Hello, and thank you for letting me fill in for another night!
I’ve found that most of my FPs generally revolve around stress. I tend to be a big ol’ ball of nervous tension, even on a good day. I’m wound pretty tight, is what I’m getting at. Stress sometimes seems like a physical thing; I feel it in my belly mostly, but when things start to get intense my neck and shoulders tighten up until it feels like I’ve slept with my head twisted at an angle all night. It hurts and tends to hurt until well after I’ve calmed down. When things get really bad I start to shake and my teeth actually chatter, like I’ve ventured into a blizzard in shorts and a tank top. That’s when I know it’s time for a time out.
There are a lot of tips for dealing with stress online and in the world. There’s even a flyer chock full of suggestions tacked to the board in the break room at my work. I think it was provided by our health insurance and hung up by HR. If I added up the amount of minutes I’ve spent staring at that stupid flyer I...well, I don’t want to know how much time I’ve spent there, actually. I’m something of a compulsive reader and if there are words in the vicinity I will read them. Even if I already have. But I digress.
I’ve come to believe that something like dealing with stress is a personal thing; what works for me might not work for you. Those tips are just ideas, really. There isn’t a cure all. Here’s how I try to deal:
1. Identify the cause of the stress. Sometimes I wake up anxious. Sometimes I’m felling fine and it hits me suddenly, like a glass of cold water to the face. Sometimes it’s a response to something specific in the moment. When it hits, I’m learning to stop and think, to identify the source.
2. Determine what part you have control over. It does no good to stress over things you can’t control. Figure out what you can control and make a plan to handle it. I’m trying to learn to stop fretting over things that I can’t do anything about. To remind myself that I am intelligent and competent and can handle whatever happens. That’s...not easy.
3. Don’t borrow trouble. I’m a big culprit of this. Fretting about something coming up leads to what ifs and eventually what started out as something relatively minor; an upcoming task I’ve never attempted before or a change to something to which I’ve become accustomed, turns into the end of the world. I’m trying to stop that spiral before it starts.
4. Give yourself a break. Literally. I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but I’ve made a personal rule that I’m not allowed to think about anything stressful while lying in bed. I tend to wake up several times during the night (most likely due to a couple of furry, occasionally yowl-ly creatures I share my home with) and if I start to stress, I don’t go back to sleep. Lack of sleep makes things worse. So I make a concerted effort to avoid stressful thinking while trying to sleep.
5. Diet and exercise. Sigh. I can’t deny this, as much as I’d like to. When I’m eating right and getting my exercise I feel good physically. And when I feel good physically, I feel better mentally. That’s probably not going to stop me from eating some of the sweet cheese and banana braided bread that is currently rising on my counter, however. I never claimed to have any self control.
6. Take care of the little things. It’s ridiculous how good I feel when I make my bed in the morning. Staying on top of the little chores that make your space more pleasant is a good way to exert control over your environment. Plus, I am just plain better able to relax if my space is clean and tidy.
That’s basically it. I have good days and bad days, and I hope that with a little effort eventually the good days will outnumber the bad. Is there anything that works for you when your feeling stressed?
So, WYFP?
I apologize — I originally had today off, but thanks to a temp (that I had hoped to hire, dammit) who decided that she’d rather not, I ended up having to work. I’ll should be here in about an hour or so, assuming nothing blows up.
![Gretchen Whitmer, Garlin Gilchrist II and various teachers and workers pose for a group photo in front of David Barr's "Transcendence" sculpture after the 2018 Labor Day parade in Detroit, Michigan.](https://images.dailykos.com/images/584757/story_image/Whitmer_Transcendence_Vert_forKos.jpg?1536013506 "Gretchen Whitmer, Garlin Gilchrist II and various teachers and workers pose for a group photo in front of David Barr's "Transcendence" sculpture after the 2018 Labor Day parade in Detroit, Michigan.")
