Slush
What's adding stress to your life right now?
“F**#” I said to myself, as the cold water hit my toes.
I was ready for snow when I moved back to Michigan. I remembered the cold, and I even bought new boots. My daughter asked, “Uh, are they warm?” when I showed them to her. What she meant was “they’re very, very ugly so I know you didn’t choose them for the style.”
I forgot about slush. The icky result of melting snow, which turns into icy gray puddles, and then freezes again into lumpy, slippery ice. Then it melts again into the same slush.
Lately, I see that microsstresses are the slush of life.
They wear us down, as the authors of The Microstress Effect note. "The brain that is inundated with microstresses doesn’t have the normal bandwidth to pay attention to an activity or problem-solving. We feel extraordinarily stressed, but we may not remember why." The little stresses nibble away at our well-being. Our brains are depleted and we’re not quite sure why. If we’re not living in Gaza or Ukraine, do we even have the right to feel stressed?
In fact, we do.
Cancer, grief, losing a job: stress. Waiting on hold, or having to call five times: microstress. Poverty, war, living in a violent neighborhood: stress. Feeling like you’re never done with things you have to do: microstress. Persistent poverty: stress. Leaky boots: microstress. Kid with special needs: stress. Tired, whiny kid: microstress.
Being aware of microstress has already helped. When I feel off, can I track down why? Hungry, angry, lonely, tired? Having trouble shaking off someone’s hrtful comment? Need a drink of water or a nap? More and more, too much noise gets to me, and so does too much time online.
How about you? What are your micro (or macro?) stresses right now?
PS. For my boots, I bought this amazing spray. Now, to repel the slushy microstresses of life…
My micro stress of the week was a follow up MRI on Saturday morning. Shivering in the oddly starchy hospital gown they gave me, waiting for the technician to call my name, and worried about what the results might be, I resolved to “turn the frown upside down.” I smiled at the tech, who was working on a Saturday after all, and told him I’d be his easiest, most compliant patient. We completed the hour long test in record time, giving him a little free time before his next patient. I knew I couldn’t control the test results but at least I could take the opportunity to connect with another human.
Not all stressors have the opportunity for a silver lining but I’ll keep looking for them whenever I can.
So good to acknowledge that we can be stressed due to many little things adding up too! I sometimes berate myself when I feel generalized anxiety and I pin it all on knowing too much about what's going on in the world at large and the last years of Covid and politics, but you are so right...there's many things in our lives that cause stress and to acknowledge it is the first step to figuring out how to care for ourselves. Great post, Mary!