Weary me

[breakinglight11]

Now that Mrs. Chadwick is taken care of, I have a little bit less to worry about. Last week, with having to finalize show preparations on top of having an unusually high number of errands that necessitated driving all over creation, was pretty exhausting, and now I am a little burnt out. Of course, burnt out has been kind of my default state in the last year or so. I don't know what it means that I'm twenty-five years old and feel tired all the time, but it's probably not a good sign.

The root of it all is probably stress. I've always had a hard time striking a balance between feeling active and productive and feeling overloaded and overwhelmed. Among other problems, I'm not sure I really have any good way to manage my stress other than just kind of ignoring it. My usual technique when I feel too burnt out is to lay around and not do anything except maybe watch some TV I've seen a million times. I guess that's not terrible-- could be a lot worse, like stress-eating or drinking or drugs --but it means basically becoming a braindead lump. How to people manage stress? Meditation? Worth a try. Exercise? Well, I can always use more exercise. I guess I also tend to sleep too much when I'm stressed, but that's not a good habit either. I could use a better way to handle it, since I doubt it's going away anytime soon.

Comments

The best method I have found

[denimskater.livejournal.com]

Learn something, or do something, that will help prevent some of that stress in the future. Examples from my life:

* Some days, finding food is too much stress. Go buy or make stuff that will keep/freeze so that on those days I don't have to find food.
* Writing a particular monthly report was stressful, so I wrote (programmed) a tool to do most of the report for me.
* Moving was insanely stressful, so I'm getting rid of stuff to make the next move easy.
* Having a messy house is stressful, so I'm cleaning up.

The trick for me seems to be that i can't work on the thing that is causing me stress RIGHT NOW, but I _can_ work on something that has caused stress in the past or is likely to cause me stress some other time.

[twilighttremolo.livejournal.com]

"I've always had a hard time striking a balance between feeling active and productive and feeling overloaded and overwhelmed." 1, I totally get it and have felt the same way. 2, Especially when the flip side is a constant desire to feel active and productive. 3, I think this is a situation a lot of Brandeis alums find themselves in around our age. Not that Brandeis caused it, but those of us with this trait were drawn there.

[laurion]

I tend to counter stress with success. Accomplishing something, even something small like doing the dishes can give me enough of a positive 'keep plowing through it, it's getting better' reaction.