Doing My Homework
Monday, June 21, 2021
Thinking about stress and stressors
This morning, I got a text from my FOUND coach asking me to “create a list of all the stress reducing activities you do or want to try on a daily basis.” I decided I would bring the list here for anyone following my journey.
At first blush this seems easy, but leave it to me to make it harder than it should be….
I began by thinking about my stressors. The problem is that this has long been, well, a problem for me. It’s hard for me to see the “normal” things of daily life as stressors, even though objectively they should be.
This is hard to explain. Many people would list work as a stress, or certain aspects of their work, but to me, it just isn’t. Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t stress over work ever or that it never causes strife, but just the fact that I have to get up and go to work or do work is just—normal. It’s so much routine that I don’t feel it as a stressor. That said, I realize that waking up unnaturally and having to get up on a schedule and get others up and get everyone where they need to be is a stressful thing. So, okay, yeah, we’ll call “morning routine” a stress point.
Except—wait a minute! I don’t have that right now. I’m in Summer Mode. I don’t have to be up at a certain time or be out of the house anywhere at a certain time. My kids who have to be up and out have their own alarm clocks and their own schedule control and their own rides, and I don’t have to be involved at all. So right now, for the next couple of months, anyway, I don’t have that morning routine stress to deal with. In truth, right now, I feel pretty chill overall.
So, what is stressing me out right now? Mostly, it’s larger, more nebulous things—and when I say “stressing me out,” I really mean more like lurking in the back of my brain somewhere. These are not things which keep me awake or which cause nail-biting or gnashing of teeth. I guess they’re mostly part of a “baseline” stress level I just sort of have all the time, so I don’t really notice them until I stop to think about them this way? I think… IDK…
Anyway, here’s the list of stressors either present or on the near horizon:
My middle daughter is moving out in August to go away to college. This brings in extra stress in the form of paying for it (there will have to be loans, and frankly, with my credit, I don’t know if I can qualify for them). Worst case scenario, we will just have to pay for it, out of pocket, on an installment plan. I don’t know how, but I absolutely, 100% cannot take this opportunity from her, no matter what.
My student debt is an insurmountable obstacle to advancement. I owe money from my last semester, plus the money to pay for my two semesters I need to complete my dissertation. In short, I have all the education of a doctor, but I have nothing to show for it. Because I owe them money, I can’t get a transcript to prove that I’ve done all the course work, and I can’t work on (or even really, allegedly, think about) my dissertation until I can pay them and be enrolled in dissertation hours. This also means that if I want to get a Principal/Superintendent certificate, none of the education I’ve already had toward that end would apply, and I’d have to pay full price for whatever program that was.
I am unhealthy and risking my life every day. After all, that’s what this blog and this journey is mostly about. But truthfully, that’s also what I’m working on. I am trying my damnedest every day to make better choices and to do the “right” thing in regard to food and family and making small changes in order to bring about big changes. And it’s going well so far! I feel better. I don’t know if I’ve lost anything more; I refuse to weigh except on my #WednesdayWeighIn now, so I don’t really know. But I have more energy, and every time I am about to eat something, I think about it’s effects and whether I’m really hungry, so I think I’m on the right path, there.
So, there you have it. Now, I know this list will expand when I’m back to going to work physically every day. And yes, current student issues for my online class do add to my stress—mostly stemming from how impossible it seems for students to follow simple instructions that are clearly laid out and repeated in multiple places, but students will be students, after all….
Now then, that leads me to stress reducers and what Coach Iman wanted to know. What stress-reducing activities do I want to try? Well, I have a few go-tos already of things I do when I need to check out for a bit, and I have a few that I think would work if I tried them.
Let’s take a look:
Music. I love music. I love to listen to music and to create music. I am fascinated by and in awe of music. Some of my favorite genres are ska/punk and alternative. I also enjoy some lo-fi chill-step kind of stuff when I’m writing or studying or just trying to have some noise in the background that doesn’t require much thought. (I have a playlist for those times, which you can find HERE.) I also like to sing, and have a karaoke playlist, too. I have a playlist of songs I love to get lost in—things with incredible, complex lyrics or things which hold deep-seated meanings to me personally. Lyrics are poetry and sometimes I get lost there just as much as I do in the melodies. I’ve een thought about keeping a list somewhere of lines from songs that are just deep or profound, lines that get lost in a pop melody or in a silly turn of phrase that don’t get enough credit for what they’re saying. Perhaps this is something I will work on to help me de-stress….
Sleep. I know, I know. This is a fact of life and should not probably be a stress reliever. But, honestly, there’s something to be said of that 15-20 minute nap that refreshes and restores you. Just being able to confidently say, “I need a little catnap,” is something I’ve had to work on a lot (back to that not taking time for myself bit), but I have learned to assert myself in that regard when I need to. Those little naps are like hitting the reset button on your day. I count them as incredibly valuable.
Bath. This is one I love but don’t love all at the same time. We are fortunate enough to have a GIANT bathtub in our house. I love to climb into steaming water and just sit and chill out for a while. Throw in some Epsom salts to ease aching muscles, and it’s a recipe for stress relief. However, it seems to cause an undue amount of stress to start it off. Because it takes a lot of water and time, we don’t use the big bathtub often, instead opting for a quick shower 98% of the time. This means that when I do decide to take a bath, I have to start by cleaning out the tub. Even if it’s just to wipe out a few days’ worth of dust, there must always be some cleaning before hand. Then, because it takes so much water, I need to be sure that when I’m ready for the bath, no one has been doing laundry for a while so that there is enough hot water. And of course, the time factor comes into play. It’s less prominent now in the summer when I’m off work, but carving out the hour to hour and a half the activity deserves can be a bit of a problem.
Dance. This is one I haven’t done much, but want to do more of. I like to move to that aforementioned music, but I’m embarrassed to do it in front of people. For now, my “dancing” (I’m not even really sure it qualifies) is mostly relegated to in the shower or when no one else is home. I know it would be really good for multiple of my goals to just stop finding excuses and to get up and just move, so I’m resolving to do just that. When I feel like dancing, I will dance.
Nature. I haven’t done this one in the past, but I feel I need more OUTSIDE in my life. I’m not an outdoorsy person, and I don’t really like nature that much. With the exception of a walk along a windy beach in cool weather, I generally have not chosen the out-of-doors for myself for, well, anything. However, I have noted that when I open my window and look outside, I feel a bit more connected and grounded to the world around me. When I go out in the sunshine and let the light surround me (and I make myself ignore the sticky, sweaty aspects of it), I feel more… more… I don’t know, just more. I know that sunlight and Vitamin D are good for me. I know that being outside helps make me healthier in many ways. I’m not saying I’m going to start taking 5-mile runs in the Houston heat, but I will step outside of my house and let the exterior wash over me. That, I think, will be a good starting point. Maybe later, further into my journey, I can change that up to include some actual activity outside, but for now, just getting out there is going to help.
So, I guess those are a few things I can do to de-stress. I used to include snacking in that list—seeking out my favorite comfort foods like ice cream or Chicken Alfredo because those things, to me, were a way to escape whatever was bothering me. But I also know that I can’t use food as a “reward” or “escape” when food is what is keeping me in that unhealthy state. And, frankly, I cannot tell you the last time I was even a bit hungry. I’ve had to do a lot of changing my mindset around food and how and when and what I eat, but I think that is going rather well. However, that is off-topic here, so I’ll save that for when we talk about “mindful eating,” another goal Coach Iman has for me in the coming weeks.
For now, I will focus on identifying stress and choosing a coping method from my list to overcome (or at least, lessen) it.