Stress is a recent word to my Lexicon along with ‘genre’ – a word I dislike because of the way so many try to swallow their tongues while saying it!
When we got ‘stressed’ as children, mammy sent us to cut the grass, chop kindling for the fire, clean the windows or polish the furniture. By the time the chore was done we had worked off whatever was troubling us. Living alone I seldom become ‘stressed’, no reason to, there is nobody around to ‘stress’ me! Unfortunately nowadays everything needs a label, and some people love to wallow in the ‘Why Me’ syndrome. There I go putting a label on it!
Sorry Jean, I put ‘stress’ and ‘Post-traumatic Stress Disorder’ in the same boat. Stuff happens, it is called LIFE; and the only cure is to dust yourself down move on and get on with living. We get through IF WE WANT TO.
Sorry for the rant, but you did ask. (Now you know my stress point! 😉 )
.-= Grannymar´s last blog ..I missed the boat =-.
Who was the monk who said that his spiritual director was his cat? I forget his name.
For me it depends on how serious the stress is. Sometimes just doing something/anything different is enough.
Sometimes it takes doing something nice – a nice bath while reading a novel.
Sometimes, when it doesn’t go away easily it means looking at the cause (relationship, expectations and so on). For this, being comfortable with words, I usually use journalling.
Grannymar,
Heartfelt opinions are always welcome. 🙂
I started teaching stress management because I’m a problem solver at heart and I’m also a good listener. I did notice that a lot of people like to complain about their problems instead of taking action, so I started teaching instead of just acting as a listening post. Some people got a lot out of my classes, and the ones who just wanted to complain went elsewhere. So my strategy worked just fine. 😉
Evan,
Walking and journal writing used to be my favorites. Now that I blog I’m more apt to do Sudoku problems and use my NordicTrack treadmill. They help clear my mind while I figure out what needs to be done. Then, of course, I take direct action.
I agree with you that it’s a good idea to something nice for ourselves when we’re dealing with new challenges.
Rummuser,
“Stress? What is that?” Are you saying you have no stress in your life? How boring that would be. 😉 Don’t forget, too little stress is as bad as too much:
I don’t care for stress either…I don’t believe I have much at any time.
Like Grannymar, I see it as just part of LIFE
I try hard to have a ‘balance’ in my life soooooo that nothing gets to me toooooooo much.
Right now I should be stressed out over the blown light bulb…I can’t stand on a step ladder long enough with my balance issues to deal with it, plus when I looked at it I can’t fathom out how the shade comes off.
I have a mate/male who is always saying “I’ll come around and fix them”….err we are now onto the 2nd week of ‘no-show’ but really I’m not worried – I just went and got another lamp from the living room and I have enough ambiance in the meantime.
Anway, I’ve decided when the male does show up…that I have another little job for him to do! 🙂
.-= Cathy in NZ´s last blog ..Ethnomusicology =-.
Stress is the little thousand things in life that just happen. I have no control over them, but I do have control over me and how I handle them. The hardest part for me is letting going of those that I can’t change.
.-= Brighid´s last blog ..I’m waiting… =-.
Cathy,
That’s the secret, of course, having a balance and being flexible. Good for you. 🙂
Brighid,
I go with the definition that stress isn’t what happens to us in life, it’s the way we react to it. So stress management is exactly what you’re trying to do…managing your reactions. I also try to arrange my life to keep those external stressors at a reasonable level when I can. When I can’t I go back to the Traits of Stress-Hardy, Resilient People and work on myself.
Rummuser,
Oops. I accidentally responded at the wrong post. Here’s my reply:
I use the term “creative tension” a lot too, but I also find it useful to think of stress as energy produced by our body…to be used as we choose. Some people don’t think of themselves as creative so “creative tension” doesn’t resonate with them.
bikehikebabe,
It helps to have friends to reinforce the light attitude. When I was in Toastmasters I would always ask myself, “How can I turn this into a humorous speech.” It helped a lot.
I just had this ‘laugh button pushed’…I have got a message on my cellphone the other day that seemed quite intiquing so I decided that I had nothing to lose if I met this guy to talk to me….about ?I think some sort of business proposal….
