Addicted to Stress E-Book

Debbie Mandel

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 296

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008

Beschreibung

A woman's down-to-earth guide for releasing stress andreclaiming her free-spirit Stress management expert and radio personality Debbie Mandelpresents her highly original program for stress reduction. Sheexplains that women who are constantly stressed out have forgottenthe dreams of the free-spirited girl living inside them before theybecame somebody's wife, mother, or workplace colleague. This book,the inspiring and humorous story of successful recovery from stressaddiction, outlines her seven steps that have proven to help womenovercome daily stressors and reclaim a life of joy andspontaneity. * Explores the habit forming pressure principle of stressaddiction and how to cure it * Provides step-by-step program for self-empowerment, self-care,healthy narcissism, and renewing humor in a woman'srelationships * Explains the powerful, researched based relationship betweenfood, exercise, and mood * Contains indispensable strategies for accepting constructiveconflicts with a spouse, partner, friend or colleague to get whatshe wants * Teaches specific techniques for reducing and eliminating stressreduction Addicted to Stress shows how as the addiction to stressis cured, women find it possible to build up an immunity to outsidepressure and become their true core self.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

PREFACE

Acknowledgments

STEP 1 - Be Aware of Your Own Stress Addiction

Taking a Hard Look at Ourselves

What It’s Like to Be an Addict

Profile of a Female Stress Addict

At Home

At Work

The Value of Awareness

Symptoms of a Stress Addict

Understanding Why

Use It or Lose It!

STEP 2 - Reclaim Your Identity

Stress Can Steal Your True Identity

The Journey Inward

The Slippery Slope of Self-Esteem

Rediscovering Your Hidden Strengths

Giving Birth to Yourself Again and Again

STEP 3 - Learn to Become a Healthy Narcissist

Healthy Narcissism Is an Acquired Trait

Why Women Need to Like Themselves

How to Go from People Pleaser to Self-Pleaser

How to Survive Friendly Fire

Show and Tell

STEP 4 - Build a Healthy Body

How Stress Addiction Is Bad for Your Health

Gaining Balance Through Healthy Eating

How Exercise Alleviates Stress Addiction

STEP 5 - Cultivate Your Sense of Fun and Humor

The Importance of Humor

Laughter Is Free Medicine

Humor and Romance

Have Fun Playing Your Part

The State of Flow

STEP 6 - Jump-Start Your Libido

Obstacles to Sex and Sensuality

Recognizing and Understanding the Problem

Increasing Sexual Pleasure and Sensuality

STEP 7 - Reframe Your Thoughts

The Power of Thought

Anger Management

How to Have a Constructive Conflict

Born to Be Bad

EPILOGUE

RESOURCES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INDEX

MORE PRAISE FORAddicted to Stress

“Addicted to Stress offers women a wise and insightful way to recognize their patterns of stress, how this damages their daily existence, and the necessary strategies to improve their lives. By guiding us toward self-recognition and honesty, Debbie Mandel advises women to refocus their goals and behaviors in order to achieve rewards and satisfaction.”

—Susan Shapiro Barash, author, Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets: The Truth about Why Women Lie

“Debbie Mandel has distilled years of experience in helping so many people in this inspirational and useful guide to living a more joyful and full life. Pearls of wisdom fill every chapter. This book is a must-read for everyone who desires better coping skills for stress and anxiety—and take your time!”

—Dr. Mark Liponis, corporate medical director, Canyon Ranch

“Debbie really hits the nail on the head. I think most of us women suffer from some stress addiction at various points in our lives, and Debbie gives great advice on how to respect and take care of yourself! It’s a must-read for all women!”

—Chris Freytag, fitness expert, Prevention Magazine, and author, Short Cuts to Big Weight Loss

“This book is an excellent guide for all women like me who don’t feel human unless they are pressured. Addicted to Stress not only helps us recognize our addiction, but also guides us step-by-step to overcome the effect of this condition and restore balance in our everyday lives. This book should be a mandatory read for every woman entering the workforce and raising a family. I will recommend it in my health care practice.”

