I’ve been seeing and talking to patients for over 25 years now. That’s roughly 125,000 patient visits. That’s well over one hundred thousand patient stories. Plenty of stressful lives. Lots of tear jerkers. Illness, injury, death of loved ones, work stress, financial disasters, legal problems, abuse and infidelity. Tons of life stories that at first glance it appears that life couldn’t get any worse. It saddens me that some of these people are truly so depressed.
Using Focus to Reduce Stress
In our last blog, we discussed the stress filled life of Daniel Boone, and how we can use his life as a model to see how we can turn down the stress. As you may recall, Boone endured just about every stressor that one could have. If you think your life is hard, think about being Daniel Boone. (Imagine being $20 million in debt, being sued, having your son being tortured to death, your daughter kidnapped, being chased by a bear, and just when you thought your day couldn’t get any worse…you go to the outhouse and realize your wife just used the last corncob).
Stress = Attitude, Focus and Perspective
And you thought your life was stressful. Compare your life to the early American pioneer, Daniel Boone.(1)
First, let me point out that talking about Daniel Boone is not politically correct:
- He killed animals, upsetting future generations of PETA members
- He fought Indians, clueless to the plight of Native Americans
- He blazed trails through the wilderness, disturbing environmentalists
- He owned slaves, not realizing that Black Lives Matter
- In general, he made future white guys like me take the blame for everything.
Ok, now that we’ve established that I’m a bad person because of Daniel Boone(2), let’s examine the stressful events in his life:
Combating Stress: You Have Power!
“Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard”
“Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard”
The hospital loudspeaker blared away while the three doctors ran through the hospital with patient’s lives on the line. Mayhem everywhere. Fortunately, it was just a Three Stooges movie short. Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk.
But I remember experiencing those types of days in real life (although with slightly less pies flying through the air). Working for 20-plus hours and then just getting to sleep right before being called for a code blue and have to run straight from bed to a patient’s room to perform CPR with a life on the line. Trying to save patients who are septic, throwing up blood, having a heart attack, a stroke, or pneumonia, and all of that on the same day (I really hate Mondays).
Stress Avoidance
Life is inherently stressful. But is there anything we can do to reduce stress? We cannot completely eliminate stress, but we can reduce it as well as improve our ability to handle whatever stress that we do have.
Careful planning can reduce potential stressful experiences. Consider the example in the last blog of being chased by a bear. This stress could be avoided by:
* Don’t go where bears hang out. Listen to your mom.
* If you are silly enough to go where the bears are, then lock up all your food so as not to attract them. Either that, or cook with lots of habaneros.
Stress
Today you decided to take a nice walk in the forest after you got home from work. It’s a good way to unwind after a long day. As you walk down the trail, enjoying the beauty around you, you hear some strange rattling in the nearby bushes. You step closer to see what’s causing it, and suddenly realize it’s a mama grizzly and her cub. She lets out a loud roar. Before you have time to even think, you’re darting 20 feet in the opposite direction. This is the most stress you’ve ever felt in your life. But what is stress?
Willpower
“Stay!”
Cassie gazed up at me with her one blue and one brown eye. She stared back down at the piece of cheese.
“Stay!”
Cassie looked back up at me and wagged her tail. She had played this game once before and knew she could out-wait me. She also knows that the cuter and sadder she looks, the sooner that I’ll give in and give her the ‘go ahead’. Cassie is perhaps the smartest dog I’ve ever seen. In fact, I think the only thing that holds her back is the lack of opposable thumbs (and her leash).
The Unlucky One (Or life’s not fair)
“It’s not fair.”
“I’m really unlucky.”
“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”
“I didn’t deserve this.”
“Why is all this happening to me?”
“There must not be a God or else this wouldn’t have happened.”
We’ve all had these types of thoughts when bad things happen. What are we to make of this and how do we deal with it? How could a benevolent God allow bad things to happen?
Perhaps the answer lies in comparing our (i.e. humanities) viewpoint of life events with God’s perspective. Let’s start with some examples in Biblical history of people’s response when good things have happened to them:
Perspective
“CRUNCH!” What was that? I turned to look forward and saw the emergency phone pole. It suddenly became painfully obvious that I had been wrong. I had thought the pole was put there for someone to use the phone in case of emergency. But no, it looks like the pole was actually put there to create an emergency. I got out of the car to survey the damage…and yes, I had just totaled my car going 10mph through an otherwise empty parking lot.
The Truth About Lies
It’s not good to do it, we aren’t supposed to do it, but we do it anyhow. Lying, that is. Studies have shown that the average person lies at least once a day1. Some people lie up to 40 times a day. We won’t say what profession that is, but the incidence probably goes down in non-election years. On average, we are lied to several times a day.
There have been many famous lies and liars throughout history3:
* Herodotus – considered the father of history, the world’s first historian was known for telling false stories