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Managing Stress From Another World

by: Roy Thomsitt

Modern stress is habitual, and is something that the vast majority of Americans and Britons succumb to in their material driven lives. Whether mildly or overwhelmingly, stress will cast its powers across most of us at some stage in our lives, often increasingly as we get sucked into a pattern of working and living that gradually strips us of our individuality.

Stress reduction has therefore become a "necessary" antidote industry. We may console ourselves by saying that our lives are fast paced; that this is what modern living is all about and we must pursue it frenetically; that people in those poor countries which have not adopted the Anglo-American way are just backward and will catch on eventually. But that is not just a consolation; it is both an illusion and a denial, and helps stress reduction in no way at all.

It is an illusion first of all that the average consumer has a fast paced life. A commuter may sit in a train twice a day, to and from their place of work; that train may move at a fast pace, but the commuter does not. They just sit there, their minds going over the same themes as always; last night's tv, tonight's tv, wishing they could have had another hour's sleep or wishing they were already home and tucked up for the night's slumber, or the day's boredom at work behind them or before them. Drowned in tedium and repetition, the vacuum left in their daily lives is gradually filled with stress, as if it had a supporting role in their existence.

A tiring and repetitious daily routine can be a breeding ground for discontent and unhappiness, the real reasons for modern stress. If that routine is full of creativity, and control over one's own actions, then it may not be a source of stress at all, or discontent. If, however, the individual is suppressed, then it can be a very different story. Most people are employees, whose lives are dictated by those above them and with no or little scope to think and do for themselves. They are particularly vulnerable to modern stress.

Caught up in the modern way of life, it is very easy to lose connection with yourself as an individual, for your individuality can be suppressed from all sides. I am sure I am not alone in having experienced that. I had lived the zombie like existence for over 20 years, and despite the fact that I had some very stimulating jobs, I had, almost unknowingly, lost track of life as it should be. Then in 1995, I packed it all in and started my own business, and started the long haul to win back my individuality. But it was 1998 before I started to fully appreciate again what having control over your own life really meant. The 20 plus years were a blur; where had I been all that time?

One of the problems with modern stress is that it becomes a focus, along side the focus on purely material things such as the "need" to have a new car, a new house, the best clothes, the best tv and so on. Modern stress is a consumer product in itself, part of the material razzmatazz, that keeps the consumer in his or her place: a consumer, not a doer or a thinker; someone who plays by the rules and spends and borrows and spends and borrows to relieve themselves of the tedium and chase the shadow of achievement. Not real achievement; just its shadow.

That is not to say, though, that there is no relief from stress in the Anglo-American world. Those who are able to escape back to the real world now and again, and who can exercise sufficient self control regularly enough, will find that stress relatively easy to keep under control.

So how do we get to this other world, where we can manage our stress? There are portals all around you. Anything that will take your mind away from the self focus is a portal into this other world. Spending time with your children, and seeing life through their eyes for a while every day; the joy of discovery and play; but not as a drain upon your resources, and not as a part of your tedium. Spending time appreciating the wonders around you, the joys of nature, the little miracles that are within a short distance of where you stand or sit. Spending time travelling, helping others, seeing the true misery of people who are under the real stress caused by extreme poverty and disease, not the packaged consumer stress that we tend to think of.

This "other world" is a world of perspective. It is a world you used to know, but have somehow lost through lack of time. Yet, there was never any lack of time; that was an illusion too. This "other world" is also a world where you make the choices, consciously, not have them dictated to you by employers or weariness. A few simple choices each day can distract you enough to bring some relief to consumer induced stress. Fill the vacuum with your choices, and stress will not find such an easy way in.

About the author:
This stress reduction article was written by Roy Thomsitt, owner and part author of

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Mom's Job Stress May Spread to Kids
by: Rita Jenkins

Low job satisfaction in working mothers increases the stress levels of their children, but allowing them to spend more time in childcare can help overcome these effects, according to new research published in Developmental Psychobiology.

Children whose mothers found their jobs emotionally exhausting or otherwise less rewarding had higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol than children whose mothers reported more enjoyment from their jobs, researchers found in a study involving more than 50 nursery school children.

Levels of cortisol in the evening were more than double in the children whose mothers experienced less job satisfaction. Placing those children in childcare would help to significantly reduce their stress, the research suggests.

The researchers also found that children from families that were either highly expressive or very reserved exhibited higher than average cortisol levels.

Greater support is needed for working mothers to help improve their job satisfaction and increase the availability of affordable childcare options, says the report.

More Time in Childcare

Dr. Julie Turner-Cobb, a health psychologist and senior lecturer at the University of Bath, Dr. Christina Chryssanthopoulou from the University of Kent and Dr. David Jessop, a neuroimmunologist at the University of Bristol collaborated on the study.

To measure cortisol levels, they took saliva samples in the morning and evening from 56 children aged three to four years old. They also surveyed mothers about their workplace conditions and home life over a six month period.

"Spending more time in childcare makes a big difference to the stress levels in children whose mothers have low job satisfaction," says Dr. Turner-Cobb.

"It can help protect children from the effects of their mother's low job quality and emotional exhaustion. Ensuring that mothers of young children have good support in the workplace is essential for supporting both mothers and their children," she adds.

"Improving the job satisfaction of working mothers means that they are less stressed themselves," says Dr. Jessop, "and extending the availability of affordable and adequate childcare may not only improve the quality of life for the mothers but, in doing so, may improve the long term health of their children."

Healthy Adaptation to Stress

Cortisol is a steroid hormone that regulates blood pressure and cardiovascular function and immune function. It also controls the body's use of proteins, carbohydrates and fats.

Cortisol secretion increases in response to stress, whether physical -- such as illness, trauma, surgery or temperature extremes -- or psychological. It is a normal and essential response without which we would not be able to function in everyday life.

When these levels remain high or become disrupted in some way over a prolonged period of time, however, they may have consequences for health. It is important to promote healthy adaptation to stress in children, and good quality childcare is one way of doing this, say the authors.

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