Got stress? Of course you do. And even if you were one of the few American women who don’t occasionally feel like ripping their hair out, you’d probably be ashamed to admit it. Like it or not, stress has become a status symbol, the badge a woman wears to prove she has a full, active life. But too easily, stress can overwhelm. In a recent survey of 1,000 harried Americans by the National Consumers League, over half said their stress was higher than they’d like it to be. Top causes:
1. Work: Forty-one percent said they’re really burned out on the job.
2. Not enough time: Twenty-five percent said they can barely juggle their commitments at home, at the office, and in their communities.
Meanwhile, other studies shed light on more of the big stresses facing Americans.
We’re rushing 24-7. A poll of 1,000 Americans by Princeton’s Opinion Research Corporation International found that 56 percent had trouble managing the time demands involved in balancing work and private life.
We’re taking care of ill partners, spouses, and other relatives. A survey of 1,247 women and men by the National Alliance for Care-giving and the American Association for Retired Persons estimated that 44.4 million of us are unpaid caregivers—and more than half hold down jobs while taking care of a sick relative.
Our marriages could be better … if we just had the time. A series of landmark University of Minnesota studies of more than 15,000 couples finds that 65 percent are unhappy—wrung out by conflict and disappointment. (And even among the contented 35 percent, one in four wives said she contemplated divorce at one point or another.) We’re caught in a bind: We want better marriages, yet most American couples spend barely 4 minutes a day really talking together about things other than the kids, the chores, the mortgage, and who’s taking out the trash.
In this chapter, we’ve got the nitty-gritty, practical advice that can help you cut the stress and find solutions for some of life’s most common stresses.
Why do some women lose their appetites when they’re upset, while others turn to food?
Most people initially stop eating during severe stress, due to an appetite-suppressing action upon the release of the first stress hormone, corticoid-releasing factor (CRF), says Elissa Epel, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. If the story ended there, we would all just avoid food during times of stress, yet stress eating is a tremendous problem for many people. Stress eating as a coping method to reduce negative emotions is a strong conditioned behavior and may override any hormonal effects, leading to excess calorie intake and weight gain.
What’s more, stress hormones may vary among individuals, which explains why some are stress undereaters and others are stress overeaters, says Pamela M. Peeke, MD, assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore. And according to one theory, women who produce more of the appetite-boosting stress hormone cortisol may tend to eat more under stress, possibly because they are producing more appetite-stimulating cortisol relative to appetite-suppressing CRF.
Forgotten lunch bags, burned breakfasts, errant keys—weekday mornings can make you feel like Lucy Ricardo in the candy factory. Preparing your family and yourself to meet the day will never be effortless, but keeping your own needs in mind will make it less stressful. These strategies can help.
Greet the day with exercise. It burns up the toxins of the stress response, boosts feel-good endorphins, and lowers cortisol, which makes it an excellent stress reliever. Morning exercisers are more likely to stick to a regular routine; the stress of the coming day can’t interfere, and accomplishing a major goal before hitting the shower helps you feel in control all day. Get up 20 minutes earlier to walk the dog at sunrise, or do some yoga in the backyard. (Go on, let the neighbors gawk.)
Working up a sweat can be particularly helpful if you’re a chronic worrier who frets about everything. In a study of 118 college students, researchers from California State University, in Chico, found that chronic worriers who exercised long enough to get their heart rates pumping and break a sweat during stressful final exam weeks felt better and had fewer depressive symptoms than those who didn’t exercise.
This research suggests that exercise can provide special benefits to people prone to chronic worrying, especially when they’re under stress, says lead researcher Warren R. Coleman, PhD: “We’re not sure why it works, but it’s definitely worth trying.”
Make breakfast a breeze. For breakfasts on the run, buy a week’s worth of single-serving yogurt, cottage cheese, applesauce, baby carrots, raisins, and nuts. Prebag portions of high-fiber cereal. Hard-cook a dozen eggs on Sunday and store them in the fridge, then dump a peeled egg and a pinch of salt in a resealable bag.
Keeping a journal, even sporadically, is an effective way to cope with the storm of stress in our lives. In one study conducted on college students, journaling just 20 minutes once a week improved their moods and overall health—in just 3 weeks. Try to set aside 3 or 4 days and write for about 20 minutes. You don’t need to write regularly. Just do it as you need it. While your first entry may leave your emotions topsy-turvy, those feelings will pass, says James W. Pennebaker, PhD, professor in the department of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions. “The more you write, the less impact an event has,” he says.
Daily traffic jams—second only to teenagers in the category of “things I’ll never be able to control”—can frustrate even the most intrepid driver. When your commute starts to take its toll, try these mobile attitude adjusters.
Prepare for your entrance. Time your average trip, then allow 5 minutes extra. When you get to work, park in a low-profile spot and spend 5 minutes meditating before you charge inside to your office. Meditating every day may even contribute directly to weight loss. In a preliminary pilot study, Elissa Epel, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, found that after 3 months, men who had meditated lost more belly fat than those who hadn’t. Most likely, women benefit in the same way.
Reclaim your time. Make a long commute more enjoyable by filling your car with birdsongs, classical music, or mariachi. Listen to books on tape from your local library, or start a lending pool with your fellow commuters. Don’t subject yourself to the morning shock jock unless you’re absolutely addicted.
Listen to yourself. Stress often begins with unconscious beliefs such as “I’m letting everyone down.” Start changing that inner nag by making a cassette of five positive affirmations in your own voice. Ann R. Peden, DSc, a psychiatric nurse, professor at the College of Nursing at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and lead researcher for a study of affirmations for the National Institute of Nursing Research at the National Institutes of Health, suggests starting with your negative message and reversing it. For example, “I can’t keep up” becomes “I am calm and in control.” Say each affirmation three times, and listen to your tape twice a day. Dr. Peden’s research shows that practiced regularly, affirmations strike a major blow at negative thinking.
