Stress and Recess

When I was in undergraduate school studying communication and social-psychology I had the opportunity to study stress and its response using a bio-feedback machine. That was nearly thirty years ago. By today's standards our research was very primitive, however that early research helped us to understand stress and its ramifications on the body-mind.

Stress was viewed merely as a response to a stimuli. The response was usually in the form of flight or fight. Today we look at stress through a multi-dimensional view, which includes physical, emotional, environmental, and spiritual realms. This means, to some degree, stress affects all of us. Stress researcher, Dr. Kevin Pellitier has reported that 80 to 90 percent of illness is related to stress. That means that nearly 100 million Americans suffer from stress related illness.

In the seventies and early eighties (my research days), stress was just beginning to be treated with such healthy choices as exercise, diet, and relaxation. The eighties and nineties brought the "yuppie" era with the push and the drive to achieve, make money, and consume. This stress led to what became known as the "yuppie" disease or "burn out."

Now stress is again a focus as we all struggle with the realities of a deep recession. To recess means to recede or pull back either by choice or by force. For many people it is by force. Lucky are those who are pulling back by choice. Either way we are all feeling the stress of tough and turbulent times.

People generally experience the greatest sense of stress when they feel a loss of control. We all want to know and feel a sense of security and stability when, in fact, life has taught us over and over again that the only real security and stability is what you build and hold true within yourself.

If most of you are like me you have lived long enough to have been through a couple of recessions. Some how we all pull through and somehow we all come out better on the other side. It is a matter of perspective for in life with every door that closes another opens. Opportunity is always and always will be all around us. It is the person who rises above the stress that sees the silver lining in the otherwise dark cloud.

Today is my daughter-in-law's birthday. I just learned that her work has cut her back to a four day week which cuts her pay by over 15 percent. My children are a young couple with a four year old son. The financial hardship will be a sacrifice, but she is happy because she still has her job. She now is home on Monday and can spend the day with my grandson enjoying some quality time before he turns five and goes off to school.  She sees the silver lining in an otherwise dark cloud.

I told her about something someone said to me once about children. You can always find a way to make money and there will always be time for work, but your children will never be this age again and in the end it is the quality and not the quantity that counts.

So if you are struggling with stress and feeling the angst of the recession, find the silver lining in your cloud and focus on it. Life has a funny way of turning out exactly as you perceive it.

Doctor Lynn
www.doctorlynn.com