{"id":82815,"date":"2024-01-15T10:56:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-15T16:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/?p=82815"},"modified":"2024-04-06T04:01:17","modified_gmt":"2024-04-06T04:01:17","slug":"reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting On My Year Of Stress"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Like many creatives, life experiences influence my work, in this case, my writing.\u00a0 This year, the dominant emotion was stress (and adventure), which leached into my articles and drove some of the focus.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
As some of you know, my husband and I relocated back to the US in April. At the end of 2022, we decided that life in Israel, where we were living, had become just too stressful for me (and that was before the war): I porked up; my blood pressure was in the stratosphere; I wasn\u2019t sleeping.\u00a0 My doctors urged me to take blood pressure medicines. I told them it was stress. They wanted me to take serious anti-anxiety meds. I started reading. I wasn\u2019t thrilled with what I read — I said no. And to the chagrin of my husband, who thought he\u2019d never move again, I announced we were going home.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

He wasn\u2019t happy. More stress.<\/p>\n

Then, the landlady decided not to renew our lease. Now, we didn\u2019t have a choice: no going backward, no reneging. (Thank you, Anat; you did us a favor \u2013 silver linings to everything). But that also leveled more stress because we now had a deadline.<\/p>\n

I packed up 12 years\u2019 worth of accumulated detritus plus the stuff we had brought, thinking we\u2019d never leave — in two months, found a place to live in the US near family, hired an international mover, paid the transport shipment, and prepared to leave.<\/p>\n

Then I realized my passport had expired two weeks earlier.<\/p>\n

I had begun researching stress a while back after the 32-year-old son-in-law of a dear friend suffered a severe stroke. Bright, hard-working, talented, healthy, super educated, Guy is a wonderful husband and dedicated father (of a 2-year-old and a newborn).<\/s>\u00a0Guy had been waiting to hear about a plum job he was interviewing for. He told me he was stressed. How anyone would not hire him, I couldn\u2019t imagine.<\/p>\n

Then Guy had his stroke.<\/p>\n

Was it worry?\u00a0 Fear of keeping the job? Imposter Syndrome? Could he have avoided it? No answers. Just that I learned that starting on\u00a0stress medications<\/a>\u00a0is no guarantee you can get off them. \u00a0With my passport still elusive, I reconsidered the stress meds. Then, I reconsidered the literature.<\/p>\n

After repeatedly besieging the embassy to issue an emergency passport and a fraught week crying to the Israelis guarding the US consulate in Tel Aviv– begging to even get inside the door — with no success, a brainstorm inspired me to call the office of my new US senator. A half-hour later, I had results. A few days later, we boarded the plane, found our new home and community to our great liking, and started to relax – or so we thought.<\/p>\n

My blood pressure was still very high, I hadn\u2019t lost any weight, and I had strained various body parts from lifting boxes- I hurt. We didn\u2019t have a doctor (and no effective pain meds).<\/p>\n

Then the shipper called; the dollar shekel ratio had soured, and he wanted more money \u2013 lots more.<\/p>\n

I read more about stress. Breathing is good.\u00a0Breathe?<\/a>\u00a0Who could breathe?\u00a0 Even the best lawyer doesn\u2019t argue when the shipper has two 40-foot containers of all your most precious possessions acquired over a lifetime squirreled away on a ship. So, we paid. I read and wrote about meditation as an antidote to stress and considered trying it.<\/p>\n

Then, my husband decided to have a stroke.<\/p>\n

Who could meditate looking at EKG monitors? Zone out, yes; meditate, no. I was depressed. Should I take\u00a0ketamine<\/a>? Wrote about that too. No, too risky, I thought.<\/p>\n

I learned about\u00a0cognitive disabilities<\/a>\u00a0in the elderly and supposed\u00a0treatment<\/a>. We still didn\u2019t have a doctor. Nor did we have great insurance. But \u2013 there was an excellent hospital, and we had great advisors and wonderful friends. After a rocky start, eventually, we found the care we needed.<\/p>\n

Norman recovered; I unpacked all 989 boxes (dumped in various places by the local movers who wanted still more money to finish the job). Life slowly took on a normalcy.\u00a0 I lost lots<\/em>\u00a0of weight; my blood pressure reverted to near normal \u2013I am sleeping and not taking any meds. Nope. None.<\/p>\n

I did learn a lot about stress. And I\u2019m not doing anything recommended in all that research.<\/p>\n

What then? Maybe it\u2019s the trees. Lots and lots of trees where we live.\u00a0 All summer, we sat in our yard and admired the trees; I read about stress — and I looked at the trees. I don\u2019t know if I breathed deeply and slowly, unconsciously \u2013 but the branches danced, and the birds sang; the rabbits hopped, the squirrels skittered up the trunks, and the wind drifted and hovered over the tree limbs\u2026. hypnotizing me gently with its breezes.<\/p>\n

And I thanked God for making the trees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Visit The American Institute of Stress<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like many creatives, life experiences influence my work, in this case, my writing.\u00a0 This year, the dominant emotion was stress (and adventure), which leached into my articles and drove some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":82816,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"pmpro_default_level":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false},"categories":[139,142],"tags":[136,137,138,168,169,141,143,170,145,171,120,147,165],"class_list":["post-82815","news","type-news","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-life-blog","category-health","tag-ais","tag-american-institute-of-stress","tag-anxiety","tag-breath","tag-breathing","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-new-years","tag-relaxation","tag-resolution","tag-stress","tag-stress-management","tag-stress-relief","pmpro-has-access"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nReflecting On My Year Of Stress - The American Institute of Stress<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reflecting On My Year Of Stress - The American Institute of Stress\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Like many creatives, life experiences influence my work, in this case, my writing.\u00a0 This year, the dominant emotion was stress (and adventure), which leached into my articles and drove some […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The American Institute of Stress\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-04-06T04:01:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Research-Roundup-2018-4.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"379\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/\",\"name\":\"Reflecting On My Year Of Stress - The American Institute of Stress\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Research-Roundup-2018-4.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-01-15T16:56:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-04-06T04:01:17+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Research-Roundup-2018-4.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Research-Roundup-2018-4.png\",\"width\":600,\"height\":379},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"News\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Reflecting On My Year Of Stress\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/\",\"name\":\"The American Institute of Stress\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The American Institute of Stress\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/AIS-logo-C.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/AIS-logo-C.svg\",\"width\":1440,\"height\":432,\"caption\":\"The American Institute of Stress\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Reflecting On My Year Of Stress - The American Institute of Stress","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Reflecting On My Year Of Stress - The American Institute of Stress","og_description":"Like many creatives, life experiences influence my work, in this case, my writing.\u00a0 This year, the dominant emotion was stress (and adventure), which leached into my articles and drove some […]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/","og_site_name":"The American Institute of Stress","article_modified_time":"2024-04-06T04:01:17+00:00","og_image":[{"width":600,"height":379,"url":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Research-Roundup-2018-4.png","type":"image\/png"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/","url":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/","name":"Reflecting On My Year Of Stress - The American Institute of Stress","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Research-Roundup-2018-4.png","datePublished":"2024-01-15T16:56:00+00:00","dateModified":"2024-04-06T04:01:17+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Research-Roundup-2018-4.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Research-Roundup-2018-4.png","width":600,"height":379},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/reflecting-on-my-year-of-stress\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"News","item":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Reflecting On My Year Of Stress"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/","name":"The American Institute of Stress","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/#organization","name":"The American Institute of Stress","url":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/AIS-logo-C.svg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/AIS-logo-C.svg","width":1440,"height":432,"caption":"The American Institute of Stress"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/82815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}