Some of it seems quite plausible but what got me in the end…was some other meeting I should attend AND WAIT FOR IT!….WHERE
I probably wouldn’t understand what the expert was talking about. I think he just assumed because I wasn’t power dressed that I had/have no idea about any technical business terminology
I have run a couple of successful businesses in my lifetime; currently I’m the manager of a fundraising adventure that makes quite a substantial profit based on how much time and energy I put into it! It could make more but right now I’m in ‘slow mode’….no one else in my group wants to be IT 🙂
sooooooooo I can’t wait to tell this guy, that he can get stuffed along with his experts
chuckle, chuckle, chuckle
.-= Cathy in NZ´s last blog ..Ethnomusicology =-.
This post is about handling stress. Your “sooooooooo I can’t wait to tell this guy, that he can get stuffed along with his experts” isn’t the best way to handle your stress. Be kind when you talk to him. You know more about business than he does, but he was just trying to be helpful & make a buck.
Cathy in NZ, I tried to put a comment in your blog but forgot to save it & it got deleted.
More power to you for thinking to use Ethonomusicalogy so you can continue in Asian Studies. How do you do it all, including your blog?
Last evening I ‘collapsed as such’ …..I got home from a pretty busy day out and thought I would watch a spot of TV so I carefully looked up the programmes and mapped out which channels…made the living all ready.
Then I decided @ about 7.30pm that I should have short rest beforehand and because it was a tad cold (southerly) I warmed up my wheat bag and snuggled into bed for the ‘short rest’….I woke up at 11.30pm!
I got out of bed…put on my PJs’ and reheated my wheat bag and got back into bed. I was out like a light and woke up at 7.30am! I then switched on the heater to warm up and the room and promptly went back to sleep!!
Got up at 8.30am…
So you see I do NOT do it ALL at ALL!! I have whole periods besides that huge oopsy when I do very little.
I’ve now got this desktop computer and also a laptop and I have found that the bed is very comfy for laptop and papers so I lie around a lot 🙂
by the way….it was officially Spring here last week even though the weather god forgot until today when he turned on a glorious warm day (southerly gone)
.-= Cathy in NZ´s last blog ..Ethnomusicology =-.
I find from reading comments on blogs, that people are the same pretty much, the world over.
And I get a large charge out of the idioms from different countries; “a spot of TV”, “made the living all ready”, “tad cold”. Also the spellings are fun too; “programmes’, colour.
Hey, I take a nap after dinner & wake up at 11:30 too.
Cathy,
Good for you for taking as much time as you need to rest! My mother thought people needed only 5 hours a sleep a night. More than that was self-indulgence and more than seven was sheer laziness. That was hard on my sister and me when we were teens with growing bodies that needed at least nine hours a night to be healthy. I loved my mom deeply, but I’m sure glad I’m an adult now and can sleep as much as I want. 🙂
I hadn’t realised what I had actually written bikehikebabe
“a spot of TV” (watching)
“made the living all ready” (actually left out the word living “room” which in my case means moving stuff of the couch, turning on lights and drawing the drapes)
“tad cold” ( a little cold…not enough to run to a full on blast of heat)
as for spelling that is another thing all together…that is how we spell those things here in New Zealand.
Sometimes I take a nap or as we often say 40 winks in the arvo (afternoon) but on the other hand, I’m not always here in the arvo but rather out getting tired 🙂
.-= Cathy in NZ´s last blog ..You never know what’s in a trademans’ toolbox =-.
I clicked on the above blog “You never know what’s in a trademan’s toolbox” & made a comment. Joined the whatever, filled in all the boxes. It thinks I don’t know my password so won’t print my comment.
Here’s a comment: Well, by golly, gee whiz. Who would have thought! (That’s about the little red box’s job.)
I filled in all the info. boxes. Let’s see if this comment goes.
By golly, gee whiz, it should.
bikehikebabe,
I was starting to sign you up for Live Journal so you an post comments to Cathy’s posts, but they wanted your birth date in addition to other things. I didn’t feel comfortable with that. Let me know if Cathy walks you through it.