—Ellen W. Cutler, D.C., author, Live Free from Asthma and Allergies

Copyright © 2008 by Debbie Mandel. All rights reserved.

Published by Jossey-Bass A Wiley Imprint 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741—www.josseybass.com

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The anecdotes in this book are based on the life experience, work, and research of the author. To protect confidentiality, some of the names and identifying characteristics have been changed or represent composite identities.

Jossey-Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax [phone].

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eISBN : 978-0-470-43522-9

1. Stress management for women. I. Title. RA785.M355 2008 616.9’80082—dc22 2008020974

To my loving family both on earth and in heaven And to my husband, Steve, “Baby, You’re the Greatest”

PREFACE

I was about to sit down on a cushioned lawn swing, cup of coffee in hand, and inhale the beauty of my garden. But then I surveyed a few imperfections, a mottled leaf here and a dangling flower there. Oh, look at that awful weed invading my perennial bed! I let my coffee get cold while I set to work pinching and clipping, the envy of any worker bee.

Suddenly, I heard a mocking voice inside my head: “A woman’s work is never done.”

Why did this old line pop into my head? Strange—I couldn’t recall ever having read it.

Then I laughed as it hit me. The crows squawked too as a great white heron flapped his wings. Here I was about to sit down and relax, take a few moments of quiet time in a serene setting; but no, I found a few things to do, as though nature needed me to improve her art and I needed to perform so that others could say, “Wow, look what Debbie did!”

Stress had invaded my safe haven, my garden. I went into the house and Googled the old familiar saying. I found “A Woman’s Work Is Never Done,” written in 1795 by Martha Ballard, stanza after stanza depicting the tedious schedule of an eighteenth-century woman.

There’s never a day, from morn to night, But I with work am tired quite; For when the game with me is at the best, I hardly in a day take one hour’s rest; Sometimes I knit, and sometimes I spin, Sometimes I wash, and sometimes I do wring. Sometimes I sit, and sew by myself alone, And thus a woman’s work is never done.

This was the “aha” moment when the concept of Addicted to Stress was born in my head. The words of thousands of women who attended my classes, workshops, and interactive Web site sang out the modern-day refrain:

“I have to rush.”

“I’m crazy busy.”

“I’ve got a million things to do.”

“I don’t know when I will get everything done.”

“I can’t remember what it feels like to get a good night’s sleep.”

Instead of living happily ever after, women everywhere are forever on high alert, forever responsible, and forever giving. The worst part of this is that women—my students, my colleagues, myself included—all seem to be trapped in a terrible habit of continuing, never-ending, self-driven activities that are in response to what we perceive to be terrible pressures at home and, for many of us, in the workplace. We can’t stop, we’re addicted to stress, we’re stress addicts!

I wrote this book to liberate us: the endless to-do list must end! We can’t keep missing the simple truths in life while trying to be so perfect, clever, and accomplished.

Stress addiction is equivalent to identity theft—and we are the thief robbing ourselves of joy and spontaneity. Many of us don’t know who we are anymore, let alone know the dreams of the free-spirited girl living inside us, the girl we were before we became the good girl, somebody’s wife, mother, colleague, and friend.

You must stop being that good girl. In this book, I’ll show you how to turn stress into strength, to cure your addiction as you build up an immunity to outside pressure and learn how to be your true core self again.

Join me and many other women who are overcoming their addiction to stress. And after you read this book, I hope you’ll ignite your inner light and let it shine brightly.

Acknowledgments

A special thank-you to my editor, Alan Rinzler, for his eloquent, sequential thinking, which kept pace with my associative mind. What a great wit! He has made me shine.

Thank you to my literary agent, Andrea Hurst, who loved the book and my “Debisms” and took me by the hand to guide me in formulating a winning proposal. Andrea is not only a wonderful writer in her own right but also a warm, nurturing person in a competitive world.

Thank you to Frank Mikulka, who continues to teach me all about fitness. A former Marine, he is an elite and creative trainer and martial artist, popular for his warrior classes for men and women.

Thank you to Nana Twumasi, Carol Hartland, Jennifer Wenzel, Jeff Puda, Paul Foster, and Debra Hunter, all from Jossey-Bass /John Wiley & Sons.

