"Stress"

Like many of the essential things in life: we need a certain amount of stress to survive, yet too much can kill us. Take water, for instance. Humor beings, as I like to think of us (rather than human beings), die if we are without water for more than a few days. Submerge us in water and we die a lot sooner.

However, what you normally call "good stress," I'll call temporary motivation. Getting out of the way of a speeding car, when you hear its horn blast at you, is an example of this type of motivation. Other than instances like this, stress is not good for in any way, shape, or form.

Stress Relieves Boredom

It is said that we can die from boredom. I don’t think there is any scientific evidence for that theory, but one thing is certain: stress relieves boredom. Ending boredom, indeed, could be considered a form of stress relief.

Without stress, also, we might not eat. Hunger is a form of stress our body needs occasionally to remind us we need food. Stress causes the adrenal glands to work. Athletes would not perform at their best without stress-induced adrenalin. Every activity causes a certain amount of stress. So does inactivity. In fact, to be completely stress-free we would have to be dead – not a highly recommended stress-relieving technique.

Too Much Stress Is The Killer

In short, the idea that stress is a killer is exaggerated. Too much stress can be a killer, and it is against too much stress in our lives that we need to guard. Fortunately, as humor beings, we are equipped with the finest possible stress relief mechanism: our ability to have and create fun. Far better and safer than Valium, it is our built-in stress management system. The Fun Factor, my unique prescription, is a simple and easy stress management technique to use, but it needs practice. Fun, like any other humor-being trait, goes rusty with lack of use. Interestingly, it seems only to relieve bad stress, the destructive kind, while leaving positive stress unaffected.

An athlete, for instance, can have fun running the mile or the marathon and still turn in peak performance. In fact, it may be that fun even enhances performance. Too much seriousness can tighten muscles through negative tension. Notice, I speak of seriousness, not commitment and effort.

Five Tips For Reducing Bad Stress

1. Start your day off in the shower singing at the top of your voice a nonsense song you make up that incorporates the idea that this is a glorious day and great things are going to happen to you in it. Can’t sing? Good! Can’t rhyme? Who cares? The words are for you alone. This is not a contest. Be as off-key as you need to be…unless you are Placido Domingo.

   The important thing is to be loud (your inner ear has to hear it), upbeat and convincing as you can be. Our subconscious believes what it is told. Start your day by telling it that it will be a great day and you will be halfway to producing exactly that result. Think of your singing not as singing but as a stress relief game played before stress has a chance to rear its ugly head.

2. Travel to work alone along the same boring route every day? Make up a game to play as you look out the window of your car, bus or train. For example, how many dogs will you see on the way to work?

   Try to guess before you set out and see how close you are when you arrive. Reward yourself every time you guess correctly to within a certain number. Drivers: limit yourself to dogs (or green elephants) you see through the windshield only. This game does not work well in subways; there are no green elephants in subways.

3. Have a routine job? One that you find boring? Does it give you stress symptoms, such as drumming your fingers or tapping your toes? Perhaps you need to introduce fun into your workday.

   For example, if your job is to make identical widgets each day, how could you do something different to give variety to what otherwise could become a monotonous task? Could you, for example, place each new widget relative to the others so that together they make a pattern, or spell the name of your sweetheart? How many do you make an hour? Could you make one more than that the next hour, safely and with the same excellent quality? Make a stress-relieving game out of your work and it will feel less like work and more like fun.

4. Smile. You feel stressed? Smile. It is a simple activity, so simple that even infants can do it. Just for kicks, count how many times you smile in an hour. None, you say? Then this stress relief game is even easier for you, and more important than it is for those who smile all the time. (And you wondered how they didn’t feel the same degree of stress that you do?)

   Your smile doesn’t need to be a broad grin that suggests to those around you that they need to call the men in white coats. But it should be more than a mental smirk; your facial muscles should be aware that they are smiling.

   It is possible simply to paste a smile on your face without any reason other than you want to smile. After a while, your subconscious will take over, lighten your mood, and the smiles will come easily and naturally. But there is a small problem with that. How do you answer the question: “What are you smiling at?” Answer: “Nothing,” and people may think you are keeping your reasons secret because you are smiling about them in a way that they might not like. Or they might think you are reliving your latest sexual fantasy. They might even think your smile is malicious.

   It’s best, if possible, to think of something that can give you a genuine smile, a reason you can talk about if called upon to do so. Each of us, no matter how depressed, has something in life to celebrate.

5. Recognize that stress is a choice. We can accept it and put up with it, and the damage it can cause our bodies. We can avoid it, but that could be a difficult choice if it means quitting the only job we know in a tough job market. That might easily create worse stresses. Or we can deal with it and defeat it.

   That is not as difficult as it might sound if we make our minds up to use The Fun Factor in everything we do. That doesn’t necessarily mean, laughing, joking and playing the village idiot – though all those activities can relieve stress too. We can have fun without ever cracking a single joke.

   A game of tickle with the children or grandchildren can be fun and bring energetic screams of delight from them. Touch football or, for the less energetic, lawn darts or horseshoes can be fun. For others, it’s a walk, socializing with friends, admiring the beauty around us or following a hobby – especially if it is an engrossing one.

Attitude Is Everything

The key is to recognize stress symptoms when they occur, recognize what’s causing them, and formulate a plan to deal with the cause. Since fun is the best natural stress reliever known, incorporate a healthy dose of The Fun Factor into your recovery plan.

But don’t get obsessive about it. Don’t be stressed by removing stress. Be content with removing some of your stress, and with taking the edge off it so that you function as a healthier, happier and more productive humor being. After all, perfectionism produces stress.

Smile! You’re on your way to reducing yours.

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