I don’t know what any of you are ‘doing’ wrong/right…however, I’ve scanned through the profile thingymegig and ‘enabled commenters’ @ my Livejournal blog
Jean, Why not just put some silly ‘birthdate’ in….something ridiculous 🙂
last night I was subscribing to a magazine for our Guilds library and I wanted to have them send it to the Librarian BUT of course the format wouldn’t let me because the ‘credit card’ is registered to me NOT her!! So it looks like I get the ‘zine sent to me until we are able to COA 🙂
bikehikebabe…I sent the guy a very pleasant message about my ‘no thanks’ business entity and added something along the lines of ‘thanks for asking me and have a great future’ 🙂
.-= Cathy in NZ´s last blog ..You never know what’s in a trademans’ toolbox =-.
To make a comment in Cathy’s blog I filled in all the blanks. My birthday is no secret. 3/13/33. (I liked those numbers, but my friend said her B-day is 11/22/33).
I did comments 3 times because I made them prematurely, before I was accepted into Live Journal. I got rejected because it didn’t like my password–one I always use.
ok…I tried out leaving a comment, on my own page and it allowed it 🙂 but then again I’m the registered personage…
don’t you just hate it when a perfect password or even nickname has worked and then one company/place on-line refuses to allow it.
I have about two places where I am cedar1951, & I always forget….and I think both those places do not like my p/word either so I have had to deduct part of the p/word!….and I forget that tooooo…….so I have whatever email me the reminder and that’s when I REMEMBER!
.-= Cathy in NZ´s last blog ..You never know what’s in a trademans’ toolbox =-.
Stress is a recent word to my Lexicon along with ‘genre’ – a word I dislike because of the way so many try to swallow their tongues while saying it!
When we got ‘stressed’ as children, mammy sent us to cut the grass, chop kindling for the fire, clean the windows or polish the furniture. By the time the chore was done we had worked off whatever was troubling us. Living alone I seldom become ‘stressed’, no reason to, there is nobody around to ‘stress’ me! Unfortunately nowadays everything needs a label, and some people love to wallow in the ‘Why Me’ syndrome. There I go putting a label on it!
Sorry Jean, I put ‘stress’ and ‘Post-traumatic Stress Disorder’ in the same boat. Stuff happens, it is called LIFE; and the only cure is to dust yourself down move on and get on with living. We get through IF WE WANT TO.
Sorry for the rant, but you did ask. (Now you know my stress point! 😉 )
.-= Grannymar´s last blog ..I missed the boat =-.
Who was the monk who said that his spiritual director was his cat? I forget his name.
For me it depends on how serious the stress is. Sometimes just doing something/anything different is enough.
Sometimes it takes doing something nice – a nice bath while reading a novel.
Sometimes, when it doesn’t go away easily it means looking at the cause (relationship, expectations and so on). For this, being comfortable with words, I usually use journalling.
Stress? What is that?
.-= Rummuser´s last blog ..Want some laughs? =-.
Grannymar,
Heartfelt opinions are always welcome. 🙂
I started teaching stress management because I’m a problem solver at heart and I’m also a good listener. I did notice that a lot of people like to complain about their problems instead of taking action, so I started teaching instead of just acting as a listening post. Some people got a lot out of my classes, and the ones who just wanted to complain went elsewhere. So my strategy worked just fine. 😉
Evan,
Walking and journal writing used to be my favorites. Now that I blog I’m more apt to do Sudoku problems and use my NordicTrack treadmill. They help clear my mind while I figure out what needs to be done. Then, of course, I take direct action.
I agree with you that it’s a good idea to something nice for ourselves when we’re dealing with new challenges.
Rummuser,
“Stress? What is that?” Are you saying you have no stress in your life? How boring that would be. 😉 Don’t forget, too little stress is as bad as too much:
I don’t care for stress either…I don’t believe I have much at any time.
Like Grannymar, I see it as just part of LIFE
I try hard to have a ‘balance’ in my life soooooo that nothing gets to me toooooooo much.
Right now I should be stressed out over the blown light bulb…I can’t stand on a step ladder long enough with my balance issues to deal with it, plus when I looked at it I can’t fathom out how the shade comes off.