Thank you to my children, Michael, David, Amanda, and daughter-in-law, Lisi, for putting up with me when I talked about the book—constantly—and for eating some of my overcooked dinners when I lost track of time writing the pages.

Thank you to my dear and loving husband, Steve, who has to deal with my feistiness and outrageous sense of humor—does he have a choice?

STEP 1

Be Aware of Your Own Stress Addiction

The first step in our process of change is to understand ourselves, to accept the fact that yes, we have a problem. But never fear, there’s definitely something we can do about it.

My research with thousands of women has taught me that the biggest universal problem women have today is our attitude toward stress, the daily dynamic tension of our lives. In fact, I’ve learned that living with stress for women these days has become more than a habit: it’s an addiction.

That’s right. Addiction. Just as with drugs or alcohol. Stress has become so ubiquitous (a fancy word for common, widespread, pervasive) that we’re used to it, we expect it, we’re actually uncomfortable if we don’t have it.

Sisters (and some brothers), listen up. We’ve reached the point where we’ve got a “jones” for stress. It has taken over our lives like the extra thirty pounds or unwanted guest at the dining room table who refuses to leave.

Addicted to stress.

How did this happen, and what can we do about it?

Taking a Hard Look at Ourselves

Women today carry massive responsibilities of family, household, and career. It often feels to us as if we’re being blown about in so many different directions that we’re battered into exhaustion.

Ironically, we call this progress. We need to ask ourselves two questions:

Are we satisfied?

Are we happier?

Well, certainly men are happier. Two studies from Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania indicate that a happiness shift has occurred over the years. In the 1970s, women used to be slightly happier than men; now men have exchanged places with women. The reason for this change is that men have cut back on unpleasant activities and now relax more, spending quality time with the family. Research shows that meanwhile, women have been taking on more complex tasks than they did four decades ago. They have replaced housework with paid work, but that doesn’t mean that the work at home has disappeared. Women’s to-do lists have grown; the number of waking hours to get everything done has not.

When tasks don’t get crossed off the list, women experience stress resulting in sleepless nights and days filled with feelings of negativity and inadequacy. The studies emphasize that because women now have opportunities for accomplishment on many new levels, they tend to believe that if they don’t “do it all”—the home, the marriage, the job—they don’t measure up!

The Impact of Too Much Stress

Bottom line: if you are unhappy with yourself, then all your relationships, including your most intimate, will be filled with unhappiness. And further research from Sigal Barsade of the University of Pennsylvania explains that bad moods are contagious. Your family will absorb and mimic your behavior, thereby perpetuating a negative loop.

Although the medical community has established that a little stress is actually good for you—waking up your creativity, fueling your vitality, and keeping your immune system vigilant—the qualifying and key word here is little. When you find yourself rushing from activity to activity, doing chore after chore, with no personal time for yourself, the problem isn’t the external world that’s landing on your doorstep; rather, it’s your own need to constantly open that door and welcome stress into your life!

Why We Love Stress

Most likely you are addicted to stress because of the adrenaline rush—the “look what I can do” syndrome. You’re so productive! You do it all, get it all—mother, wife, worker, with boundless energy 24/7.

However, having plenty of physical energy should not be confused with vital, focused energy. The critical question you must ask is, How do you distinguish a stress addict from a healthy high-energy person? And here’s the answer: the physical energy of a stress addict is always moving forward, living in the future, accomplishing the next task on the addict’s to-do list, or worrying about what will happen later, rather than experiencing reality in the present. In contrast, a high-energy person intensifies her present to experience it fully.

What It’s Like to Be an Addict

You might think that the term addict is a harsh word for simply being busy. But it is the right word. You may say that the conventional perception of an addict is of someone so focused on her bad habits that she is a very selfish person, whereas so much of a woman’s time is dedicated to being unselfish, to taking care of her family. But let’s look at the fundamentals of addiction, and we’ll see why addict is the right term.

