Inspired NOT Stressed

One of the most eye-opening discoveries in my graduate school counseling preparation was that everything is stressful and has been assigned a point value by Holmes and Rahe  on their stress scale. Even events people regarded as positives in life carry degrees of stress based on the amount of adaptation a person has to do in their life routine to adjust to the event. They connected the measure of stress to a likelihood of physical ailment based on the number of “points” accumulated in a year’s time.

Since the mid-sixties when Holmes and Rahe’s research was published, stress has become the catch-all boogey-man for any type of inconvenience we have (such as performance expectations at work). It becomes the reason for mistakes and the low-quality work. These interpretations of Holmes and Rahe’s work completely misrepresent what they believed about stress: it is necessary for life. Our reactions to the stressor are where the harm lies. Some current research reminds us of that understanding.

WATCH: Turns Out, We May Have Gotten the Science of Stress Completely Wrong | TEDTalks:

'via Blog this

McGonigal cites a study that reported on the effects of the view of stress and health consequences, not the stressor itself. They re-discovered that our response to stress determines the likelihood of illness and even death. Holmes and Rahe assigned the points on their scale based on the general reaction people have to the event - not the event itself. That is why the birth of a child merited fewer points than the death of a loved one. Likewise, a promotion at work scores lower than losing a job. We generally experience less disruption to life with the first examples than the second.

Since discovering the work of Holmes and Rahe in graduate school, I have considered situations differently. I work in a stressful field - education. The challenges differ from school to school and some of them are entrenched and cultural. As long as they are challenges, I have the power to seek and implement solutions that may make them less challenging. When I call them stressors, I have given up seeking solutions.

I am glad that some are beginning to reframe the conversation around stress. For so many years so much misinformation spread so widely that if the number of times a lie was repeated changed it to the truth, then stress would be the villain. Replacing the false understanding of stress with a correct one faces an uphill battle at the start, but I believe it will be readily received: the old news about stress was a tale of weakness, but the new understanding is one of power! Shifting the conversation to our response to stress rather than the stress itself puts control over it within our grasp: we control how we react. We control the effects of stress.

We control our lives. There is no longer a reason to use stress as an excuse.

Change and Such

         I have heard that only babies like change.

         I do not believe that.

         Ask anyone and they will likely provide a list of things they want to change – about themselves, about their work, about the people around them. The status quo gets boring. The longer we do the same thing, the more likely we are to find ways to do it better – change what we are doing. Regularly we are changing things around us.

         Yet when change comes from the outside, the chorus of “why can’t we leave it the way it was” rises quickly, and often most loudly, and from those people calling for change. Law, policy, new information directs change from many directions. Some of them questionable. Some of them worthy. Change happens and is a force in all we do. Our lives are stressful – or not depending on how we handle the changes that come.

         Years ago Holmes and Rahe developed a scale on how much stress a person has in their life. The scale calculated stress based on life-changes a person experienced in a year’s time. Whenever I ask someone to look at it, they are shocked to see that even positive changes create stress in life.

         Deaths (of family or friends) are stressful.

         Relationship troubles are stressful.

         Getting fired is stressful.

         Yes, even getting a raise is stressful.

         So is a vacation.

         Every change we have in our life is stressful. When the stress points total 150 points in a year, the person has a 50% chance of developing an illness. When the points total 300, the person has a 90% chance of developing illness or some other kind of blow-up.

         While Holmes and Rahe provide a guide to change stress, perhaps most important about change is how we approach it. Change and such happens around us on a daily basis. What matters is how we go about approaching it. We can resist and fight all change, increasing the stress that comes with it. We can take the opposite tactic and go with the flow to reduce the stress (Wrong! Going with it when we disagree with it is just as stressful as, or even more stressful than, fighting it).

         Or we can select our battles. Accept that change happens around us and let some change go unchallenged because it is part of the environment in which we work/live, but challenge those things that matter most about us. The energy that stress requires can be turned to something positive. Prescribed change challenges even the most resilient person, but the better we learn to manage that change and our reaction to it, the healthier we will be. We cannot prevent change, but we can control our response to it.

