HEALTH & FITNESS : COPING WITH STRESS
Stress. The very sound of the word makes the heart palpitate, the stomach cramp and the jaws clench. It seems everyone knows stress, battles stress and, ironically, thrives on stress. “We need some degree of stress in our lives,” said Anaheim psychiatrist Dorothy Savarirayan. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t have any motivation.” You can’t totally eradicate it. So the secret to managing stress is not living without it but learning to live with it. Here, then, are some pointers for coping with stress.
NAP AWAY THAT STRESS
On just about every afternoon for the past 10 years, Benjamin Epstein has shoehorned a catnap into his busy schedule.
“It just seems to get me back on track. It’s instant stress relief,” said Epstein, 37, the vice president of a Newport Beach-based advertising firm.
All he needs, or wants, is 15 minutes of 40 winks. “The process of falling asleep seems to be the magic, more than the actual sleep,” he said. “You wake up to a clean slate.”
Epstein has become so attached to his post-lunch ritual that he organizes his life around it. “Ever since I first discovered naps, I’ve always made sure to live within 10 minutes of my office,” he said.
When a business appointment prevents him from breaking for Zs, Epstein suffers. “I feel infinitely more tired by 5 p.m.,” he said.
It’s only natural our energy level takes an afternoon dip. “The human body is predisposed to fall asleep two times during the 24-hour day--one peak between 4 and 6 a.m. and another peak between 1 and 3 p.m.,” said Merrill Mitler, director of research for the Sleep Disorder Center at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla. “It’s no accident that many Latin cultures have an afternoon siesta. It fits very well with the way the body is built.”
However, siestas would be unrealistic for most American employees, Mitler said. “If a worker says, ‘It’s my human nature to take a nap right now,’ his boss might say, ‘Well, then, it’s my human nature to fire you.’ ”
While daily naps may be a nice way to calm the nerves, sporadic snoozing can do more harm than good, Mitler warned. “Napping that’s done intermittently--one or two days a week--is probably a bad idea. It disturbs the cycle of wakefulness and sleep and can make falling asleep at night difficult. When your sleep cycle gets out of whack, your stress is increased instead of reduced.”
STRESSED OUT OVER WORKING OUT
Usually, exercise is considered an antidote to stress--not a cause. But overexercising can become an additional source of stress rather than a relaxer.
“Unfortunately, a lot of the people who are compulsive about athletics are compulsive individuals to begin with,” said Peter Reynolds, a Huntington Beach-based orthopedic surgeon who specializes in sports-related injuries. “They go at athletics the same way they go at business and everything else. They carry into their exercise the same thought process that got them into trouble with stress.
“Exercise should be done as relaxation--not as another form of competition,” he said. “You probably shouldn’t have a stopwatch out when you’re running. You shouldn’t try to run faster and longer each time.”
Psychiatrist Martin Brenner, medical director at Community Psychiatric Center, Santa Ana Hospital, said that perfectionism-driven exercisers become agitated over unavoidable disturbances in their routine. “If they like to work out for one hour, but due to business responsibilities can work out for only 52 minutes, that creates stress for them.
“Plus, the time pressure people put themselves under is really a strain--trying to do more and more in less and less time. They carefully jam one hour in the schedule to go to the health club, change their clothes, do their workout, shower, get dressed and go back to work. So instead of relaxing, they’re compulsively racing through their routine.”
Brenner suggests long, brisk--and silent--walks to reduce stress. “Don’t talk. Don’t wear headphones. Lose yourself in the exercise,” he said. “Boredom is what produces stress reduction.”
SHUTTING DOWN A SPEEDING MIND
If you practice meditation in secret for fear your friends will think you’re weird, come out of hiding: 16% of Orange County residents use meditation or yoga to reduce stress, according to The Times Orange County Poll.
Brea cardiologist John Zamarra said he has practiced transcendental meditation regularly for 18 years and often recommends it to his patients. “It quiets the activity of the mind, and when the mind relaxes, the body relaxes.”
The common prescription for transcendental meditation is twice daily, 20 minutes a stint. TM requires neither chanting nor an unusual posture. “You do it sitting in a chair,” Zamarra said. “You’re not withdrawing, you’re not dull; you’re restfully alert. You’ve gone beyond thought.”
The meditation is not intended as a quick fix for periodic bouts of anxiety, Zamarra said. “It’s more an overall improvement in the body’s resilience to handle stressful situations. I liken it to brushing your teeth to prevent cavities. You don’t start brushing your teeth after you have the pain.”
Zamarra believes stress-management techniques, whether through meditation or another form of relaxation, are important in today’s society. “I tell my patients that a practical way to relax--be it meditation, yoga, exercise, reading or counseling--is essential to a total health program.”
Ann Gray Fallat opts for yoga as her stress reducer. “I’m in a high-stress profession,” said the 46-year-old restaurant manager. “Yoga slows me down internally.”
Fallat, a Santa Ana resident, started taking yoga classes six years ago. “I was losing my wits while managing a restaurant in North Hollywood, partly because I was commuting 80 miles a day. My friends were worried about me. One of them suggested yoga.”
With some reluctance, she gave yoga a try--and loved it. Her husband soon thereafter took her lead. “We never imagined we would be so involved in yoga,” she laughed. “We didn’t think we were the yoga types. Since I’ve been practicing yoga, I feel less stress in general--less of it seeps in.”
DON’T DRIVE YOURSELF CRAZY
When you’re stalled in a traffic jam, the world can look like an awful place to be. What are all these jerks doing on your personal freeway? Why didn’t you move to Fresno years ago? Why did your dumb boss make you drive into Los Angeles today?
Calm down. Working yourself into a tizzy isn’t going to get you to your destination any faster--nor will it enhance your driving enjoyment.
“Just say to yourself, ‘I’m here, there’s nothing I can do about it,’ and move into an accepting state,” said Suzanne Hard, a Laguna Beach-based business consultant who presents seminars on stress reduction.
Although the snail’s pace of traffic is beyond our control, the tantrum is not, Hard said. “We tend to think that the upset is outside of us, that it’s somebody else’s fault. It’s that attitude of victimization that gets us hooked on thinking, ‘This is terrible.’ ”
She suggested that commuters, first off, quit fiddling with the car radio in search of traffic updates. “You already know you’re stuck, so do something pleasant with your time. I never leave the house without a bag of educational tapes. Then if I get stuck in traffic, I say, ‘Well, I thought I was going to get one hour of listening to tapes; instead I’m going to get two hours.’ ”
Assume the worst before you even open your car door. “To say you can get to L.A. in an hour these days causes stress right away, because most often it takes more time than that,” Hard said. “Leave early, take your favorite book, and if you arrive 30 minutes ahead of schedule, go to a coffee shop and read.”