Common to all unacknowledged addicts is the illusion that they have some sort of power and can control their behavior. However, when we take a closer look, we can readily see that this is a totally false perception; addicts are in fact without self-awareness and have little or no control over their compulsive activities. For example, a gambler thinks she can control her luck, an alcoholic her drinking, and a pot addict her smoking. However, an unaware addict cannot tap into her personal power. To numb the pain, the feelings of worthlessness both overt and subtle, a stress addict hides herself in the great escape of distraction.

The fix of busyness leading to apparent accomplishment gives the stress addict a kind of high that sends pleasure signals to the brain. But, as is true of all addictions, the high is transitory. The addict needs another high and then another, the ever-expanding to-do list, to sustain that false euphoria.

Admit it. Oh, how you love the surge of adrenaline energy as you rush to perform your activities and duties! You feel important.

TALES OF STRESS ADDICTION

Do They Have Adult Cliffs Notes?

Sara had found no time to read the book she had suggested for her book club members. She was agitated about tonight’s opening remarks, beating herself up about it. Should she fake it or admit that she didn’t read the book and let someone else run the meeting? Perhaps she should not attend the meeting and say she is sick? Sara tried to read the four hundred pages, but couldn’t concentrate or get into the book. She felt as if she were back at school and unprepared for a test.

I asked Sara why she had joined a book club in the first place if she is not a reader and is busy with her work and the children. She quickly explained, “For the social benefits. I like to get together with the girls once a month and talk.” I suggested that she attend the session and throw out an opening question based on the book jacket, allowing others to run with it. She could join in with examples from life experience, movies, or other books. Fun should not be stressful. Evaluate your clubs and activities. Are you overbooked?

You feel powerful. After all, you are a very busy person. During your high, you are always venturing outward, escaping; therefore, you don’t have to go inward, to return to your own doorstep—the components, problems, conflicts, and deficits of your real personality, or at least what you think it is.

So you can’t be still or alone. Deep down, you fear your own quiet company the most.

Are Addicts Bad People?

No. Emphatically not. Addicts are not bad people. Addictive behavior is basically a survival mechanism to deal with what is perceived as an unhappy reality.

Addicts are good people. You could argue that highly successful people are just working hard in our normal workaholic workplace culture. I’ve learned, however, that in the case of stress addiction, all this busyness usually stems from the addict’s constant need to prove herself. Are you suppressing feelings of unattractiveness, unworthiness, and inadequacy that are nevertheless seeping out through the seams of your body and soul?

A Self-Test for Addiction Awareness

How can you tell that you are a stress addict and not merely a busy person who is responsible and reliable? Answer the following questions:

If you answered yes to

3 questions: You are out of balance.

5 questions: You are losing your sense of self.

10 questions: You have hit the crash-and-burn zone.

The purpose of this questionnaire is to help you pause and notice.

Profile of a Female Stress Addict

As a woman, you experience stress with greater intensity than a man does, as you process words and body language more quickly using both sides of the brain (which predisposes you to multitasking) and have a deeper limbic system, the seat of emotions (which connects you more sensitively to all your relationships). Consequently, you are more prone to depression and often respond with emotional outbursts, which can be particularly awkward at the workplace.

When this emotional intensity is regularly activated by the various kinds of stress you experience, you become even more vulnerable to sadness and irritability. Stress becomes generalized as you experience a free-floating uneasiness and lose the capacity for calmer, more positive solutions. As a stress addict, you adhere to the same pattern of the “over-doer” at home, at work, and in all your relationships. Guess what? There is no such thing as a separation of work and home—though you’ll see well-intentioned efforts in pop culture to label the work-life balance—because you are the same person on Sunday night as on Monday morning. The balance or imbalance rests with you. As a stress junkie, you bring a common perception to all the major categories of your life:

Without you, nothing works.

Stress challenges our equilibrium, unsettling us, and our response to it ranges from mild to intense. Sometimes stress is recognizably nerve racking; at other times it is more subtle and vague, even hidden. Can you recognize it in your own life? Let’s take a closer look at how stress can manifest itself in the three compartments of your life.

