As I write this I am experiencing a high level of anxiety brought about by stress from many different sources over a period of several weeks, my present purpose being to convey not my feelings but the effects that stress over a long period of time has on my thinking and decision making. The effects of stress on one person can affect another person similarly, if not identically, thus my experience can be a learning situation for you.
I have experienced depression and its effects in the past, though that was cleared entirely by my taking vitamin D supplements to compensate for the lack of sufficient direct sunlight on my skin to allow my body to create vitamin D on its own. The effects of depression bear striking similarities to the effects of stress/anxiety over a long period of time.
With depression I found that triggers would set off a bout of anger for a period of several minutes (up to an hour), then the emotional energy would dissipate and turn into what most of us would call depression. With stress, the anger comes to stay, varying in degree enough that it could often be called intolerance of the behaviour of others, inability to understand the life situations of others (lack of empathy) or a strong desire to get away from the company of specific people, rather than it being labelled easily as anxiety.
My present anxiety caused by long term stress has not resulted in any thoughts of suicide, which depression has done in the past. While I seek relief from the effects of my anxiety, I do not want to resort to easy solutions such as medication, addictive behaviour or the ultimate easy way out, suicide.
Why should you care? One or more people you know (perhaps many) may exhibit the some similar behaviours as I do right now, for the same causes. You may know nothing about the causes of the people you know or my own because we don't talk about them. We only talk about the effects, the bad behaviour, sometimes our own but usually of others who we think act weird or permanently irritable.
Stress has caused me to lose sleep--a considerable amount over a period of weeks--and this could easily compromise my immune system as well as causing me to exhibit symptoms of sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation alone could cause irritability, inability to get along with others and a short fuse on the temper. Coupled with long term anxiety it could result in amplified instances of anger, intolerance, not paying attention to the needs of loved ones, not taking proper care of loved ones due to an egocentric attitude, even a desire to generate conditions which could destroy a close relationship just to have something "happen" to give a person the feeling that he or she is in control of something.
Stress can cause loss of sleep, but the sleep loss effects add to the effects of long term anxiety, rather than simply overlapping them. One doubles up with the other, so to speak.
Now we have causes which could result in such well known behaviours as road rage, office rage, marital arguments, marital incompatibility (real or imagined), disconnects in relationships with a person's own children, lack of interest in sex (at least of the softer, gentler, more loving kind), erectile dysfunction, inability to cope with other personal problems, even turning to addictive behaviours or substances for some form of relief.
Enter drugs, prescribed and otherwise. Prozac is the most prescribed drug in North America. Legal and illegal sales of Viagra and Cialis flourish. As many as 25 percent of people in many communities may have used marijuana or one of its derivatives in the past year.
The rates of divorce in most countries of the West hover around or above 50 percent. Examples of physical and emotional abuse surface frequently. Police must deal with family problems on about one-quarter of their calls in many communities. I don't have statistics to show what effect martial problems could have on other socially unacceptable behaviours, such as fights in bars or even theft from employers.
Where do people who suffer from these problems turn to find socially acceptable help to solve their problems? A family doctor will likely prescribe drugs, which solve nothing, merely cover up symptoms. Some--the lucky ones--get referred to counsellors who specialize in helping people who suffer from anxiety symptoms caused by high stress. Unfortunately, that part of the health care community is so fixed on a steady source of income that treatment may not be the best because it's in the financial best interests of the practitioner to have the professional help last as long as possible.
The whole ethic of teaching children about what they must do to "succeed" in the working world prepares them to face and accept stress and long term anxiety, though not how to cope with them.
We teach kids to not just enter the rat race, but to believe that this is the way life is and should be, and that they should learn to "enjoy it" by making as much money as possible and finding as many "interesting" ways of spending it as they can.
This article cannot present instant cures for complex problems. It can only point to the way that those with a concern for solving those problems should turn.
Treat broken adults one by one and we continue with our present kinds of problems. Teach children how to cope with the lives they will live in the future, as adults, and we change the path of the future for our descendants.
Change is possible if we know what we want to achieve and where to begin that change process.
Teach the children.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who can cope with their lives as adults better than today's adults can.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Showing posts with label lifestyle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lifestyle. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Monday, April 16, 2007
Your Future: Eternal What?
The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
The days say nothing. Have you noticed how quickly your days pass than they did years ago?
Days, months and years passing quicker is a common perception of people as they get older. These packets of time seem to speed up with each passing decade. Then they are gone, having said nothing.
Oh, we have memories. Maybe pictures. But the pictures serve to mark the passage of time as much as they do to arouse memories.