Talking Off the Top of My Head

There is nothing like a last minute (relatively) to get the heart racing and mind clicking.

Apparently I am talking tonight at the joint meeting of the local community college board of directors and the school board. Most people who know me realize that this is something I can do and generally do well. The competitive debate in high school definitely has served me well at thinking on my feet and being able to communicate with minimal preparation.

Of course, since this has been my job for six years, is it really minimal preparation?

My name was not on the agenda, but alas, I am actually excited about the chance to clarify some pieces of my program and present ways in which it can grow with support from both sides.

This is really exciting! I just have to remember the boards want to be home before midnight.

Dreaming of Sleep

More tasks than time
Challenge every day.
As such, precious moments -
Undedicated hours
Unclaimed seconds
Gleam beyond polished gold,
Sparkle above shined silver.

Mindless minutes
Recharge
Wear from sleepless nights -
Turbulent times without dreams
Or psychic relief.
Claim me back to lucidity
And simplest sanity.

Soul’s salvation,
Emotion’s energy,
Rational revelation upon
Eternity’s clock
Call habits to justify
Brain drain and cerebral calories.
Let me sleep early tonight.

Holiday Anxiety #3

And we're done!

The shopping is complete.

The gifts are wrapped.

Now I just have to load them into the car and drive two hours so my nephews can destroy them in two minutes. The loading can wait until after church tomorrow.

Despite the challenges, I'm pleased with the gifting I've done this year. I only relied on gift cards for two people (though I must admit, I would rather get gift cards most of the time).

The wrapping was more of a challenge than I expected. Pillows can be rather tricky: try finding a gift box that fits a penguin shaped pillow the size of a three-year-old. The blanket was not as hard as the penguin, but it came close.

The traffic today was worse than yesterday. I guess that is what I get for doing last minute shopping.

Still, I'm done with the shopping and that feels good.

Now I just have to survive a couple days with my family.

Holiday Anxiety #2

Holiday drivers are NUTS!

I thought Friday morning shopping would not be too wild since people were supposedly still working, but the traffic quickly made me want to just give gift cards. I had spent some time coming up with ideas for "real" gifts for almost everyone on my list, but the mass of drivers soon brought out the scrooge in me.

After some back street maneuvers, I made my way to one of my favorite shopping centers and in going through a few stores, was able to find appropriate gifts for almost everyone on my list.

The one gift I have not been able to find is for my middle nephew. I have his mother's list, but I'm not buying his mother's list for Christmas: I'll buy from his mother's list any time except his birthday and Christmas. So, today, I'm off once again to go find something for him. With luck, I'll find just the right item to give him some excitement through the whole year to come, but it will have to be just right.

Holiday Anxiety #1

Four days to Christmas and the holiday anxiety is setting in. I have three nephews and NO CLUE what to buy them. The one who always had a three page wish list responded with "I dunno." when I asked him what he wanted for Christmas over Thanksgiving. The one who is three will be happy with paper and bows. The other nephew has the list his mother made. Christmas presents from the uncle are for fun - not for school! I'm sure I can find something suitably exciting for him without making his parents too mad.

As far as I know, my brothers and I have called a truce and are not going to exchange presents this year, but I have not heard that directly from one brother, so I don't know whether to be prepared or not. Mom and dad, of course, won't go along with that, so I still have to figure out what to get two people who already have more stuff than house/garage/barn can hold.

Friends are an entirely different matter. Some are doing the gift thing, but I have no idea who, so I feel like I need to be prepared for any contingency. Do I buy "cool" things just to have on hand that can go to anyone male or female? Maybe I'll just do a dinner for them...people usually do enjoy my food. Then there are the random gift bags/baskets...I can do that....

The only way around all this would be to ask everyone if they are getting me a gift - and that would seem like I'm asking. We need to come up with some clear etiquette on gift giving during the holidays.