TALES OF STRESS ADDICTION

Back to School

Mary is breathing shallowly, speaking quickly, and acting defensive about her son’s first semester at college. “We’re finishing the first term. We can’t believe how difficult those two humanities classes are. My son is a business major. Why does he need Writing the Essay and Western Civilization classes? I’m having trouble keeping up with all that reading and writing.”

Clearly the umbilical cord has not been cut. All this vicarious pressure must be stressing out Mary’s son, Jeremy, as well. Mary needs to concentrate on her own work and find some creative hobbies.

At Home

• You do not delegate chores or allow others to contribute—it’s your way or no way.

• You hover over your children as a helicopter mom.

• You are much too cheerful with your spouse and children, who may actually be annoyed by your cheerfulness.

• You are impatient, easily angered.

• You feel anxious and pressured about the clubs for which you have volunteered, such as the PTA, the American Association of University Women, or the neighborhood book club.

• Sex is one more thing on the to-do list (maybe).

• You experience sugar lust or a craving for fatty comfort foods.

• You don’t sleep well.

At Work

• You bring work home with you and take your BlackBerry on vacation.

• You brag to the boss about how little sleep you got the previous night.

• You are not really a team player; you horde your work or are secretive with colleagues who might steal your thunder.

TALES OF STRESS ADDICTION

Mind-Reading Gone Awry

Carol and Lainie, who work for a software company, were assigned a prominent market research project to evaluate the competition for the company’s new software product. During the first week of the project, Carol kept seeing Lainie working on other assignments, and she was seething. Finally she lashed out at Lainie for not pulling her weight. Fortunately, Lainie calmly explained that she was tying up loose ends, clearing her desk, so that she could devote her complete attention to their project. Carol’s mind-reading almost sabotaged the team spirit. I explained to Carol that work is all about integrating one’s personal rhythm with others’. She needs to be aware of her personal triggers and stay on the alert to being tempted to cross the line into negative mind-reading.

• Colleagues annoy you. They talk and laugh too loudly while you are working.

• You focus on the one colleague who doesn’t greet you or doesn’t like you, even though most of your coworkers are sociable and friendly.

• You worry about your family (your aging mother, your children’s SATs) during work.

• You eat lunch at your desk and need a donut and coffee during the afternoon slump.

• You feel unappreciated; you want to quit but won’t; you have a love-hate relationship with your job.

In Relationships

• You expect your spouse and friends to read your mind, to know what you mean even when it’s evident that they can’t figure out where you’re coming from or what you want.

• You get caught up in repetitive, purposeless arguing.

• You have trouble receiving a gift: “Oh, you shouldn’t have . . .”

• You are hungry for compliments. You want to be thought of as attractive, but don’t think you really are. You are competitive with your girlfriends.

• You are sensitive to criticism.

• You view all your relationships in terms of accomplishments.

The Value of Awareness

Changing your life profile for the better requires that you gain an honest awareness that something is amiss, sapping your positive energy. The first step involves observing your behavior. You need a little distance to see the whole picture, the way you observe a friend and then give that friend some good advice. Only this time, you will show some compassion for yourself, befriend yourself, and take your own advice!

The secret to any success is having the determination to succeed, then taking small, patient steps, evaluating and tweaking them along the way without any pressure. Step 1 of this program is all about becoming aware, in a nonjudgmental way, leading you to determine what is wrong, not who is wrong. You are simply noticing.

The motivation to improve will become part of your mind-set when you start to truly see. When you complete this program, you will compare how you used to experience a glitch, a remark, or a schedule change and how you experience it now—with an easy smile. So, gently lift the curtain and take a peek at the full-blown symptoms of stress addiction. Could this possibly be you?

Symptoms of a Stress Addict

Here are more symptoms to watch out for. The ones listed earlier addressed behavior; these are on a more internal level:

The loose mind. The most telltale sign of a stress addict is a loose mind. You do all your chores and social activities with a kind of porous consciousness, unfocused on the here and now. You lose your mental boundaries, unable to exclude extraneous thoughts. You are the consummate multitasker. Even on your child’s school trip for which you volunteered, or on a visit with your mother, or at a ball game with your husband, you are speaking on your cell phone most of the time, communicating with the workplace, home, friends, the plumber, the physical therapist. You are kidding yourself believing that you are really spending quality time with your loved ones. Although it might seem paradoxical, you would accomplish more through single-minded tasking—tightening your mind—but you do not believe this. Instead, your loose mind causes you to waste energy, feel tired, and grow irritable.

