Okay kids, I know this will not apply to all of you, but for many it will. Since I like all my kids to be happy and healthy, I thought I should talk to you about stress overload. We will define it, see what effect it has on your health and what you can do about it.
I’m going to confess, this is a problem I have faced in the past. The reasons were many and I won’t bore you with all of them. However, I’ll share that some of those stressors were financial and others were health related. Not my health, but the health of those I love.
A little later, what I did about it. Maybe it will be of some use to you if you too suffer from stress overload.
What is stress?
Stress is a normal function of our lives. Normally the way it works is say, you’re home alone and hear an unusual sound. Is someone breaking into my house, you ask. Maybe they will kill me. Less frightening, but also stressful might be having to give a public speech.
On the brighter side, there’s happy stressors like the excitement you feel when you look forward to boarding a plane for Costa Rica or some other awesome destination. And we can’t forget the excitement we felt when going out on a date with that special someone.
All these stressors create a cascade of chemical reactions in our bodies including our adrenal glands. Thank you, adrenal glands, you’ve saved our bacon as a species.
In the above example, the adrenaline rush is short lived. In the case of the strange sound, once you discover the cause is your cat trying to open a cabinet where you keep her treats. the adrenaline subsides and you go happily on your way.
What is stress overload?
Our modern lifestyle, at least here in the U.S. can keep us in a constant state of stress. We worry about the future. Will we have enough money to pay the bills? Will we stay healthy? Will robots make our jobs obsolete? Jobs that demands we perform at 110% keep many of us stressed. It goes on and on with the fear based stressors.
The problem is our bodies don’t know the difference between a valid fear and those we, with the help of the media, conjure up in our minds. So, what do our bodies do? They keep us in a steady state of stress. That’s when really bad things start to happen to us.
According to our scientists who study the effects of chronic stress:
- It increases our odds of having a heart attack
- Increases our odds of developing type 2 diabetes
- Accelerates aging
- Gives us headaches
- Increases our odds of developing high blood pressure, asthma, arthritis, skin conditions, depression and anxiety
- Increases our odds of having accidents
- Impairs our ability to regulate inflammation
- May actually change our brain. To see how, check out http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/02/25/how-stress-affects-mental-health/
Conquering stress overload
Every small stressor became a crisis when my body and mind had reached its limit of stress. I knew I was going to have to do something. I didn’t want to go the pill route (I don’t like the effects) and alcohol wasn’t an option because it doesn’t seem to help.
- The first thing I did was simplify my life. That included everything from shopping to recreation.
- I quit cramming a gazillion things into my day. That’s what I call making time to just be.
- The third step was to resolve my financial difficulties. That wasn’t easy nor was it fast. There are only two ways to solve this problem: 1. Make more money 2. Spend less money. I did both.
- The third move was to work on my thinking. I spent little time in a future over which I had no control. Living in the past was never a problem so abandoning that wasn’t a problem.
If I was driving down the road and my mind started that all too familiar “what if” scenario about some future event, I pulled it back to the present. It took a lot of work to do that.
- I became as pliable as a rubber band. Instead of getting stressed because things weren’t going per plan, I let events happen.
- Instead of worrying about things I cared about, I decided to act. My skills as a writer, I would put to good use to help others. (That’s how this site was born.)
- I suck at meditating. Instead I work at focusing my attention on whatever I’m doing. I found it most difficult to focus on menial tasks. One of these days I’m going to give meditation another go.
- I allowed myself time to do things I enjoyed instead of filling my entire day with work.
Good books, both fiction and non-fiction, became my friends. Fiction was for fun. Non-fiction was to enrich my life. I also watch enlightening things on You Tube. My latest exploration is Daniel Everett’s study of the Pirahãs people in the Amazon. Fortunately, my library has his book “Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes” which I have ordered.
It took some time, but my stress levels have dropped to within reason. Whether my stress overload of over 6 years have had any lasting effects remains to be seen. If they have, I’ll deal with that eventuality when and if it happens.
Final words
If you suffer from stress overload, do something about it. You are the only one who can. I don’t think there’s a good mom out there that doesn’t wish she had a magic wand so she could wave it and make bad things go away for her kids. Unfortunately, we can’t. There is no wand or pixie dust for us to use.
It’s up to you, but one thing this mom can tell you for sure. You can do it.
Further reading and where I got the list of chronic stress maladies listed above:
http://sahlgrenska.gu.se/english/?siteSearch=true&searchText=chronic%20stress%20human&c=126
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/search?q=chronic+stress&filterJournals=PLoSONE