Not everyone laments the passage of time. Not everyone lets their days pass silently, taking with them the gifts each brought and offered with so little fanfare. Those who made the most of their days look back at them not with regret but with pride.
More importantly, those who look back at days past with pride dwell only lightly on their past because they look forward to their future with vigour. Their future looks exciting because they have built their past up to it with activity that caused them to grow. To them, the future is something to look forward to with anticipation, each day an adventure to be launched with the rising sun.
If this seems poetic to you, consider how productive your past has been, how worthy of your time your investments in the components of your life. If you fear the passage of time in your life, maybe you need to build more into your future.
That doesn't mean more excitement, more daring, more places to visit, more travel, more stuff, more of the things that wear away at your time on earth. It means building something of value to show that you were here. To show others, when you're gone, that you're worth remembering.
To leave that kind of legacy, you need to do things that matter to other people, not just to yourself. If everything you do is for your own benefit, no one will have any reason to remember you after you are gone. If what you do involves and helps others, no matter how small each effort may be, then you will leave a lasting memory.
When you leave this earth, you will not be here to promote yourself. Only the others who are left can do that. If you want to be remembered fondly and with respect, you must act in ways that will benefit those who will succeed you on this planet.
OK, so maybe you're busy now, reading stuff on the internet. But you can begin tomorrow.
Tomorrow--your whole future--should be looked upon with a little apprehension. If you don't stretch yourself beyond what you feel comfortable with, you can never grow. If you don't grow, you will retreat with age. The longer you retreat, you more your spirit as well as your body will atrophy.
Rejoice in the bit of fear that the future holds because only by conquering that fear will you grow to become more than you are today. As you overcome that fear, you become greater than you are. And by helping others who will have greater capacity to do more that is worth remembering.
There is little point in eternal life if you didn't make much use of the one you had here. Eternal boredom offers little to look forward to.
Launch your future when the sun launches itself tomorrow morning. The sun will keep going in circles. You don't have to. You have a future to build. You have to build toward eternity.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to help people build a better future rather than letting the present decay with age.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
The days say nothing. Have you noticed how quickly your days pass than they did years ago?
Days, months and years passing quicker is a common perception of people as they get older. These packets of time seem to speed up with each passing decade. Then they are gone, having said nothing.
Oh, we have memories. Maybe pictures. But the pictures serve to mark the passage of time as much as they do to arouse memories.
Not everyone laments the passage of time. Not everyone lets their days pass silently, taking with them the gifts each brought and offered with so little fanfare. Those who made the most of their days look back at them not with regret but with pride.
More importantly, those who look back at days past with pride dwell only lightly on their past because they look forward to their future with vigour. Their future looks exciting because they have built their past up to it with activity that caused them to grow. To them, the future is something to look forward to with anticipation, each day an adventure to be launched with the rising sun.
If this seems poetic to you, consider how productive your past has been, how worthy of your time your investments in the components of your life. If you fear the passage of time in your life, maybe you need to build more into your future.
That doesn't mean more excitement, more daring, more places to visit, more travel, more stuff, more of the things that wear away at your time on earth. It means building something of value to show that you were here. To show others, when you're gone, that you're worth remembering.
To leave that kind of legacy, you need to do things that matter to other people, not just to yourself. If everything you do is for your own benefit, no one will have any reason to remember you after you are gone. If what you do involves and helps others, no matter how small each effort may be, then you will leave a lasting memory.
When you leave this earth, you will not be here to promote yourself. Only the others who are left can do that. If you want to be remembered fondly and with respect, you must act in ways that will benefit those who will succeed you on this planet.
OK, so maybe you're busy now, reading stuff on the internet. But you can begin tomorrow.
Tomorrow--your whole future--should be looked upon with a little apprehension. If you don't stretch yourself beyond what you feel comfortable with, you can never grow. If you don't grow, you will retreat with age. The longer you retreat, you more your spirit as well as your body will atrophy.
Rejoice in the bit of fear that the future holds because only by conquering that fear will you grow to become more than you are today. As you overcome that fear, you become greater than you are. And by helping others who will have greater capacity to do more that is worth remembering.
There is little point in eternal life if you didn't make much use of the one you had here. Eternal boredom offers little to look forward to.
Launch your future when the sun launches itself tomorrow morning. The sun will keep going in circles. You don't have to. You have a future to build. You have to build toward eternity.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to help people build a better future rather than letting the present decay with age.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Saturday, February 24, 2007
A Better Life Is One Decision Away
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind.
- William James
This statement will mean little or nothing to most people who have not experienced the effect of exercising this discovery. It is as life-altering as James suggests.