The dramatic vocabulary. Think about the words you use daily. “I’m crazy busy.” Words define your reality and have a way of actualizing a prophecy. When your friend bemoans her hectic day, you brag about yours: “Oh, you think you’re busy, listen to this . . .” If life were calmer and filled with free time, you probably would not know what to do with yourself. You might not want to sit still and be with yourself because there are pockets of disappointment and unfulfilled dreams you don’t want to contemplate. For if you did, you would have to do something, make a move, risk failure and rejection. It is easier to distract yourself by speeding things up and at the same time making yourself indispensable to others. Or so you think.

Tips for Curing Stress Addiction

Experiencing Technological Karma

Most of us know The Feeling of not receiving our e-mail for a few hours because our e-mail provider’s server is down. You are cut off from a fast-paced world, and there is nothing you can do about it. After the initial frenzy during which you actually think you have some semblance of control over the situation, you settle into an “It’s out of my hands” mind-set. Then you start feeling more relaxed, disconnected from the stress of 24/7 technology for a while. You have more time—found time—for yourself.

I experienced this compulsory hiatus for two weeks during an already hectic media tour. Irritated that my e-mail provider wasn’t even taking my phone calls, imagining that the company was going out of business, I decided to adopt a wait-and-see attitude and just let it be. A couple of weeks later, normality returned, and guess what? I was surprised to learn that I hadn’t missed much. The “universe” was trying to tell me something. Now I take voluntary breaks and no longer fear that I am missing out. I am actually finding more within.

The great performer. Stress addiction is driven by the constant need to prove your self-worth, to show that you are a valuable person. You reap the reward for being the consummate go-to person. In fact, your voracious appetite for compliments motivates you to hunt for them constantly to feed your ego. Because you have built your reputation around the title of the “doer,” what will be left to distinguish you from other successful women?

Delegate work? No way—then you would not get to shine as superwoman. The problem is that you can no longer separate who you are from what you do. If you fail at a task, you feel like a failure as a person because your tasks define you. You are usually anxious, whether you are presenting in the board room or addressing the League of Women Voters. What will people say about your performance?

The guilty sinner. Stress addicts always feel guilty about having fun and relaxing. You might say, “I’m so happy, I can’t stand it!” There is an internal conflict between what you want to do and what you think you ought to do. And if you are enjoying yourself, you feel as if you are tempting fate; you think of the blissful heroine in a typical soap opera, heaped with adversity the moment she proclaims she has never been happier. It’s as though fear will protect you from a bad thing, and happiness predisposes you to disaster. In other words, being overwhelmed with work is your insurance policy against tragedy.

The sacrificial giver. Giving is your signature specialty and makes you feel good about yourself. When you receive a gift, though, you follow it up with, “Oh, you shouldn’t have.” Imagine how the bright, smiling face (of your daughter, husband, fellow worker) droops when you invalidate a gift.

Let’s be honest. You are the consummate people pleaser. Please preface your name with “Saint.” However, your eagerness to be the giver and to do for others depletes your energy reserve and positivism. Internally, you feel resentful and are running on very little gas. You are out of balance, about to tip over with all this giving! Also, you have actually made others second class, always coming to you for help.

The inattentive listener. Often you go through the motions of being present to others. But while you are speaking on the phone, you might be checking your e-mail, cleaning out a drawer, exercising on a treadmill, driving the car, and so on. You don’t think listening attentively is a good enough reason to cease all other activities. This is a self-imposed adult version of attention deficit disorder. You don’t have a genetic or biochemical problem with how your brain works; rather, you choose not to focus your attention. Don’t think, however, that the other person doesn’t know or sense that you are not totally present. There is a subtle pause in your voice; you respond to a previous question a little too late, or you do not follow the conversation completely and are a little confused because you have missed some of the sequential details. Sometimes you are engaged in a face-to-face conversation, and this is trickier than over the phone, where you can believe that the other person can’t see that you are multitasking; face-to-face, your eyes betray you. Whereas a natural and attentive conversationalist focuses on the speaker’s eyes and literally bathes his face with listening cues, the stress addict looks elsewhere, eyes scanning for more action. Your subtle message to the speaker is, “You are not worth my total attention. I am extremely busy, an important person who carries the world on her shoulders and can only squeeze you into my day while I think about the next task on my list.”

