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Chapter 3

Stressed-Out

“When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.”

— Benjamin Franklin, American statesman

Busy, Busy, Busy

Neglecting basic habits of self-care, like getting adequate sleep and nutrition, makes us vulnerable to stress and its potentially damaging effects, which can trap us in a cycle that’s difficult to break out of.

It doesn’t help that today’s society celebrates being busy. We equate having a packed schedule and getting little sleep with being important. A common reply to the greeting “How are you?” is, “Busy; so busy.” (I’ve definitely caught myself saying this more than a few times.) While it may be true that your calendar is booked, being “so busy” really means: “I am so busy because I am important and my time and talents are in demand. You should be appropriately impressed.” Society tells us the busier you are, the more important you must be.

In an opinion piece for The New York Times, “The ‘Busy’ Trap,” Tim Kreider observed: “Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.”

Many of us overbook our schedules in order to feel important, worthy, and needed, but it comes at a cost. We may feel important, but we also feel stressed, overwhelmed, sleepy, drained, irritable, even sad. Is being negatively affected physically and emotionally because of our busyness really worth it? Do we value feeling important and needed more than our physical and emotional health?

Being busy in the quest to be important perpetuates a cycle of negativity that is difficult to get out of and increases our risk for stress. Stress is such a common occurrence that the American Psychological Association (APA) conducts a survey on the effects of stress on Americans every year. In the 2014 APA survey, 42 percent of adults said they did not believe they were doing enough to manage the effects of stress in their lives. The study also found that the most common effects of stress included feeling irritable or angry, feeling nervous or anxious, having a lack of interest or motivation, fatigue, feeling overwhelmed, and being depressed or sad. So, if several of the symptoms described above have a starring role in your life, you’re not alone. Stress is a nationwide issue.

The effects of stress include:

• trouble falling asleep or staying asleep

• muscle tension

• digestive issues

• weak immune system

• difficulty concentrating during the day

• increased irritability

• headaches

• forgetfulness

• social isolation

The Slippery Slope

The effects of stress, whether related to work, relationships, or health, have a way of sneaking up on us. For example, if it’s the busy season at the office and you’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed, you might start to have trouble falling asleep at night because your mind is racing, thinking about everything you have to do tomorrow, and your body is keyed up and tense from being on the run all day. You just can’t relax. And if you are going to bed later than normal and having trouble falling asleep, you aren’t getting quality sleep. When you aren’t getting enough sleep, you won’t be as alert the next day. The effects are compounded over time, and those occasional sleepless nights become the norm until, eventually, you’re chronically sleep deprived. It’s a slippery slope.

When left unchecked, stress can become burnout (chronic stress). Typical symptoms of burnout include consistently experiencing exhaustion, difficulty concentrating, irritability, difficulty sleeping, low motivation, lack of interest in activities that you previously enjoyed and found meaning in, and feeling like you are in a mental fog. Living with burnout is like running on fumes when your gas tank is empty, and it can be difficult to recover from. That’s why it’s critical to manage the effects of stress in its early stages so that you aren’t faced with a long-term recovery from burnout.

Let’s say you’ve been under stress lately, and you are starting to notice some of the effects of stress in your life. What does this mean? It is often a sign that you aren’t making yourself and your health a priority. That’s when you have to ask yourself the probing question: Why aren’t you treating yourself like a priority? True, it can be an uncomfortable question to ask, but it’s crucial.

Too often we settle for living in misery without reflecting on what’s causing it and without challenging it. A busy student assumes that skimping on sleep is a normal part of being in school and lets her schoolwork take precedence over her health. A young professional tells himself that he’s too busy to cook and regularly orders greasy takeout, prioritizing his work over his health. A new parent begins to believe that day-to-day life with a newborn is meant to be perpetually overwhelming, exhausting, and isolating. When we live our lives by these beliefs, we chip away at the buffer that protects us from everyday stress, making us more and more susceptible to its effects.

To make matters worse, exhaustion, difficulty concentrating, headaches, and other effects of stress make us more likely to react badly to the curveballs life throws us. Work deadlines, car trouble, or relationship struggles become more difficult to deal with, leaving us feeling drained and rundown. We lose our resilience and our ability to bounce back when we’re battling the crippling effects of stress.

It’s important to listen to what your body tells you so you can recognize the effects of stress. These signs are often the first clue that you aren’t taking care of yourself adequately. Being able to recognize these symptoms in their early stages allows you to make the necessary changes to take care of yourself and prevent the effects of stress from taking over your life. (Stay tuned, we’ll cover how to do this step by step in Part II of this book.)

Blurred Boundaries