Stress Is Relative

If you are the least bit like me – you stress out on many things, the littlest things, and anything. As I noted in my October 18th posting prior to my marathon, I had nerves, I had a headache and I had trouble eating. Even the morning of the event I got into a “fight” with my husband (meaning I was irritated and crabbing at him) as he was driving me to the event because I wasn’t going to get there as early as I wanted to. He even said to me – “it’s only a run!” I KNEW that! I wasn’t running for anyone but me. I was stressed about the run, but my stress presented itself in irrational behavior toward him.

Five days after the marathon I was in a meeting in Chicago with about twenty other dietitians. We did an exercise/ice breaker where we stated our most stressful moment in the last five days. I mentioned my marathon – and while it was a personal accomplishment, it had been (one of the) more stressful moments of the past five days. I could have also mentioned trying to make sure I packed all my things for a cold weather five day trip into one suitcase so I wouldn’t be charged a $25 luggage fee by American Airlines, or hoping that my airplane didn’t get delayed since I needed to be at a meeting in downtown Chicago an hour after I landed, or any number of things that I chose to stress about that week, but the marathon was the biggest.

I was the first to go, but once others took their turn mentioning their stressful moment in the past five days, I realized how my stress is so…silly? One person, who owns her own business, was upset by having to lay-off one of her employees due to slower business in the current economy; another had her business partner in her successful community magazine leave her and she was completing what would be her last publication that weekend; a third woman whose husband serves in the special forces in the military, helped another wife bury her husband the days before we were sitting in the room. All this had happened in the five days prior to our meeting!

Two days later as I am speaking to my husband on the phone, he is quite upset over how our son left a crayon in his pants and it “ruined” a pair of his jeans and he had just spend half and hour cleaning the dryer. I almost laughed. “It’s a pair of pants,” I told him. A pair of pants and thirty minutes cleaning a dryer is nothing compared to still having a job, a companion, and a life. He got my point, but was still irritated.

I WILL still stress about “silly things,” I just cannot help it. Unfortunately, it is my personality type and I know it. However, I recognize, and we must all recognize, that most of the time (of course, not all) the stresses in our lives are brought upon ourselves. But most importantly, the way we respond to the stresses in our lives is very important to our health and wellness.

If we choose to blame others for the stresses, then we will be unhealthy and have repercussions of the stresses. If we choose to make changes, adapt, and/or accept the environment we are in, then we may be healthier for it.

Stress is relative. When my son’s car broke down, literally in the middle of the road – that was very stressful AT THAT MOMENT. It was soon over. A new stressor will present itself soon, and so will many others. I can choose to be upset by things, or do my best to take it in stride. I have several mantras for this:

• A year from now, will this matter? (Only once was that the case, and that was when my dog was missing. It turns out he was at the neighbor's house, so it ended up not being the case after all. Most of the time, a week from now, it won’t matter.)
• There is a reason for everything. There is a purpose for this. I just may not know what it is.
• This isn’t the worst that could happen.

Work on realizing what stressors are really YOU choosing to be stressed.