Are you tripping on uneven pavement and bumping into furniture more frequently? Are stairs your enemy? Have you become a menace in the produce section of your local supermarket? What about cooking – more cuts and burns? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, consider the probability that stress is causing you to go about activities of daily living with a loose mind . You are not focused on the present moment, but instead think about the future, what’s next on the to-do list or dwell on an upset.
Don’t be fooled! The stress response will make you feel hyper-vigilant. Ironically, this gives you a false sense of control, for in reality you are out of your mind with that surge of adrenalin. Be aware that you are most likely to send that email you will later regret, bump into a glass sliding door, or worse commit an act of road rage. Road rage can happen even in your living room as you unleash your anger on the unlucky person in your path.
In my book, Addicted to Stress , I document the case of the morning rush: a single mother who was upset that her two elementary school-aged daughters were running late for school which was making her late for work too. She was screaming at them to hurry up, when she walked smack into a metal door and broke her nose. After emergency surgery and a few days off from work, she confided that breaking her nose wasn’t so bad because it gave her a small block of time to allot for herself.
Don’t wait to be sick and tired to allow yourself some relaxation. The goal in stress management is to feel reasonably happy by maintaining a healthy balance between work and relaxation , like your heart muscle which relaxes between beats. Follow your heart and schedule a daily power hour. While your head can be pointed to the expansive sky looking for ways to give wings to your dreams , your eyes have to quickly survey the earth to stay grounded. When you single task, complete and move on to the next, you feel alive and alert. Stress will always land on your doorstep, but you don’t have to constantly open the door.
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