictive. "How Stuff Works" says, "Among its many actions, caffeine operates using the same mechanisms that amphetamines, cocaine, and heroin use to stimulate the brain. On a spectrum, caffeine's effects are more mild than amphetamines, cocaine and heroin, but it is manipulating the same channels, and that is one of the things that gives caffeine its addictive qualities."
Read that again - caffeine is addictive like heroin.
As science says,
"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." (Newton's Third Law of Motion). This means that you cannot PUSH on the body (and/or the mind) without the body and/or the mind breaking down or pushing back!
The reason why I am doing this is to WAKE YOU UP. So many people have pushed aside their stressors that more stressors have come on top of those stresses -- and they are essentially at the bottom of a huge well, dug so deeply because the well grew up around them.
Hard topics, I know. How can you do all this?
First of all, please know that every person's life is different, so I'm going to give a couple of suggestions to think about.
This list can start with: your partner, your children, your home, etc.
These are the things you want to protect: these are the things you want to put the most effort into NOT IGNORING. Please make an effort to continually go back to this list and ask yourself, "How can I keep my love alive during the stress? Am I skimping on these things when I am burnt out? Can I do any small thing to show I am still caring for them?"
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Feel piled with work? Is the boss complaining that more-more-more has to be accomplished? Well, the more which gets piled onto an employee, the less gets accomplished. Studies have been shown that MULTI-TASKING is actually less efficient, and causes more stress and more mistakes, thus leading to the physical, emotional, and mental breakdowns listed above.
Start talking to your employer, calmly and honestly. Document the levels of project inefficiencies. Be very professional and businesslike; notate if details were overlooked because of the workloads, in lieu of "getting more done". You may need to memo your documentation and your thoughts. But the point is to begin the processes of communication and solution. Be honest about your feelings and open about mutually-acceptable solutions.
Enjoy volunteering for projects, especially outside projects? That's wonderful to get so involved. However, next to these projects, are you feeling worn down? Are you eating well, and taking care of yourself, your family, yourself? Look deeply inside yourself to discover 'why' you are really on so many committees, and can you reduce the amount of projects? If you are skimping on basics like family, health, eating, and exercise (simply to volunteer on more projects), then the projects are running your life, and you may soon be losing that life due to stress.
Weed out the least important projects, and put them on a back-burner. If you love all your projects, decide if you can take a less-active role in many: for example, as chairman of a board, can you simply be the consultant -- and not the "life-blood" of that board?
Once again, I can't emphasize this enough: you cannot help anyone if you are dead [from inappropriate nutrition]! Or if you are in a jelly-like coma at the end of the day because you have been eating sugar, or trying to stay "alert" through the stimulating chemicals of caffeine, you are actually hurting your body! It takes so much longer to recover from the detriment than if you took a couple of extra moments to choose the right foods, and not the wrong ones.
Stop, take a breath, and truly assess how you have been treating your body while you have been under stress. This can be a secret-assessment if you like; no one else has to know. . . . you need to realize what you have been doing to feed yourself fast food, sugar-foods, perhaps heavy drinking of alcohol, heavy caffeine intake.
Now, after assessment, decide whether that's how you want to continue this type of PUNISHMENT on your body.
Don't feel guilty. Stop that guilt cycle - it won't do you any good! That's why you can consider doing the assessment alone. Just make the DECISION that you don't want to add to your stressors by stuffing yourself with bad food any more. You don't have to starve, and you don't have to "deny yourself" - you just have to BEGIN. START NOW.
Start with eating real food. If you've been eating sugars, chips, and caffeine while under stress, almost anything can turn around those habits. Any REAL FOOD choices - ie: nothing from a package or fast food - can help. Contact me to start a program if this is too vague for you.
You are too busy to exercise. Yes, I understand! Sometimes I get too involved in even typing these articles to think about my training! But you know that you want to lose the stress-increased fatigue -- and, honest -- exercise will REDUCE fatigue and start the blood flowing again! Exercise is actually a STRESS-REDUCER after you begin moving!
