From Tuesday Morning

[elainegrey]

I have a simplistic model of how stress affects me. I imagine a graph with something like "activation" on the y-axis and time on the x. In the best case, I'm not stressed. Then something happens, like the discovery of a major problem with the code going to production days before it goes to staging, there's a sharp increase of the experience of stress, and then the stress falls away exponentially as we solve the problems.

Another graph might show that stress "driver" as single point instance of the trigger.

Now, if the solution is not in our control and there are stressful events as we work towards resolving the issue, there might be many stress driver points. I think that these don't act independently, but simply keep the driver "active."

As long as that driver is "active" my experience of stress does not fall away but stays elevated. The longer it's elevated, the longer it takes to decay away.

Let's say another stress driving event occurs: it could be something small, a single point. If i was starting from a base line, there would be a sharp rise and then quick drop off of my experience of stress.

But when there's already a stress driver active, it's not simply an addition to the existing driver.

I'm not entirely clear how the dynamics work then.

Early this morning i got a huge stress trigger around a household concern. There is no direct relation between it and my work issues.

This reminds me of something i read some time ago which was reinforced recently: asking "why" five times to get to a root cause. I don't think it's a real formula, but i think it reminds one to go past the first answer.

So, the household concern caused this single short driver, and i looked into the issue and came up with a couple solutions, and picked one that was reasonable and not punishing. Then Christine and i chatted, and we modified the solution to something even efficient.

In the normal course of affairs, i'd be completely relaxed by now. Immediate problem solved, lessons learned, acknowledgment that it wasn't really that much of a surprise, etc, etc.

But i'm not: i feel tensions throughout my body. All the work stress that is ongoing has pushed my physical responses through the red line.

Breathe.

Praise myself for at least heading my brain off at the pass and not allowing any catastrophizing about the immediate issue, even if the body didn't get the memo.

Breathe. Laugh with Christine.

I wonder about spiritual lessons beyond the biochemical, psychological lessons. Other than experiential evidence that my spiritual practices help prevent overreaction and help me recover... mmm, nope not seeing any lesson here.

Just practice.


There's a stack of email with which i am not dealing: i acknowledge it's "postponable stress." I know the discussions are going to irritate me: i will wait a while hoping that next week i will be relaxed enough that they won't trigger.

I really really ought to ride the bike tonight.

I really ought to take more breaks during the workday. A walk? Really, that would be so good. Just over to the swings and back.

I'm going to get my conditions of enoughness listed.

Comments

[laughingrat]

Stressors can be cumulative, I guess...arousal (adrenaline and other chemicals etc.) levels really can take a long time to winch down, and it seems like having recently experienced a high level of stress-related arousal can lead to greater likelihood that our bodies will respond that way for smaller stimuli than normal. If that makes sense? At least that's what I've noticed.

EDIT: By the way, I'm really sorry you're having that much stress. It's a crummy feeling.

[elainegrey]

It does make sense: "arousal" from stress is just what i was thinking about with my graph description.

Work has this quarterly rhythm of stress: i'm trying to figure out how to ease the issue by changing when we plan.