Dealing with Stress and Stress-Relief Tips

[Jeff Wrangler]

Massage is good, but I guess it's not something you can do yourself, except your feet (if you're Cassie you need a cowboy to do it). A full-body massage can also be expensive. I know a guy. He's very good. He's not cheap, but it seems like he starts at my shoulders (my shoulders get especially tight) and pushes all the stress down my body and out at my feet. (I could use that right now, but, unfortunately I don't have time.) He's well worth the expense.

OK, there is another method I use to relieve stress. I can do it myself. So I'll be direct, if crude, or maybe that's crude, if direct, or whatever, but the method is masturbation. (It also helps relieve the pain of a migraine.) I ain't jokin'.

[Front-Ranger]

 

Yes, I am well aware of that method as well as its cousin, sex. R. tells me about it all the time. For an older man, he is as insatiable as a teen-aged boy. We used to have an "active" relationship but it just got to be too much. When my mother died and I entered a state of grieving, it seemed the perfect time to back away from the bedroom, and I haven't felt the need to start up again. But R. has, and that's fine with me, as long as I don't have to be there.

Things are very lopsided in the age of Viagra, IMO!!

Some people, under stress, take a Falstaffian approach, more is better and too much is better still! In my case, I get overwhelmed easily so too much of anything causes me more stress!

[Jeff Wrangler]

Yes, I am well aware of that method as well as its cousin, sex. R. tells me about it all the time. For an older man, he is as insatiable as a teen-aged boy.

I guess us guys don't talk about this stuff, but for almost a year, I've just about been on hyperdrive. I've attributed it to two things. One was stress over my father's health last winter. The other was facing turning 60.

[CellarDweller]

I'm not really into massage.  The thought of being in that chair while some stranger rubs me is a little.....unnerving.

[serious crayons]

Yes, I am well aware of that method as well as its cousin, sex.

   That's a very Proulesque way to put it! What was it about the water? Its domestic cousin? I need to find my STS!

We used to have an "active" relationship but it just got to be too much. When my mother died and I entered a state of grieving, it seemed the perfect time to back away from the bedroom, and I haven't felt the need to start up again. But R. has, and that's fine with me, as long as I don't have to be there.

If that works for both of you, sounds like a good solution!

Some people, under stress, take a Falstaffian approach, more is better and too much is better still! In my case, I get overwhelmed easily so too much of anything causes me more stress!

I think it's true, there are people who are sort of "stress junkies." Jeremy Renner's character in that movie about the bomb defusers is a good example. His deployment ended but when he got home he couldn't handle walking around a peaceful grocery store, so he went back.

I also suspect busy famous people -- Beyonce, Hillary Clinton, people like that -- are similar. They enjoy having a high-pressure busy life.

But there's another side to it. I have a book on anxiety -- it's not medical or self-help; it's a journalistic book about the subject -- that has an interesting counter-story. The guy interviewed a bunch of people with really scary jobs -- who were terrified much of the time.

One was a military officer on a submarine deciding whether to fire on Russia as a counter a reported nuclear attack (which turned out not to have happened). Another was a guy who was deathly afraid of heights but had a job that required standing on the roof of a building (for a TV show or something; I can't remember the context). Anyway, the journalist -- who had experienced anxiety himself -- was interested in people like that, who just power through their fears.

[Front-Ranger]

I think it's true, there are people who are sort of "stress junkies." Jeremy Renner's character in that movie about the bomb defusers is a good example. His deployment ended but when he got home he couldn't handle walking around a peaceful grocery store, so he went back.

Yes, "The Hurt Locker". That was a very powerful movie! Another movie that addressed that was "Plenty". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plenty_(film)

[Front-Ranger]

I think it's true, there are people who are sort of "stress junkies." Jeremy Renner's character in that movie about the bomb defusers is a good example. His deployment ended but when he got home he couldn't handle walking around a peaceful grocery store, so he went back.

As I recall from the movie, what really got to him was when his wife asked him to select a box of cereal, he was overwhelmed by all the choices and the superficiality of the consumer society that he had sacrificed so much for. Anyway, that's how I interpreted the shot where the camera zoomed out to show a long supermarket aisle crammed with boxes of processed foods.

[serious crayons]

As I recall from the movie, what really got to him was when his wife asked him to select a box of cereal, he was overwhelmed by all the choices and the superficiality of the consumer society that he had sacrificed so much for. Anyway, that's how I interpreted the shot where the camera zoomed out to show a long supermarket aisle crammed with boxes of processed foods.

I didn't pick up on his thinking about having sacrificed for it, but I agree that the shot contrasted the superficiality of a million cereal choices vs. life-and-death situations. I think a lot of journalists as well as soldiers feel a letdown after leaving a combat zone and returning to the mundane trivialities of this culture. Personally, I'd feel a huge relief and in fact wouldn't go there in the first place if I could help it. But some people like the higher stakes and adrenaline rushes.

[Front-Ranger]

Sometimes it's the little things that help us deal with stress, right?

[serious crayons]

Agreed with everything except the corner brownie. And only sometimes with the canceled plans.