I have a mate/male who is always saying “I’ll come around and fix them”….err we are now onto the 2nd week of ‘no-show’ but really I’m not worried – I just went and got another lamp from the living room and I have enough ambiance in the meantime.
Anway, I’ve decided when the male does show up…that I have another little job for him to do! 🙂
.-= Cathy in NZ´s last blog ..Ethnomusicology =-.
Stress is the little thousand things in life that just happen. I have no control over them, but I do have control over me and how I handle them. The hardest part for me is letting going of those that I can’t change.
.-= Brighid´s last blog ..I’m waiting… =-.
Cathy,
That’s the secret, of course, having a balance and being flexible. Good for you. 🙂
Brighid,
I go with the definition that stress isn’t what happens to us in life, it’s the way we react to it. So stress management is exactly what you’re trying to do…managing your reactions. I also try to arrange my life to keep those external stressors at a reasonable level when I can. When I can’t I go back to the Traits of Stress-Hardy, Resilient People and work on myself.
Jean, I would call it creative tension and not stress at all!
.-= Rummuser´s last blog ..Faux Pas? =-.
Rummuser,
Oops. I accidentally responded at the wrong post. Here’s my reply:
I use the term “creative tension” a lot too, but I also find it useful to think of stress as energy produced by our body…to be used as we choose. Some people don’t think of themselves as creative so “creative tension” doesn’t resonate with them.
When stressed I remember what you taught me, Jean.
“You just have to laugh.” And you can do it when you think how ridiculous the situation is.
bikehikebabe,
It helps to have friends to reinforce the light attitude. When I was in Toastmasters I would always ask myself, “How can I turn this into a humorous speech.” It helped a lot.
I just had this ‘laugh button pushed’…I have got a message on my cellphone the other day that seemed quite intiquing so I decided that I had nothing to lose if I met this guy to talk to me….about ?I think some sort of business proposal….
Some of it seems quite plausible but what got me in the end…was some other meeting I should attend AND WAIT FOR IT!….WHERE
I probably wouldn’t understand what the expert was talking about. I think he just assumed because I wasn’t power dressed that I had/have no idea about any technical business terminology
I have run a couple of successful businesses in my lifetime; currently I’m the manager of a fundraising adventure that makes quite a substantial profit based on how much time and energy I put into it! It could make more but right now I’m in ‘slow mode’….no one else in my group wants to be IT 🙂
sooooooooo I can’t wait to tell this guy, that he can get stuffed along with his experts
chuckle, chuckle, chuckle
.-= Cathy in NZ´s last blog ..Ethnomusicology =-.
This post is about handling stress. Your “sooooooooo I can’t wait to tell this guy, that he can get stuffed along with his experts” isn’t the best way to handle your stress. Be kind when you talk to him. You know more about business than he does, but he was just trying to be helpful & make a buck.
Cathy in NZ, I tried to put a comment in your blog but forgot to save it & it got deleted.
More power to you for thinking to use Ethonomusicalogy so you can continue in Asian Studies. How do you do it all, including your blog?
Last evening I ‘collapsed as such’ …..I got home from a pretty busy day out and thought I would watch a spot of TV so I carefully looked up the programmes and mapped out which channels…made the living all ready.
Then I decided @ about 7.30pm that I should have short rest beforehand and because it was a tad cold (southerly) I warmed up my wheat bag and snuggled into bed for the ‘short rest’….I woke up at 11.30pm!
I got out of bed…put on my PJs’ and reheated my wheat bag and got back into bed. I was out like a light and woke up at 7.30am! I then switched on the heater to warm up and the room and promptly went back to sleep!!
Got up at 8.30am…
So you see I do NOT do it ALL at ALL!! I have whole periods besides that huge oopsy when I do very little.
I’ve now got this desktop computer and also a laptop and I have found that the bed is very comfy for laptop and papers so I lie around a lot 🙂
by the way….it was officially Spring here last week even though the weather god forgot until today when he turned on a glorious warm day (southerly gone)
.-= Cathy in NZ´s last blog ..Ethnomusicology =-.
ok I will go easy on the guy….bikehikebabe 🙂
.-= Cathy in NZ´s last blog ..Ethnomusicology =-.
I find from reading comments on blogs, that people are the same pretty much, the world over.
