Stress

Did you know that April is Stress Awareness Month? I learned this yesterday at a networking meeting. In my opinion, everyone feels stress to varying degrees. I try to keep my stress to a minimum. It helps that I am a productivity coach and have studied productivity and time management for over 30 years. Planning out my goals and tasks and keeping all of this under control is how I keep stress to a minimum.

I didn't always do this. There were times in my 20s when I felt extremely overwhelmed and raided the cookie aisle of my local grocery store to deal with. Then came a diagnosis of Gastroenteritis. This is a chronic stomach condition of inflammation of the stomach that can lead to some symptoms better left unsaid. The two main causes of flare-ups are certain foods like fettuccine alfredo or fish and chips and stress. I gave up fettuccine alfredo after eating it on a family vacation (age 13) and hanging my head over the hotel bathtub. This left stress. I learned different techniques to manage my stress:

• ·      Brain Dump

• ·      Breathing exercises

• ·      Taking walks (especially in nature)

• ·      Baking (already a stress reliever for a long time)

 The point is there are ways to deal with stress that are productive and don't involve eating a whole package of Oreos. Handling our stress productively is good for our mental and emotional well-being. What started to keep my Gastroenteritis at bay has benefited my mental and emotional health. I'll take a brain dump any day over an entire package of Oreos. This in no way means that I don’t eat Oreos. I just eat 1-2 at a time.

(P.S. My dog, Marco, has it too. Go figure! And the flare-ups are caused by the same things. What stress does a dog have?)