Stress Busters

[talon]

I don't stress out easily, even under stressful circumstances like the simple $80 replacement of a leaking pipe join turning into a $1,200 replacement of a series of pipes and joins.

When I was younger, I used to think it was because I was callous or maybe I had Vulcan ancestors or something.

Working on this book for Eldering, though, has led me to new research and studies that indicate perhaps I have a totally different mechanism for coping, and I'm not alone in my methods.

Most of my coping mechanisms were instinctive, innate, and it took a long time to tease them out from me just being me.

My default coping mechanism is what's called "repressive coping" - not talking about stressful events, not reliving the event over and over through re-telling it. Maybe years later, I'll talk about it, but the more stressful the event was, the less likely I am to ever talk about it except in the most superficial and dismissive of terms. Like everyone else, I've had my share of major life events - deaths of loved ones, accidents, loss of property, births, arguments, injuries, financial losses. For some people, obsessively talking about it makes them feel better. For me, talking about them makes me feel worse, so I simply don't. This often leads other people to believe I've lived a charmed and easy life with no bumps in my road, no curve balls, no set-backs. Since this doesn't really affect my life, they can believe whatever they want.

Of course, I also vent easily and have blown past my frustration and anger long after the people around me are still fuming. I have lots and lots of flash temper tantrums responding to short term unfair frustrations that I can't do anything about - like bad drivers. They can't hear me, what I do or say won't ever touch them, but it makes me feel better to name their problems, delineate their questionable ancestry, question their education and upbringing, wish them all the fruits of their actions, and then dismiss them and move on. Everyone's happy, except sometimes my passengers, who don't quite understand the flash of anger and the string of colorfully descriptive expletives.

I have chocolate every day. Not much. I buy a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips and eat one or two every day, like medicine. For me, it is medicine. There's not a lot of calories in one or two chocolate chips, but they counter my stress hormones and keep me on an even, emotional keel. It wouldn't surprise me if Vulcans had a substance they ingested regularly like a vitamin or nutritional supplement that did the same for them.

I reward myself with things I love after I get through a difficult time: a visit to the bookstore (and you wondered why I had so many books....), a geocaching adventure, a new tea cup set (but I'm pickier about those than I am about books even if they cost about the same), a dinner out, a new garden plant, new embroidery floss for a new project, a wildcrafting expedition, a camping trip, working on a new formula or trying to re-create an old one, mastering a new recipe, writing a new story. If I know I get to do something fun and interesting it makes it easier to deal with the stress of the moment. Sometimes, if it's a long term stress, like when my mother was dying and all the work afterwards because the judge refused to accept her perfectly legal, properly done will, I work on various projects, especially the fiddly ones like cooking or working out new herbal formulae or writing a new story.

If something makes me angry, really angry, sleeping on it helps me work through it. I have really lucid dreams and I can do things in dreams without real world consequences until I stumble upon what will work. Then, when I wake up, instead of being angry, I'm resolved. I have a plan of action.

I don't dwell on things that stressed me out. I move forward. Yes, what stressed me and angered me shapes me, but it doesn't consume me or control me. I control it. I can be calm under stress because, having lived as long as I have, I know it will eventually end, and when it does, I have delightful things to do. My chocolate chip "pills" help relieve the stress hormones as I go along. Venting and then forgetting about it relieves immediate stress pressures. Sleep allows me to do lots of things I'd never really do to get to what I can do.

Bubble baths, meditation, yoga, talking about it, deep breathing, counting to 20, long walks in the country, jogging, punching a bag - none of those ever worked well for me. They might work for you. Or one of my methods might work better.