Do you have a stress story to tell?

best not to do stress. i listened to dr sanjay gupta on CNN this morning. he spoke about how to live a long and happy, healthy life.
# 1) avoid stress, stress releases nasty chemicals into your body and shortens your life,
# 2)be strong but flexible,
# 3)nothing wrong with a bit of exercise as long as you enjoy it and it doesn't stress your body - stressful exercise is bad for you,
# 4)have a happy outlook on life,

and a few more points that i don't remember (they were the kind i don't agree with, the would cause me stress ... which i must avoid - smiles !).

i was in the workforce for 40 years plus, if there was anything causing great stress i looked for another job ... it worked for me and i'd highly recommend it to others. hbg

I don't believe in stress. Stress is essentially non-existent unless you allow it to become. If you allow stress to become and then become a part of your existence then the stress is not really there except in your own imagination therefore it is shown that stress does not exist unless we wish to have it. In other words if you want to get rid of any alleged stress then will it away. Make clear to yourself that there is no stress and it will soon be true because you will have cleansed your mind of self-obsession which is really all stress ever was. An obsession with ones self not being what one perceives the world wants from them which is absurd since the world can never be completely happy as long as people want to be what someone else wants them to be so you must learn to be happy with yourself as you are and then the imaginary stress demons shall leave you.

thanks for your insights sturgis and hamburger. please visit the forum do u know ur brain is getting better with age

dinsa : advice is easy to give ... doesn't cause me any stress . hbg

hi stress job
Trucking. I used to be relatively intelligent. Stress has turned my brain into mush. I used to be able to add up a string of numbers as on a waitress ticket book, add the tax and count the change - in my head. This was before calculators (okay so I'm dating myself).

With trucking, there is NO personal time for relaxation. No time for taking care of a personal phone call (unless you do it while driving, use a headset, and have all your numbers on speed-dial). NO time for exercise, no time for interesting dialogue (and who can you have an interesting dialogue with on the CB radio? Other truckers? God, no.. they're ogling the ladies again and talking about their wardrobes or lack of apparel), no time for education.... Oh, and no time for proper meals. Is it any surprise that truckers have a disproportionate number of heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, overweight, circulatory problems, like maybe deep vein thrombosis?

The DOT just released the new "rules" that we have to live by. We are "allowed" (read that required) to drive up to 11 hours in a 24 hour period. We can have one break of 2 hours, and the other break HAS to be 8 in the sleeper. That all sounds fine on paper. The reality is this. If you spend a couple of hours getting TO a shipper, and he takes 2 or 3 hours to load the trailer, there goes your break. This means that now, even if you are a bit fatigued by waiting those hours at the shipper, you cannot take another break for the remainder of the allotted time. Oh, and we can WORK up to 14 hours a day. Isn't that sweet of them? Ya know who was behind all this? PATT, Parents Against Tired Truckers.

We HAVE no agency defending our workplace rights. We have NO RIGHTS. We are NOT covered under the Fair Labor Standards Act. And I can't tell you how many ways corrupt, greedy companies find to take advantage of that fact. I personally have been a student of the school of hard knocks more than once because of this.

Shall I mention that we who are not at the prime age of 23, for whom these new rules were constructed, and not male, have even a harder time with the new rules? Sleep patterns change with age. Hormonal changes in women at the time of menopause wreaks havoc on her sleep patterns.

And I haven't even gotten to the everyday stress of dealing with all of you bad 4-wheeler drivers. You who cut in front of an 80,000 lb vehicle with mere inches to spare just to make that next exit.... Or squeeze into what WAS my following distance, and now I hope I can stop before I run you over..... Or you who enter the freeway expecting the BIG TRUCK to move out of your way? Or worse, you're not even paying attention to the fact that you're about to run up under my trailer...! Or you cut into my space just as I'm trying to make a right turn, and almost get crushed.....

Oh, people... Please. Life is too precious to drive that way. And look, you've got your kids in the car with you! Please be more careful. I've got a family too.

But I'm going to sleep. I'm stressed. I live stressed. I'll probably die from it.

I was at work one day. It was a sunny morning, but that did not help the stress I was about to endure that afternoon.

I ordered a turkey sub, with tomatoes, lettuce, onion, and no mayo.

It came with mayo. I was so angry I said "gosh darn it!" almost above whispering level. I was ashamed someone may have heard me.

I then wiped the mayo off best I could with a napkin, placed the bread back in it's proper place, and ate the sandwich.

It was good.

I used to mention to a fellow coworker that the day had been stressful and he kept reminding me that unless it was life threatening then was nothing - then he would remind me of being shot at in VNAM.

Once, while working high-rise steel construction, an explosion sent a three foot metal rod through my head. It entered my forehead and exited my shoulder. As they were taking me to the hospital a thought occurred to me. "Did I leave the coffee maker on when I left the house this morning?"

Until I finally got home and discovered that the coffee maker was indeed off, I was filled with stress. Just filled with it.

whew, I know about the coffee maker thing. It can turn an otherwise uneventful day into torture.