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August, 2003
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Quick! De-Stress While There is Still Time!
August should be space for some serious down time - doing nothing at all. But I know that's not going to happen.Summer in these times has become just a short burp between the end of school, and figuring like mad how to squeeze a vacation in before kids report back to band camp, soccer practice, dance lessons, or move back into dorms.
I subscribe to an e-mail service called "Today's Stress Tip" taken from a book, Why Make Yourself Crazy? 100 Ways to Rid your Life of Needless Stress by G. Gaynor McTigue. (www.pickmeupbooks.com) Here are some tips that have helped me lately: 1. Do one thing at a time. We are experts, in today's society, at doing at least four or five different things at once-things that once would have taken one's total focus and energy. In the evening, I may be in the process of cooking supper, talking on the phone, instant-messaging one of my daughters on the computer, doing the laundry, and proofreading another daughter's paper-more or less at the same time.McTigue cautions, "Multitasking might work for computers, but humans have yet to get the hang of it. It leads to careless mistakes, shoddy work and unreliable performance." While you might want to argue with that, it probably depends on the job and what machinery is involved. His point is that when we are doing too many things at once, we lose the satisfaction of focusing on a job, giving it our total attention, and doing it well, and then finishing and moving on to the next thing. I do think that multitasking adds seriously to our level of stress these days. He emphasizes, "Enjoy the experience. Why make yourself crazy?" 2. Throw something out every day. McTigue says, "You've got too much stuff in your house. Office. Garage. Attic. Useless clutter that weighs you down, getting in the way, obscuring the things you really need. Be realistic. If you're not going to use it, lose it." Or give it away. Just getting rid of one thing a day should help to keep the clutter under control.3. Eliminate meaningless deadlines (one might add useless meetings). "Our life is full of deadlines. Arbitrary and unrealistic time constraints imposed by ourselves and others that serve only to make us more pressured, anxious, stressed out." He adds that we can save our stress energy for the truly immutable deadlines, like tax day, or Christmas.4. Don't be so self-conscious. "Most people aren't judging you. In fact, they're usually so wrapped up in the business at hand, or in their own image, they're barely noticing what you're wearing, how you're coming off, or that everything isn't just so." Lighten up on yourself.5. Just do it. This may seem like a contradiction to the above, but rather than procrastinate over something you have to do and stress out about it, just do it. Usually the time spent stewing and brewing is longer and more stressful than just tackling the job and getting it done. Or chop the job down to manageable, bite size portions. I had a neighbor who was great at making herself tackle huge yard chores just a half hour everyday and accomplishing a job over a week rather than a three-hour marathon session. That of course depends on the amount of equipment you have to haul out and put away to accomplish a specific job. But if a big job is looming (like cleaning out the garage or basement) make yourself straighten up for just a half hour a day and see how far you get in a week.August is often miserably hot. There is gardening and canning/freezing of vegetables to do, and the fall schedule is ramping up. But do take time to just be, hang out, read, sleep, relax, meditate, focus on God. This is easier for some of us than others. But we all benefit from taking a little time to do nothing at all.
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Contributed by Melodie Davis from her weekly columnANOTHER WAY (http://www.thirdway.com/aw/).For information on using Another Way in a local newspaper, contact:ANOTHER WAY, 1251 Virginia Ave., Harrisonburg, VA 22801-2497; or call1-800-999-3534; fax at 540-434-5556; or email me at:Melodie@mennomedia.org
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