Do something - do anything! My first advice would be to suggest that you do a weight-training program which helps build lean muscle tissue, and lean muscle tissue burns fat. However, you also need to do some type of cardiovascular exercise, (even walking!) which can get oxygen to your brain -- and even "clears the cobwebs" from your stressed brain. More information about training is on the training-information page: Muscle Up?
Is your relationship suffering because of stress outside of the relationship, and therefore brings new stress into the relationship? He or she is probably confused and frustrated, hoping to help you yet feeling left out. Maybe, although you don't realize it, you've changed - the outside-stress has made you cranky, mean, and irritable. This is common, and there is a good solution.
Be honest and open to your partner and your family. Explain about your stress, and work with your partner, spouse, or significant other to create solutions which DON'T NEGLECT your partner! Maybe you can hold hands quietly as you rest, or go to a movie. Maybe just opening up about your worries and concerns will engage your partner into your life. It's important to begin a dialogue as soon as possible, and to remind your partner of stressful days or moments. You'll be amazed how much "latitude" you get just by sharing yourself, and it's not complaining!
You can't escape family demands. The family has to eat, live, and grow. But some families pile 3 sports and several after-school projects (for each child), with the children and the parent feeling flustered and run-ragged. Is your family unit itself getting 'quality time'? Is schoolwork getting precedence?
Focus! Sit down with your family and ask the children their favorite projects, activities or sports. Prioritize the favorites; perhaps put some others on the "back burner" for now. Ask the whole family's input -- if soccer practices & games take 5 days a week, that child might be overloaded doing clarinet, and ballet also. Not to mention the parents' schedules of work and running the household! Besides, such a busy child may not be doing due diligence on schoolwork --education should get priority-- if soccer and ballet (for example) takes up most waking hours.
No wonder kids eat so many FAST FOOD meals, they are so much on the go from their after-school events! Is this the type of child you want to raise? A fast-food child whose obesity has increased, has barely any family or study time, is scattered-thinking from lack of nutrition, but who carries a clarinet?
Many people have found solutions to stress by MEDITATION. before you get very concerned that I am trying to sway you into changing your spiritual or faith beliefs, just know that meditation CAN be a tool for the relaxation of the mind. Here is an easy meditation -- it's not centered in any specific spiritual basis, so feel free to engage this from whatever faith you have:
- Sit upright in a chair, back straightened by holding your stomach in, OR... Sit upright on a pillow on the floor, legs crossed, back straight as described above.
- Reduce distractions: dim the lights, light a candle (this has a very calming effect, perhaps because the little flame is so 'natural'; based in nature)
- Close your eyes, hold your head upright, gently but not rigidly.
- Just breathe: in-out, in-out, in-out. Full breaths. Think: "in-out", "in-out".
- If a thought floats into your head, just label it "thinking", and try to think about your breath again, and tell yourself "in-out", "in-out". (Literally, you you will tell yourself, "I am thinking", and just allow yourself to just feel your breath again instead of the thoughts)
- If another thought floats into your head, just label that one "thinking". (You are not trying to be mean to yourself about thinking; You are simply trying to STOP your thinking. But before you stop your thoughts, you have to be aware that you are thinking at all. By labeling it "thinking", and then going back to concentrating on the "in-out", you are guiding yourself away from the distracting thoughts)
- The goal is to give your mind a REST, and to learn how to take control of rampant, distracting thoughts.
- Do this session for about 20 minutes. (If you can't do it for 20 minutes, do it for 5 minutes. Then, do it for 10 minutes . . . you may even be able to do this for mini-breaks during the workday)
As I said, this is not 'official' meditation, but it can be an interim method to calming and refreshing the mind from all the stress it has encountered that day.
Real meditation is often used to start the calming processes in this way, and then, while the mind is "still" (non-frenetic), look calmly and deeply into itself to examine its thoughts. Meditation is often used to reflect on personal actions and attitudes in a calm state.
(Before you think that this is "bunk", there is an entire "Stress Reduction Clinic" at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, which uses meditation for its patients.
I wish you the best in your stress-reduction
techniques, and if you want to start examining your own stress, please contact me.
For more ideas on fitness, health,
or "alternative" methods for your lifestyle, contact Lauren for coaching solutions!