The fantasy: This year, for sure, you’ll do that cute Christmas wreath you saw in that fancy home magazine—the one where you hand-gild each tiny, perfect holly leaf. The reality: Your laundry hamper is overflowing. Just accept that your home probably won’t ever look Martha Stewart perfect—and try these tips to keep on top of the chaos.
Delegate, delegate, delegate. Before dinner, have everyone sweep through the house—one room at a time—to claim all their stuff and take it back to their rooms. Train your kids early on to help set the table and clear and clean the dinner plates. Praise them for pitching in.
Use chores as mini meditations. Instead of rushing through the dishes to watch another hour of mind-numbing TV, concentrate on the feeling of your hands in the warm water and appreciate the sparkle of clean glasses in the drying rack.
Designate a master control center. Instead of mentally scrolling through your to-do list, hang a huge wipe-off board in the kitchen. Write each family member’s name across the top and the days of the week down the side. Fill in soccer games, drama practices, parent-teacher conferences, and dentist appointments, noting chaperoning or shuttling duties. By managing your own time publicly, you also teach that skill to your kids (and spot where you need help).
Do “homework” on Saturday. Don’t fritter away your precious weekends on chores that you “should” do but aren’t really necessary. To combat time-wasting perfectionism, set an alarm clock for 3 hours, make a list of priorities, and attack it with gusto. Once the bell rings, walk away and let it go. By giving yourself a deadline, you can focus all your energies without getting distracted by perfectionism.
Drop whatever chore you’re doing for a nonnegotiable stress break. A daily half hour spent alone can make the difference between burnout and relative bliss. Deputize your eldest to shield you from incoming calls and sibling spats, then lock the door and focus on letting the bathwater absorb your troubles.
Commit to a bedtime. No basket of laundry or dirty dish is more important than 8 hours of sleep. Sleep banishes the fatigue that hamstrings your willpower. Face it: The laundry will never be 100 percent done. Admitting this can be very freeing. Make peace with lower expectations, and get to bed.
Is “mind reader” listed on your business card? Not likely. When massive deadlines loom, the biggest stress is trying to divine what your boss expects from you. The following tricks reduce your reliance on guesswork.
Ask questions. Begin each project with a set of standard questions: When is this due? How long should it be? What information do you want included? Anything you don’t want to see? Try to get a good mental picture of the finished product before you put your fingers on the keyboard.
Break it down. Working back from the deadline, break down the entire process into minigoals, each with its own target completion date. If you miss any of the goals, reevaluate the entire project and shift the deadlines appropriately so you don’t find yourself caught short at the end. Achieving one goal every day will give you a sense of control.
Own your breaks. Lewis Richmond, a former Buddhist monk and author of Work as a Spiritual Practice, recommends using your bathroom breaks as opportunities to regroup and center yourself. Breathe in for four steps, out for four steps. Try a workplace mantra like “Plenty of time, plenty of energy” or “Plenty of time, plenty of care.”
When you open your home to an aging parent, emotional baggage can take up more space than her ailing body. One national survey found that 25 percent of female caregivers endure emotional stress from their caregiving roles. Try the following tips for relief.
Establish realistic expectations. When a loved one needs you, you may have a hard time saying no, but if you’re not careful, your big heart will overcommit your limited hours. Sit down together and talk about what each of you wants. Focus on the overlaps (“We eat meals together”) and negotiate the disparities (“I keep you company all weekend”). After you’ve fulfilled your agreed-upon expectations, you can always commit more time—but on your own terms.
Look for social proxies. You don’t have to shoulder the burden alone. Thousands of services have popped up to help with the growing numbers of elderly who need social outlets, not nursing care. Look into senior day care, community programs, bus tours, library book groups, and Web TV. Ask helpful neighbors to check in on your parent, or swap “sitting time” with a fellow caregiver.
Hire some help. If your parent has moved into your home, you not only have another mouth to feed, you also have more laundry, dishes, and so on. That extra work translates into time: Two-thirds of caregivers actually lose money from their paid jobs while scrambling to meet everyone’s needs. Rather than being resentful, tell your mom you could spend more time with her if you had less to do, then ask her to pay for cleaning help. She’ll probably welcome the chance to make a contribution, and she’ll definitely be grateful for a less stressed, more present you.
Living with someone for several decades is bound to involve a few tense moments. The key is to remember how much you love each other, despite each other’s faults.
Chart your course. Once a year, around the holidays, talk about what you’d like to accomplish together the following year. Being very specific, write down your goals as a couple, as a family, and as individuals. Keep the document in a special place, and celebrate each goal reached with a dinner for two or a family picnic. Your shared mission statement will give you a chance to literally work off the same page and buffer you from periodic conflicts over money and plans, says Ronald Potter-Efron, PhD, a psychologist and author of Being, Belonging, Doing: Balancing Your Three Greatest Needs.
Divide the labor. Once you know your goals, you can split up the work. Is “keep a clean home” among your goals? If so, what does that mean? How often will you clean, and who will do what? Write down every chore in the house and give each to a specific family member. Knowing who’s responsible for what will remove a tremendous amount of stress and resentment.
Show appreciation. Thank him, even if the chore he’s done is on his list of things to do. If he washed the car, tell him it looks great. When he does his share of the laundry, thank him—not because he’s “helping you,” but to say, “I appreciate you.” Chances are, he’ll reciprocate; appreciation is a gift that keeps on giving.