The great controller. You have grown more irritable because you are disappointed that people and situations do not act according to your requirements. You feel that other people must behave in sync with your expectations and within your time frame. Speeding through life makes patience a nonstarter virtue. For example, you have a doctor’s appointment scheduled for your son. The doctor keeps you waiting forty-five minutes. You look at your watch every couple of minutes. You go up to the sign-in sheet and check where the list is going and if anyone has been called ahead of you. When your child’s name is finally called, you wait with him in an examining room for another fifteen minutes. By this time you are crazy and forget half the questions you wanted to ask the doctor (unless they’re on your to-do list, which is now ten pages long). If only you could let go of your “must” requirement, you could utilize the time more efficiently, such as by nurturing your child.

The stern inner critic. Stress addicts are not only critical of other people but also highly critical of themselves. You wonder, Am I thin enough? Am I accomplishing enough? Do I have the lifestyle I expect and deserve? One of the telltale signs of stress addiction is that you compare yourself to the most attractive, happy, or successful person in the room, never focusing on your own unique attributes and accomplishments, never content with yourself. A negative coach lies at the root of your personality, whipping you on: You are not good enough! Past accomplishments do not satisfy your inner critic—they are over and done with. It’s as though your good qualities don’t register with you.

Hooked on pain. Exercise addiction mirrors stress addiction. If you want to see a stress addict in action and understand what she is experiencing, go to an all-night gym. Exercise addicts carry the expression “no pain, no gain” to the max. If they don’t hurt physically or feel exhausted—annihilated, so to speak—they keep on exercising. I have heard comments like these in the gym: “That was an amazing class. I could barely breathe. I call it death by step!” “What a great training session—he killed me!” Instead of engaging in a health-promoting exercise program (no more than sixty minutes of exercise), the exercise addict erodes the joints, damages internal organs, and triggers depression with combat fatigue. Exercise addicts are highly critical of their bodies and never feel thin or attractive enough. They pound their bodies into submission to achieve a semblance of control. However, their workout rules their life as they organize their day around the exercise session.

Numb from the waist down. For the stress addict, sex becomes another performance-driven obligation. The media implies that you need to be capable of being aroused at a moment’s notice as well as choreographing an amazing athletic love workout. And don’t forget to be multiorgasmic in the process. However, if you’re a stress addict, making love makes you yawn. Stress has depleted your vitality. You would rather sleep. At the heart of the matter, you are avoiding intimacy with yourself! You don’t eagerly slide into pleasure because you don’t view sex as an accomplishment, and besides, there is no one there to validate your performance, except for your spouse, who doesn’t count. It is also difficult to perform well in the bedroom when your self-image is not at an all-time high. Your stern inner critic is always nagging, and your body might be changing because of childbirth and the natural aging process.

Understanding Why

Now that you are taking a closer look at your life, you might be wondering how you got suckered into this kind of maddening, heart-deadening lifestyle. If you are to manage your stressors, you need to understand the general root causes. Here are some possible reasons that might resonate for you.

Toxic Feedback from the Past

Did your parents compliment you only when you achieved academically or athletically? Were you a bit sensitive to criticism because of bad experiences at school with teachers who graded you rigorously and classmates who hurt your feelings by making fun of you, adding insult to the injury of high parental demands?

If the answer to either of these questions is yes, make every effort to escape getting stuck in the past. Just become cognizant of your current adrenaline-charged lifestyle. You are no longer a child needing validation, a “Good girl!” Nor do you have to follow tribal beliefs that don’t make any sense to you—even if they come from your parents or your community.

TALES OF STRESS ADDICTION

Cleaning Out Your Closet