How Stressed Out Are You? And What Do You Do to Chill Out?
Sorry, gingers! We have bad news. According to this new rundown of stress research, redheads have higher levels of anxiety than people with other hair colors. How’s that for a fun fact? Of course it’s not quite so straightforward. Natural redheads, it turns out, may have lower thresholds for some kinds of pain, which could explain the elevated stress. Other factors that seem to correlate with higher stress are being married (?!), being overweight, being unemployed, being a baby in a forward-facing stroller, being a Chinese businessman, being a firefighter and…being a woman.
Sigh. Those of you who have read the book know that we talk a bunch about stress and the lifestyle factors that mitigate it—and exacerbate it. Stress, it’s true, is unavoidable for a lot of us. There are also some interesting upsides to anxiety. It’s all about keeping it in balance.
As we say in the book “Your outlook is your look”—bit corny, sure, but we think these are words to live by. No moisturizer or blush can do for you what happiness, sleep, exercise and—perhaps most important—relaxation can.
So we want to know: How stressed out are you? And how do you keep it in check?
I’ll go first: I totally get stressed out. To try to counter it, I practice yoga, I do some version of prayer-meditation every night before bed, I spend time with people I love, and I try to get as many really good hugs as a I can. Your turn.
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When I get stressed, I get blinding migraines several times a month. So I am (slowly) learning to take this de-stressing business pretty darn seriously. The holy triumvirate that seems to (mostly) keep migraines at bay are yoga, hiking, and plenty of sleep. I am highly aware that the weeks where those things happen consistently are much more fun that the weeks where they don’t!
But I would also put spending time with loved ones at the top of the list. If my husband and I don’t spend at least one night of the weekend just sitting around (talking, watching TV with the cats, drinking wine, whatever), we are both super off kilter — so I question mark that study finding about marriage as a stressor, though I suppose it’s sadly true for plenty of people!
Oh, plus, my best friend and I exchange epically long emails (now that we live in different cities) and my mom and I have epically long phone conversations, and basically, at that point, I am ready to conquer the world.
B vitamin supplements at the first sign of a freak out.
And down grading the sugar consumption before I menstruate.
*nods*
oh and meditation, not taking life too seriously, being easy going, forgiving quickly, and intentionally practicing patience.
B vitamins are good, as is yoga, but so is living out my paranoia and anxiety.
I have a new baby and we are trying to be reasonable parents. We both agree that the information we receive daily is contradictory, fear mongering, and unlikely. Yet I get those days when I’m fine with product x. No, it’s bad because it may possibly cause a rare condition blah blah blah. So I spend my free time researching as much about the pros and cons, who’s saying what and what their agendas are, and I generally come back to the reasonable outcome that I started with instead of allowing the craziness to sit unanswered in my head. It’s done and digested and I’m unlikely to be worried about that particular thing again.
I have to focus now too. Pre-marriage and pregnancy, I could worry and fuss endlessly–it was only about me. Now I have the luxury of not being able to dilly dally. :)
Ah, so my redhair must explain the failure of my moom sugaring experiment the other day. I think I will take the yoga advice and take a class tomorrow because Retail+Holidays+Moving in a month=STRESSZILLA!
Thanks for bring this up :)
Journaling! While it makes me feel like I’m thirteen again, writing things out helps me put things in perspective, and most likely, realize I’m being ridiculous. Or it tells me when I need to talk things out with someone to gain some fresh insight.
I work on recognizing the signs of anxiety or stress before I’m in full blown stress mode, (I stress the work on part, no one is perfect). The self-talk helps by pulling yourself back from catastrophic thinking, black and white thinking, etc. I think working out regularly, attempting to get enough sleep, laughter and taking time to enjoy life really help. I feel I’m much better off emotionally/stress-wise than I was 5 or 10 years ago.
Essentially, managing stress is effortful, not effortless.
Bri, I completely agree-writing everything down makes it all seem so silly, and if it’s not silly, it helps to get it down on paper and try to let it go. I have a tendency to look at the big big picture too much and get very anxious for no good reason. As a student, I get stressed out with whatever the semester is doing. So I tell myself to only worry about what’s immediately in front of me. I also drink tea, keep hydrated, and have enrolled (for credit) in a yoga class as extra motivation otherwise I’ll get an F on my transcript. Breathing also helps-duh. But really, deep yoga breaths that aren’t shallow and actually help me relax.
I play with my two little pooches. It’s impossible not to look at them interact and giggle. I also walk and walk and walk when I’m really stressed. Since walking is something that’s repetitive and doesn’t usually require a lot of thought (unless I’m bustling down 5th avenue or Times Square), I get the chance to think about what happened and re-evaluate my actions.