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Living with Stress
- By Admin Manager
- Published 07/24/2007
- Self Management & Care
- Unrated
Just in case you missed it, the above heading is intended as irony. Humans arrive in this world, with fairly standard "equipment". We all make the best of it that we can. Certainly, our backgrounds and opportunities in life have a major bearing on how we perceive and respond. Every individual has capacity to manage a degree of stress successfully, and most of us would have plenty of scope for improvement in this area.
However, we are not buildings, or aircraft, or hydro-electric dams. No engineer can weld on a couple of extra braces, pour in a little more concrete, or design in a crumple zone to shore up our defences. This is where the concept of stress, as derived from the industrial/construction contexts is fundamentally flawed. As humans approach the limit of their capacity to cope, it is the stress that must be modified, as much as the subject on which the stress is acting.
Modifying stressors is a tangled task, as we collectively create them at a societal level. For example, most of us no longer work to live. We work to “consume” at well above the subsistence level. Societal expectations about standards of living drive our consumption (also known in more historic terms as greed!). We work harder to reach the standard. The bar however, is continually raised, driving us through a cycle of expectation,
effort and attainment until we are worn out with the effort.
Ironically, improved standards of health also bring stressors. As we approach our middle years there are a barrage of tests, medications, preventative treatments and secondary health services that we struggle to fit within our schedule. Paradoxically, we often suffer from long term eating, sleeping and other disorders as we frantically try to stall the aging process and squeeze more into our days..
It seems to me that many of the common stressors within society have a basis in denial, or ill-conceived optimism. (i.e. - “I can afford that 2 storey, 5 bedroom house in Suburb X”, when the 3 bedroom in Suburb Y is sufficient for our needs; or denial of aging and mortality). Denial sets us up for sustained and significant stress over the long-haul.
Conversely, there are some areas of life from which we should expect more and invest the corresponding effort. For example, it is common wisdom (and with good reason) that relationships should be an important focus in life. Whether with friends or family, relationships are fundamental to our sense of identity. They are also the aspect of life most compromised by a consumer lifestyle.
Quite apart from self-inflicted stress (albeit with the complicity of a consumerist society), there are many other unforeseeable potential factors that may lie ahead. How wise would it be to keep our own burdens light in preparation for the unavoidable?
However, we are not buildings, or aircraft, or hydro-electric dams. No engineer can weld on a couple of extra braces, pour in a little more concrete, or design in a crumple zone to shore up our defences. This is where the concept of stress, as derived from the industrial/construction contexts is fundamentally flawed. As humans approach the limit of their capacity to cope, it is the stress that must be modified, as much as the subject on which the stress is acting.
Modifying stressors is a tangled task, as we collectively create them at a societal level. For example, most of us no longer work to live. We work to “consume” at well above the subsistence level. Societal expectations about standards of living drive our consumption (also known in more historic terms as greed!). We work harder to reach the standard. The bar however, is continually raised, driving us through a cycle of expectation,
Ironically, improved standards of health also bring stressors. As we approach our middle years there are a barrage of tests, medications, preventative treatments and secondary health services that we struggle to fit within our schedule. Paradoxically, we often suffer from long term eating, sleeping and other disorders as we frantically try to stall the aging process and squeeze more into our days..
It seems to me that many of the common stressors within society have a basis in denial, or ill-conceived optimism. (i.e. - “I can afford that 2 storey, 5 bedroom house in Suburb X”, when the 3 bedroom in Suburb Y is sufficient for our needs; or denial of aging and mortality). Denial sets us up for sustained and significant stress over the long-haul.
Conversely, there are some areas of life from which we should expect more and invest the corresponding effort. For example, it is common wisdom (and with good reason) that relationships should be an important focus in life. Whether with friends or family, relationships are fundamental to our sense of identity. They are also the aspect of life most compromised by a consumer lifestyle.
Quite apart from self-inflicted stress (albeit with the complicity of a consumerist society), there are many other unforeseeable potential factors that may lie ahead. How wise would it be to keep our own burdens light in preparation for the unavoidable?