Stress. It’s a powerful thing if we let it be, and it affects us in lots of different ways.
You would probably expect me to say I’m a stress eater, but I’m more likely to deal with stress in other ways; grinding teeth, tight muscles, anxiousness, inability to sit still. Luckily, for me, it’s rare that I want to shove food in my face in hopes of making a stressful situation better.
In my case, my current stress is people. By inclination, I’m an introvert; a behind-the-scenes person. Too much peopling, and I want to go hide in a dark, quiet room, curled up like a cat, and hide from the world. But I can’t. So I’ve been dealing with tight muscles, headaches, and a desire to eat coffee grounds with a spoon, straight out of the bag.
And I confess — one of the things I really felt like doing, today, was to find me some comfort food and say to hell with it. Involving fruity adult beverages wouldn’t have been objected to, either. Salt on the rim, please.
I know, though, that none of that makes the stress go away; the only thing that does is facing whatever it is, head on, and accepting that it’s not going to kill me. This, too, shall pass, and I’ll be back to being able to live in my introvert’s mode of choice in a few days’ time.
This girl who would rather hide when there’s more than 20 people, around, will be dealing with a crowd of possibly 30,000 people at a Jimmy Buffett tailgate this Thursday. I will switch myself into deal with it mode, smile, be nice, not kill people, and then, hopefully, enjoy the company of those I know and like, as well as a fruity adult beverage or ten.
I might be exaggerating a bit, there. About the people I know and like, that is.
(Kidding. Sort of.)
I have been squelching the desire to make things worse by shoving food in my mouth. Instead, I’ve gone outside and walked it off. And that works — with zero regrets, and no need to feel bad about it afterward. It kills the desire to smack people and makes me generally non-homicidal. And there’s that endorphin thing, too.
In short, I have goals I want to accomplish, and stress is not going to derail me. Facing stress is the best stress relief there is.