And I get a large charge out of the idioms from different countries; “a spot of TV”, “made the living all ready”, “tad cold”. Also the spellings are fun too; “programmes’, colour.
Hey, I take a nap after dinner & wake up at 11:30 too.
Cathy,
Good for you for taking as much time as you need to rest! My mother thought people needed only 5 hours a sleep a night. More than that was self-indulgence and more than seven was sheer laziness. That was hard on my sister and me when we were teens with growing bodies that needed at least nine hours a night to be healthy. I loved my mom deeply, but I’m sure glad I’m an adult now and can sleep as much as I want. 🙂
I hadn’t realised what I had actually written bikehikebabe
“a spot of TV” (watching)
“made the living all ready” (actually left out the word living “room” which in my case means moving stuff of the couch, turning on lights and drawing the drapes)
“tad cold” ( a little cold…not enough to run to a full on blast of heat)
as for spelling that is another thing all together…that is how we spell those things here in New Zealand.
Sometimes I take a nap or as we often say 40 winks in the arvo (afternoon) but on the other hand, I’m not always here in the arvo but rather out getting tired 🙂
.-= Cathy in NZ´s last blog ..You never know what’s in a trademans’ toolbox =-.
I clicked on the above blog “You never know what’s in a trademan’s toolbox” & made a comment. Joined the whatever, filled in all the boxes. It thinks I don’t know my password so won’t print my comment.
Here’s a comment: Well, by golly, gee whiz. Who would have thought! (That’s about the little red box’s job.)
I filled in all the info. boxes. Let’s see if this comment goes.
By golly, gee whiz, it should.
But no such luck. What am I doing wrong?
bikehikebabe,
I was starting to sign you up for Live Journal so you an post comments to Cathy’s posts, but they wanted your birth date in addition to other things. I didn’t feel comfortable with that. Let me know if Cathy walks you through it.
I don’t know what any of you are ‘doing’ wrong/right…however, I’ve scanned through the profile thingymegig and ‘enabled commenters’ @ my Livejournal blog
Jean, Why not just put some silly ‘birthdate’ in….something ridiculous 🙂
last night I was subscribing to a magazine for our Guilds library and I wanted to have them send it to the Librarian BUT of course the format wouldn’t let me because the ‘credit card’ is registered to me NOT her!! So it looks like I get the ‘zine sent to me until we are able to COA 🙂
bikehikebabe…I sent the guy a very pleasant message about my ‘no thanks’ business entity and added something along the lines of ‘thanks for asking me and have a great future’ 🙂
.-= Cathy in NZ´s last blog ..You never know what’s in a trademans’ toolbox =-.
To make a comment in Cathy’s blog I filled in all the blanks. My birthday is no secret. 3/13/33. (I liked those numbers, but my friend said her B-day is 11/22/33).
I did comments 3 times because I made them prematurely, before I was accepted into Live Journal. I got rejected because it didn’t like my password–one I always use.
ok…I tried out leaving a comment, on my own page and it allowed it 🙂 but then again I’m the registered personage…
don’t you just hate it when a perfect password or even nickname has worked and then one company/place on-line refuses to allow it.
I have about two places where I am cedar1951, & I always forget….and I think both those places do not like my p/word either so I have had to deduct part of the p/word!….and I forget that tooooo…….so I have whatever email me the reminder and that’s when I REMEMBER!
.-= Cathy in NZ´s last blog ..You never know what’s in a trademans’ toolbox =-.
Cathy,
Yes, I have them send me my password a lot. As long as they do that I don’t worry about it. Life is seldom simple. 😉
Did bikehikebabe ever get to comment on your site?
Ya….bikehikebabe has left a ‘comment’….L/J must have decided she really did wanna leave a ‘comment’
Yippee we have take off!
.-= Cathy in NZ´s last blog ..You never know what’s in a trademans’ toolbox =-.
Livejournal asked me to tell about myself. I said that I biked, I hiked & I wanna be a babe.
I’m glad bikehikebabe got through. 🙂
a babe soouuuuuuuuuunds real coooooooooool!
.-= Cathy in NZ´s last blog ..You never know what’s in a trademans’ toolbox =-.