When I talk to clients in my counseling office about stress, they often discount my advise. Sure, stress plays a part in their damaged relationships and damaged bodies, but so what? They think stress is like the weather, something people talk about but are helpless to change and a peaceful lifestyle became extinct somewhere between Little House On the Prairie and Happy Days. They would love to go back to the time before beepers and cell phones and rush hour traffic, but the idea is impractical. Resting somewhere back in history they might have had to face an occasional bear, but at least there would no be soccer practice, carpools and problems with the IRS. However, the truth is that even a time machine could not guarantee a stress free lifestyle. Hassles, problems and pressures have always been part of the human experience.
My Grandma was a woman under pressure. She married late in life and started her family just in time for the Great Depression. Since Grandpa was a sharecropper, they were the poorest of the poor. With little education, limited job skills and five little girls to raise, her choices were very few. At times starvation was a real possibility.
Wealthier farmers in those days grew large fields of blackeyed peas. These were the days before chemical fertilizers and the peas were plowed under in the fall in an effort to enrich the soil. One such farmer lived near Grandma's family and he offered to let her glean the peas before the crop was turned under. The whole family worked from dawn til night securing every pea and drying them. That winter the peas comprised 90% of the family diet and they were eaten every day for months.
It was not only poverty that challenged Grandma. The physical work and time pressures where constant. Planting and harvesting have deadlines assigned by nature that are just as strict as anything invented by corporate America. In addition, there was an urgency for every job assigned her. Such task as sewing dresses out of feed sacks and making lye soap in a kettle over a fire in the yard were not optional adventures but necessary items filling her "in-basket." Grandma and Grandpa were a Godly pair and they raised their children well, but they lived and died under pressure and were intimately acquainted stress.
The only thing that has changed since Grandma's day is that we now have a word for the struggle of life. We call it STRESS. A word Grandma never used because it was not even invented until shortly before 1956. Today, we can measure it, scientifically examine it and prescribe drugs when our bodies start wearing down under the weight of it. But, like a raging epidemic with no cure, most of us believe we can't do anything substantial to prevent it.
The good news is that this belief is wrong. We can do something about stress. And, the best news of all is that we can do it without taking a time machine back to Walnut Creek or trading our cell phones for butter churns.
In this short, easy book I promise to teach you how to cope with stress and how to do it without significantly disrupting your modern lifestyle. I will show you fifteen stress-busting ideas divided into digestible bites. Selecting a couple of these ideas and following them for three weeks can impact both the quality and the length of your life on earth. We will discuss these ideas in detail in the next few chapters and all fifteen of are listed in abbreviated form in Appendix I.
However, before you race on to the appendix in an effort to defeat stress instantly, you will do yourself a favor if you read through the next two chapters so you can understand the dynamics of stress and how it has impacted your personal life. An enemy with an unknown face has a distinct advantage. Learning a little about stress will become a major assist in your efforts to defeat it. So, slow down and read the next two chapters at your leisure. I guarantee the knowledge you gain will be worth it. Then, adapt the suggested stress-busters to your personal schedule and needs. In twenty-one days you will be well on your way to peace.
Invariably after I have given a lecture on stress, someone will come up and ask about my personal life-style. Fair enough. I would not give money to a financial agent who had just declared bankruptcy and I can't expect readers to trust me unless I have successfully dealt with stress in my own life. Therefore, I offer the following personal glimpse.
About eight years ago I went through a trauma that some call "burn out' or "hitting the wall." I was horrified and amazed that someone still in their forties could feel so bad for so long and still be functioning. My family physician said I had "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome." I had never heard of it. The problem is much more understood now, but in the early '90s is was a mystery to most people and hotly debated even by those who believed it existed. 1
It did not take long for me to give up on the medical establishment, but that did little to relieve my symptoms. Some days were better and some worse, but the evening that it took both hands on the stair rail to pull myself up to my apartment I knew I was in deep trouble. I threw myself on the sofa and had to rest for ten minutes before I had energy enough to take off my coat.
Because this is not an autobiography, I won't go into detail about my ailments and my journey back to health. It is sufficient to say that the road involved learning about nutrition, rest, and time and learning to invest more of myself in relating to others. It was also the beginning of my journey toward learning about stress and how it impacts the body.
Now, I am in my late 50s and feel better than I have in years. I recently completed my doctor of philosophy degree or Ph.D. Anyone who has been involved in a program like this knows how much pressure and work are involved. This particular degree 2 required professionals to be working in their field before they were admitted to the program.
When the day of graduation came at last, several of us were gathered for the event and a colloquy was conducted to evaluate the experience. We went around the room sharing our personal stories and telling what the past few years had been like. I was surprised to hear what the others had gone through during the dissertation process.
One may got up at four each morning, worked until six thirty then went to his job. Like myself, his profession was that of a counselor. He worked eight hours at the clinic then immediately upon returning home, ate a quick supper and saw clients in private practice until ten each night. Another student said she worked each night until three in the morning then got up at seven to go to work. The rest of the students followed a similar routine. When it came my turn to speak, I felt apologetic. I slept eight to nine hours each night, and until the last few weeks of the program I always took at least a twenty-four hour rest during the week.
But, as I reconsidered the situation, my slight embarrassment faded. I had carried a full time job as a counselor, written one of the books I used in the teaching practicum, completed a dissertation on philosophical anthropology, and finished the program in just over two and a half years. Since the program required a minimum of three years, I had to petition the graduate committee to be allowed early graduation.
I enjoyed several benefits that helped make early graduation possible, but I suspect the primary edge was that I got a full night's sleep each night and I occasionally took specific time to rest during stretches of peak stress. I had learned the hard way that burning the candle at both ends gives only a short term increase in light. Ultimately, it just produces more ash than anything else.
Today, I don't perfectly practice what I teach, but I know that unless I am willing to rein in my strong type-A temperament and deal with the physical realities of my limitations, a very real and unmovable wall is waiting around the bend. Pushing myself until I hit that wall is not only unwise, in the end, it is unprofitable.
Realizing our limitations and maximizing our strengths is what stress management is all about. We must leave the rat race to the rats. Instead, we carve out times of rest for our bodies and practice times of peace for our souls. That is what I hope this book can help you accomplish.
