Navigating Catholic Life - Part 6: Stress and More Stress - Dealing with the Demands of 21st Century Life

JMJ

Intro

Stress is a normal part of life.

If the 7 point buck you've been stalking during bow-hunting season suddenly turns on you, throws you in the air and punctures your legs with the tines of its antlers - you will be stressed.

If someone cuts you off in traffic and acts aggressively (esp in the USA), you will be stressed, during and for some time after the event.

If you have great responsibility and have to work long hours to succeed which conflicts with your duty of state, you will be stressed.

Stress:A feeling of emotional strain and pressure.[1] Stress is a type of psychological pain. (Source: Wikipedia)

My point is that stress has always been present in one form or another. The key difference being that the stressors (Link to Wiki definition) have, in the more developed regions of the world, changed and proliferated.

Step1 - Recognize when you are under significant stress for a sustained period of time

The first step is to recognize when you're stressed. For me, I've noticed that my trigger goes from a 10lb pull to around 1oz. Meaning little things take on a scale disproportionate to their actual impact. Poor sleep is a problem for me that causes some other issue (more later).

If you get pulled from one topic to another as much as 3 to 4 times per hour, you probably think you're an awesome multi-tasker, but you're probably stressed. Oh and humans multi-tasking on cognitively difficult tasks isn't possible. Numerous plane crashes have proved it. This is called context switching and for difficult tasks the previous task will hang-around for a while (I read 10 minutes someplace) so for a while you'll be carrying both cog loads. If you switch tasks before the previous task has been unloaded, then you'll be carrying three and so on, becoming less and less effective.

I've been journaling my work days for years and have usable records back to 2017. In the middle of the Pandemic when I had two jobs, I was exhausted after one particularly grueling day. I took at look at my log and realised that I had switched between 15 tasks 30 times in one day. On average that would be about 15 minutes between switches and I knew that I hadn't been that effective. So I wrote added a feature to my e-journal to help me keep track of my load meter. A key point is that my work includes a lot of tasks that require a high degree of concentration. To the point that sometimes I will set aside time to single-task to make headway on a specific task. For the curious, my load meter tracks two factors: How many times do I switch between tasks and how many different tasks do I work on per hour. If you want the formula leave a comment and I'll open the code to see what I did.

Some other signs that I found at mind.org.uk (link) include:

Irritable, angry, impatient or wound up
Over-burdened or overwhelmed
Anxious, nervous or afraid
Like your thoughts are racing and you can't switch off
Unable to enjoy yourself
Depressed
Uninterested in life
Like you've lost your sense of humour
A sense of dread
Worried or tense
Neglected or lonely
Existing mental health problems getting worse

Other symptoms can be found in the references below.

Step 2 - Take action to reduce or manage your stress levels

The first is get a grip on the stressors and you may want to ask someone to help you make a list.

My wife asked me to do some work working for her. As I finished the piece, I suddenly felt a weight of stress settle on my like a lead blanket. I walked in and mentioned it to my wife, who calmly looked at me and said "I'm not surprised, if I was doing all you're doing, I'd on the floor in a fetal position.". She then proceeded to tick off on her fingers what I was involved in: Work, family members, choir, volunteering ...", she stopped at 10 things, saying, "I'm sure there's more but you get the gist". The biggest revelation was that I thought I had only four things (this is now my target). I had a blindspot.

Some of those were things that I couldn't exit, being family obligations, but others were voluntary. I managed to reduce some of them, and noted that my volunteer activity would end soon enough.

So - lesson one: make a list and check what activities you can terminate.

The second step is to be pro-active about managing your stress.

I've had some very stressful jobs, visited emergency rooms and been electro cardioverted. So I'm going to share what works in my case, which may not work in your case.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cardioversion.svg

Exercise was the best. During a particularly stressful or as I like to say "intense" project I was biking a hour a day to and from work. My stress should have been a factor, it wasn't, my allergies should have been a factor - they weren't. Exercise is great. I can't bike to work now, but I still try to exercise when I can. In fact when covid was looming, we setup a little workout spot in our storage room (exercise bike, speed bag, heavy bag, rowing machine, and space for leg lifts, situps and pushups.

Find time to take a break.

For the last couple of summers the extra recreation was boating. This year (with the boat launch under water and gas prices) it was golf. In addition, take vacation. One time I was able to take 6 weeks of vacation. At week five, i remember the stress stiffness uncoiling. By the end of week 6 I was ready to go back to work, whereas a couple weeks earlier I was dreading it.

Disconnect from work. I have creative hobbies such as this blog and creative writing. Get a hobby that allows you to disconnect and make progress on something.

I'm also trying to get out and have a quiet time for morning prayers and spiritual reading. This helps on the spiritual side!

Learn to say no.

About six months into the pandemic I was offered a seat on a board. I regretfully declined stating that I was fully booked with two jobs - one being corp risk the other being pandemic program manager. I was tapped out and for once, I didn't feel guilty saying no. When your shoulders are already over burdened, don't add that last straw.

Finally, if it persists, talk to your doctor. I ended up in the hospital, so the discussion was had under less that ideal conditions. So I would initiate the conversation when you're able to walk into the doctor's office and not from an ER bed.