Dating = gift

Close friends = gift

Acquaintances = no gift

Co-workers = draw or no gift and no breaking the agreement (if one gifts it makes everyone else look bad)

Family = decide (children = definitely, adults = come to an agreement)

Fortunately, I don't live or work in a building where holiday tipping is an expectation.

I don't want to come off as a scrooge, but in the last few years, the most fun I've had is with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. We have the rule that you buy a present for everyone, but for the adults you cannot spend more than $1. That rule suddenly makes shopping a challenge and gift receiving an adventure. When we are together, we laugh and enjoy being with one another more than you can imagine. Instead of being about the gifts, the gifts are the catalyst for much laughter - so much so that I usually ache for days afterward. We are all thirty/fortysomethings, so we don't wait for the holidays: when we need something, we go buy it instead of putting it on a wish list.

It has been much belabored each year that the holidays are too materialistic, so I won't add to that lament. I would like to see my friends and family expanding the dollar gift tradition. It is tremendous fun for the gifter and gifted.

The Reward of a Job...

...well done is supposed hold its own satisfaction. I suppose that holds some truth, although, I'm not certain it holds any kind of certainty. I've worked my butt off for the last few months and it has not all led to what I expected. Some of it, in fact, has been so frustrating that the dream I had last night was so real, I'm wondering if my calling is not to change jobs and go back to teaching.

I do miss the classroom, but despite the frustrations of my current position, I have to say that more than the satisfaction of a job well done is a life well lived. Today I had my quarterly doctor's visit and for the second time, after an incredibly stressful period, rather than the stress taking a toll on my body, my bloodwork came back better than before.

Sadly, to the converse, when I've been relaxed and comfortable, my blood tests have not been so good.

It is an ironic pick your poison: do I want to go by a heart attack or HIV?

With a heart attack it would be fast, but I worry if my co-workers could find all my notes to finish the projects I'm working on (hint- check the floor of my home office). Yes, even in death, I think I would worry about the ease with which my replacement could follow me.

Thanks to the advancement in medicines, HIV would likely be slow to progress. My major fear is that it does make that blood/brain leap and I begin to experience AIDS Related Dementia. I have not found the appropriate accomplice for assisted suicide, but I would have a diagnosis as AIDS Related Dementia as a criterion for someone assisting me.

The other fear is that I waste away slowly and leave an ugly corpse, but that's just vanity, and ego is no excuse for assisted suicide.

So in the meantime...

I keep working on the stress-filled life well lived.

Under Pressure

The temperature outside today nearly matched the temperature under my collar this afternoon. Depending on which weather report one checked, Austin reached 103 degrees today. I knew my day was booked with meetings and had carefully planned my day to be prepared for them. I had not carefully planned for the meeting location to change after the meeting originally was scheduled to begin.

Flexibility - always good.

That four hour meeting today was, in part, to provide information for my portion of a grant proposal. It was a very productive meeting and I left confident I would easily be able to write a very good piece and fit it within my length constraints.

I was just down the street when my boss's boss's boss calls my cell to inform me that the piece was due thirty minutes previously instead of in two days as I thought, and that I only had one-half page in which to fully cover my topic. Because the office "liked" me they were giving me another half hour to write the piece.

I was in my car.

I was in rush hour traffic.

I had a three page draft.

I had a thirty minute deadline.

My gas gauge was showing empty.

First things first. I stopped to get gas.

The radio reported over a dozen accidents being worked at the time. I'm really glad I had turned my satellite radio off and was listening to NPR's All Things Considered at the time. Otherwise, I would have been stopped in two diffrent traffic jams. Fortunately I was able to negotiate my way around the traffic tie-ups and make it home rather quickly.

Fifteen minutes later I called the grant office and my boss's boss's boss to report that I had completed and submitted the half page. There are two stylistic changes I would like to make after re-reading it an hour later, but other than that, all I can say is, "Damn! I'm good!"