We all understand that our life can change in a flash if we are suddenly struck with a disease, if our spouse become disabled or if our business goes bankrupt. Those are all outside of our control to a great extent.
We also understand that our life can change instantly if we make a bad choice or decision, such as to take an addictive drug, to rob a store or to kill someone. Those are all choices that bring about negative consequences. We can also make positive decisions that will improve our life ever after.
We each grew up in a family and community environment that shaped our life from its earliest days. We made friends or enemies, faced dilimmas about religion and God, worked to make a living and develop a life based on that combination of environmental influences and principles. However, as adults we have choices that do not apply to children. They can change our life as quickly as a tragedy.
We all understand that we must build a new life for ourselves if we divorce, if we get fired from a job, if our spouse dies or if we experience some other personal tragedy. While those are forced on us, we also have the power to make decisions that will help us build a new and better life for ourselves if we can't stand our present one.
We can be whoever we want to be by recreating ourselves. That doesn't mean we can be rich or have the talent of an artist or date a movie star necessarily. It means that we can make decisions that can improve the quality of our lives. The quality, not the quantity.
We can find a new mate, have different friends, prepare for an occupation different from what we have or even be a different person than we are today. All it requires is a decision and the perseverance to follow through with it.
The first step is to understand that we have the power within us to make those decisions and have those kinds of changes in our lives. The second step is to live the role of the new person we want to be.
That may mean avoiding some people who have been friends, eating differently, forming new habits, learning how to find, meet and make new friends. It means change. Without the commitment to change our life and all the consequences that go with that decision, the change will not take place.
The third step is to understand that we can't do it alone. Most major life changes depend on others to help guide us to a life that is not familiar to us. We can ask. Many people are only too glad to help someone who sincerely wants to improve their lfie. But they must ask. It's surprising how people will help us if we only dare to ask.
No time is too late for change. People in their 80s are writing their first book or dabbing paint onto canvas for the first time. People in their 60s and even 70s are attending college. People who had trouble getting along with others during their working years have found ways to make many new friends.
It's never too late to be happy. It's never too late to make a decision for a better life. It's never too late to live a more fulfilling life.
All it takes is a decision and the determination to see it through. And the gumption to ask questions of the people who can help us most.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make great things possible for those who want them.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- William James
This statement will mean little or nothing to most people who have not experienced the effect of exercising this discovery. It is as life-altering as James suggests.
We all understand that our life can change in a flash if we are suddenly struck with a disease, if our spouse become disabled or if our business goes bankrupt. Those are all outside of our control to a great extent.
We also understand that our life can change instantly if we make a bad choice or decision, such as to take an addictive drug, to rob a store or to kill someone. Those are all choices that bring about negative consequences. We can also make positive decisions that will improve our life ever after.
We each grew up in a family and community environment that shaped our life from its earliest days. We made friends or enemies, faced dilimmas about religion and God, worked to make a living and develop a life based on that combination of environmental influences and principles. However, as adults we have choices that do not apply to children. They can change our life as quickly as a tragedy.
We all understand that we must build a new life for ourselves if we divorce, if we get fired from a job, if our spouse dies or if we experience some other personal tragedy. While those are forced on us, we also have the power to make decisions that will help us build a new and better life for ourselves if we can't stand our present one.
We can be whoever we want to be by recreating ourselves. That doesn't mean we can be rich or have the talent of an artist or date a movie star necessarily. It means that we can make decisions that can improve the quality of our lives. The quality, not the quantity.
We can find a new mate, have different friends, prepare for an occupation different from what we have or even be a different person than we are today. All it requires is a decision and the perseverance to follow through with it.
The first step is to understand that we have the power within us to make those decisions and have those kinds of changes in our lives. The second step is to live the role of the new person we want to be.
That may mean avoiding some people who have been friends, eating differently, forming new habits, learning how to find, meet and make new friends. It means change. Without the commitment to change our life and all the consequences that go with that decision, the change will not take place.
The third step is to understand that we can't do it alone. Most major life changes depend on others to help guide us to a life that is not familiar to us. We can ask. Many people are only too glad to help someone who sincerely wants to improve their lfie. But they must ask. It's surprising how people will help us if we only dare to ask.
No time is too late for change. People in their 80s are writing their first book or dabbing paint onto canvas for the first time. People in their 60s and even 70s are attending college. People who had trouble getting along with others during their working years have found ways to make many new friends.
It's never too late to be happy. It's never too late to make a decision for a better life. It's never too late to live a more fulfilling life.
All it takes is a decision and the determination to see it through. And the gumption to ask questions of the people who can help us most.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make great things possible for those who want them.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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