Stress Test

How do you know you are stressed out?  Perhaps this is a funny question in that most people that I know would answer with "how do you know when you're not".  

For me there were some very clear signs from the last week:

1.  Falling over in Tittibhasana C (mental/physical exhaustion).

2.  Barely making it up the stairs to my apartment.

3.  Losing my monthly unlimited subway card four times in two months.

4.  No period.

5.  Constipation.

6.  Unexplained anger and hostility toward others.

7.  Loss of appetite/strong desire to eat.

8.  Back pain and tension.

9.  Vivid and traumatic dreams.

10.  But this is the best one.  I had a dream where I was going on this hike through the wild west and I was kidnapped and sold into slavery.  I thought it was sex slavery as I waited down in a dingy basement on a dirty old cot.  But no.  It was yoga teaching slavery.  The basement was below a highend yoga studio/spa where I was expected to teach "whatevery the clients ask for dammit".  Amazing.

I wasn't supposed to have this week off, but it worked out that way.  Boy did I need it.  Bowels like clockwork, a visit from Aunt Flo, return of healthy appetite, time to cook yummy meals, release of body tension/pain, dissapearance of dreams, compassion and patience for others, renewed stamina, and a reeestablished joy for my happy little life.  

I'm reading this book called "The Cure Within:  A History of Mind-Body Medicine" by Anne Harrington.  I admit, I'm not reading it cover to cover, but I have landed on some interesting discussions regarding stress such as the relationship between what we call "stress" and exhaustion.

Was I feeling stressed our exhausted or both?  Humans have always been exposed to stress, yet some might argue that the demans of modern life are "fundamentally unnatural".  Even, that perhaps what uniquely defines modern man's dilema is the notion that our stress manifests from situations where we are unable to solve them, leaving us feeling frustrated.  Or maybe it is that we just have way too much on our plates.  

Teaching yoga can be physically and mentally exhausting.  "Career" yoga teachers, I've heard them called.  Those who teach yoga to pay their rent.  I guess that's me.  I don't know how it ended up that way and for some reason, I have a hard time admitting it.  It just kind of happened.  Recently, someone was complaining to me about their job and then said how much fun and breezy it probably was to be a yoga teacher.  Hmm.  I never really thought of it as a career and perhaps that was why I was taken off guard.  But in order for it to be a career, one must either be really lucky and have some high paying gigs, be independently wealthy, or work one's tail off.   I'm working my tail off and dreaming about it too.

Okay, so there is that.  Then there is New York City.  Oh, and isn't public speaking like the biggest fear?  Well I do it about three times per day.  Then there is this move to India.

In researching "the cumulative effects of stress on individuals over a period of a year or more", researchers Thomas H. Holmes and Richard H. Rahe designed the Social Readjustment Rating Scale.  Basically, it is a list of "stressful events" with their stress point value.  You add up your points and based on that, you can figure out how stressed you are (and hopefully work to balance your life out).  Here is a link to the modern version:  SRRS.  Interesting changes compared to the 1967 version.

"Change in sleeping habits" lost one point 

"Single person living alone" is added

"Other" is added

"Give appropriate points to yourself" is added

"'Spouse' begins or stops work" instead of "wife"

"Mortgage over 40,000" instead of "10,000"

According to both scales, "if your score is 300 or more, statistically you stand an almost 80% chance of getting sick in the near future. If you score is 150 to 299, the chances are about 50%". At less than 150, about 30%. 

My number: 395.  Or at least it was last week.  Good thing I do yoga.  And spend a day eating homemade apple pie and watching romantic comedies.