Empty
the basket – Stress Management
I never quite mastered how to stay in the moment. For
some of us who pride ourselves in multitasking, being in more than one place at
a time becomes a common phenomenon. There is a tendency to overwork oneself
without one knowing. We develop a high tolerance to stress. The next thing we know,
we forget how to relax and the body forgets how to shut down and sleep.
A couple of years ago, I was buried in work and did
not realize that it was way past closing time. A colleague called me from home
to ask if I had seen the headlines and I said I was still at the office. He
chuckled and said, you cannot expect to complete everything today Anita, there
will still be more to be done tomorrow. I looked up from ‘my to do list’ and
realized that I had accomplished what I needed to for the next 3 days. I smiled
and told myself that it had been a good day so I would come in a bit later to
the office the following day. The next
day I was at the office early the same time and I spent the rest of my morning going
over the work I had done the night before to be sure that I had dotted all I’s
and crossed all Ts. When that was completed, I passed by a colleague’s office
who was swamped with work because she had just returned from vacation and
offered to help her out before my meeting later that afternoon. The day pretty
much went the same way as the previous days with me always having a lot to do
and very little time to rest. Some people enjoy the fact that they have a high
tolerance to stress as if it is a good thing. Truth is, the more tolerant you
become to stress, the less likely it is that you will notice that you are
stressed and will need to take a break and eventually what started as fatigue
turns into something serious and on some occasions fatal.
None of this really registered until I found myself in
a situation where I had overworked myself, I had lost a few pounds but I kept
telling myself that I will rest when on vacation. However, I used the most part
of my vacation to treat illness. Just when I was recuperating, I had to return
to work. Then I realized that I was always making plans to rest and postponing
pleasure. So what does this all mean? We spend the most part of our youth in
grueling jobs having very little time for ourselves or for our families.
Stop! Listen! Will some of the things you are fretting
about matter 10 years from now? Probably not. And hey, no one is indispensable
too. If you drop dead, your employers will have a heartfelt tribute read at
your wake and then the following day employ someone else to take your place. Life
is short, cliché, I know. But you never realize just how short it is until you
attend the funeral of your age mate and realize it could just have easily been
you. Learn to take a break from work and things that stress you out.
Read a book, see a movie, call up an old friend, make
it home on time to eat dinner with the family, take up swimming or exercise,
pick up a new healthy habit, learn a new language (not French of course, that
is a whole new kind of stress; just kidding) or like me, blog or learn a
musical instrument. If you are someone like me who gets serious with everything
please do not venture into learning an instrument, we do not want something
which was meant to be fun turn out with you being more stressed because you could
not play a tune in F key. But by all means do something for you. Find a way to
relax and develop a low tolerance for stress. As much as you make a to do list
for work or school, have a to do list for fun things you can do as well. Today I
tried hopping on one leg in my living room. Silly I know but if you have had
the night I had of not getting much sleep because I was warding off mosquitoes
and still had to wake in time to fetch water before the power cut, you will do
silly things too.
If you feel the need to critique this article, please
take a pause and realize I am also de-stressing 😃😃. I would love to hear your
views about your stressful moments and how you managed that stress.
