Lina works as a press officer in a large publishing house, and sometimes it seems to her that the telephone receiver has literally grown to her ear. The authors are offended by the lack of attention to them, the journalists are angry that they didn’t get to the presentation, and the intern left without making photocopies of the urgent press release…
Alas, as it turns out, such a bulimic way of dealing with stress — to accumulate fatigue and tension to the last limit, and then give up everything for a few days — is ineffective. And worse than that, it’s dangerous. It turns out that it is this chronic accumulation of stress and anxiety that harms our body, it lowers mood, clogs arteries, increases blood pressure, eats our nerve cells. It impairs concentration and memory, because of it we gain excess weight, and wrinkles appear on the face *. It weakens the immune defense, and we become more vulnerable not only to colds, but, no doubt, cancer. It turns out that everything is decided not by how we relax, but by how we usually spend our days …
Perhaps this is the best way to deal with stress: dive headlong into the business … and then easily get out of it.
Here Anna copes with stress differently. She is a nurse and is also needed by many at the same time and, of course, always immediately. However, the smile never left her face. It’s as if she manages to plunge into stress for a few minutes when necessary, and then emerge from it “without getting dirty”. Recent studies have shown that people with this type of reaction quickly restore their emotional and physiological balance**. They have a variety of techniques that allow you to first immerse yourself in some business, and then easily get out of it. These people are more «flexible», they are like a reed from a fable that bends but never breaks ***.
So, to get rid of stress, you should not wait for a vacation — it is better to take action immediately. Let’s learn the natural reactions of «flexible» people: they quickly notice that they are starting to tense up, and immediately debug their internal systems. As in a yoga exercise: breathing is slow and deep, the shoulders are relaxed, the neck is straightened; attention is focused on the ease with which the air moves in the chest.
Another way to restore inner harmony is to remember something pleasant. This is exactly what weekends and vacation days are probably for: memories of the happy moments that we live in them will help us recover later, when the rest is over.
* B. McEwen, E. Lasley «The End of Stress as We Know it». Joseph Henry Press/Dana Press, 2002.
** L. Katz, J. Gottman «Buffering children from marital conflict and dissolution». Journal of Clinical Child Psychology. 1997, vol. 26.
*** J. de La Fontaine «Oak and Reed». Fables. Ripol classic, 2004.