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Take My Stress Please!

A lighthearted approach can help people stand up to life's challenges.

With the power to relieve stress, reduce anxiety, and increase mental energy, laughter really is a darn good medicine. But we know that, right? Who hasn't tried to use humor to soften an adversary, calm an upset friend, or break the ice at a big event? However, looking at the funny side is more than a crisis tool. Stress expert Loretta LaRoche sees it as a daily way of life—to help you keep the perspective that "not everything is a Grey's Anatomy segment." Behavioral Health Newsline explored her unique take on stress management in this Q&A.

Is there a difference between good stress and bad stress?

Oh yes. You need stress. It helps you manage your life and propels you to be successful. It even designates what is dangerous and what is not. That's why we have a fight-or-flight response. Because if you're on the highway and a car goes into your lane, you better well have a stress response.

When does good stress become bad stress? When does it cross that line?

Think of the circus performer with the plates twirling on sticks. There comes a point when he's twirling too many plates and they start dropping. Or think of an instrument like a Stradivarius. When the strings are the right tension, it plays beautifully. But when they get too tight, you get a squeaky sound. So the human body responds the same way. When it starts to feel overloaded, it starts to give you signals. You start to get physical responses. You may get heart palpitations or headaches, backaches and gastrointestinal problems. In other words, nothing seems to make you feel good. You start to feel irritable; you overreact.

And this is where stress management comes in? How can we manage our stress, if we all need it?

One has to really be aware of his or her bodily responses. I think the problem is that sometimes people have actually forgotten what it means to be well; having a feeling of wellness. It's where you don't have aches and pains, you're able to get through the day with a lot of energy, and you're getting good sleep. When you start to get the other signals, you have to step aside and say to yourself: "It seems to me like I'm out of control."

You believe humor is a major part of managing stress, but how can people who aren't as naturally funny as you bring humor into their lives?

When I say humor, I mean that humor as a kind of umbrella to hold over yourself to live a lighthearted life. You don't have to be a comedian. It's about putting on a lighter lens to see life with more clarity, rather than through a dark lens, which leads to feeling like you're in a vampire movie. So forget the comedy or being funny. What you really want to do is to take your life more lightly, instead of seriously. Take your work seriously; take your life lightly.

Have you seen people do that successfully?

Oh yes. I think you see it once someone recognizes that life is not a stress rehearsal. You have to recognize that you are not immortal. You are not going to be here forever. What do you want to do with the time that you have? Do you want to spend eight hours of every day complaining, moaning, and gathering forces around you to feel like a victim? Or do you want to take that time and make your day more joyful, more flexible, easier on yourself and everyone around you?

You tell people that too often we make everything into catastrophes, that a wet towel on the bed is not a mugging.

Not everything is a Grey's Anatomy segment. If the the wifi goes down, you don't have to go and get an emergency room physician. I think one of the best ways to deal with this is to take five things that you feel are the worst possible things that could ever happen to you or your family, and use those to put other things that stress you out in perspective. Like number one, if you have a child and that child was abducted and you never saw him again, how would that relate to your computer crashing? Take five things that really would create a crisis, like if you found out you only had six months to live. Would you be that concerned about your email not coming in?

So how do people put that kind of perspective on things?

Put that list of five things on your desk, and take a look at them periodically when you're getting stressed and say, "Wow, this really isn't as important as I think it is.'' Because I always say yesterday's tragedy turns into today's comedy. How many of us have laughed over some incident that we initially thought was just so incredibly dramatic?

Is stress more of a problem now than it was 20 or 10 years ago?

Is it a more of problem or is it that we've discovered it? I imagine that when the Christians were being eaten by lions, they were stressed. There was just no major study being done on them at that point.

But why does life seem more stressful these days?

The fact that technology is created and obliterated so quickly creates a lot of stress. I learn a program, and then I'm told six months later we are replacing that with a different program. Never before in history have we discovered and rediscovered things so quickly. I don't want to sound like I don't think we should move forward—we are never going to go back to my grandmother's time—but I think we have to blend the two. In the studies on stress, one constant appears over and over again. That is, without support from friends or families or coworkers—social support—you will become ill and die sooner, and loneliness and depression are at an all-time high in this society.

What does research tell us about stress?

One of the major researchers was Hans Selye. He really discovered this sort of flight-or-fight response. He discovered that we have this response as a result of being overstimulated in fearful situations. If you keep triggering that response throughout the day, maybe several hundred times a day, you are going to get yourself into a pickle. Because your body is going to become eroded by the toxicity of this response. This is when the body starts to break down. You get sick more often when your immune system is compromised by stress.

I've read that it is not major catastrophes in our lives that erode us but the little stresses that wreck havoc on us. Is that true?

Sure, it's like going through bramble bushes. You walk, and you cut yourself here and you cut yourself there, and pretty soon you go to bed and you have all these little pains and aches all over you and you are saying, "What happened?" Your whole body is full of cuts from the brambles. I think that's what happens during the day, and it's like a domino effect.

Do you recommend meditation for calming down?

Definitely. I tell people to spend 15-20 minutes a day just calming themselves, whether it is through meditation or even prayer. A lot of repetitive activities become meditative, like knitting or needlepoint. And exercise is a wonderful way to reduce stress. If you get into a kickboxing class or an aerobics class, the repetition plus the activity stops the mind in its tracks. It is very hard to skip rope and make yourself crazy about the copy machine.

What are some good resources for stress management?

Books by David Burns or Albert Ellis. Davis Burns' classic is Feeling Good, the New Mood Therapy. He's done wonders for depressed or anxious people. People also might need some therapy. Go sit and talk to a party who is not involved in what you do. Because often what we do is we get people around us to validate our disturbing behavior. We say, "Don't you feel this way?" and they say, "Absolutely." And what we need is someone to say, "No, this is not how you are supposed to feel. This behavior is not serving you."