I am always shocked at the hours/shifts required of nurses. It is very often a stressful job already, then adding fatigue or fear of not being a team player or whatever adds to the problem. I just read Otteray Scribe's diary about a nurse who died, likely from falling asleep at the wheel.
Yesterday on FB, I read three articles that helped me articulate our "national malaise."
First, from The Atlantic.
As Andrew Golis points out, this might suggest something even deeper than the idea that poverty's stress interferes with our ability to make good decisions. The inescapability of poverty weighs so heavily on the author that s/he abandons long-term planning entirely, because the short term needs are so great and the long-term gains so implausible. The train is just not coming. What if the psychology of poverty, which can appear so irrational to those not in poverty, is actually "the most rational response to a world of chaos and unpredictable outcomes," he wrote.
When you suffer from poverty, everything runs downhill. Poor people always need to be on guard for something going wrong, and the reward for their awareness is depression. Being poor messes with your brains.
Second article from Newseek
Once they could shrug off the effects of all the stress – it came with the territory. But many of them have started to notice some of their old friends and colleagues are missing. Their jobs either drove them away – or drove them to an early grave. And many are asking, “Who will be next?”
Trying to stay rich also is bad for your health, and messes with your mind. I love that the author notes the "entitlement attitude" that often goes along with being young and healthy (sorta) and pretty well-off. If you make $150K one year, plus a big bonus, how can you feel good if your bonus or pay is smaller next year? You
deserve better pay.
So, being richie rich is a prob because you might go backwards and be like the Poors, if things go bad. Or you can die from a stress-related heart attack.
Third, from alternet alternet
Strangely enough, however, some people act as if they just want to be miserable, and they succeed remarkably at inviting misery into their lives, even though they get little apparent benefit from it, since being miserable doesn’t help them find lovers and friends, get better jobs, make more money, or go on more interesting vacations. Why do they do this? After perusing the output of some of the finest brains in the therapy profession, I’ve come to the conclusion that misery is an art form, and the satisfaction people seem to find in it reflects the creative effort required to cultivate it. In other words, when your living conditions are stable, peaceful, and prosperous—no civil wars raging in your streets, no mass hunger, no epidemic disease, no vexation from poverty—making yourself miserable is a craft all its own, requiring imagination, vision, and ingenuity. It can even give life a distinctive meaning.
My friends and I had read it and I think all of us could see parts of ourselves. I mean, none of us is perfect, right? I was raised to be "rational and realistic." My Dad prefers Stoicism to Pollyanna. "Prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and take what comes." Believe me, my entire family tree on my Mom's side spends a lot of energy imagining the worst, so they can be prepared for it. They are a lot of anxious, worried people.
My own gripes and worries are never too far from me, but I try to recognize before I go too far. I go to therapy, I take meds, and I joined several improv groups to get myself out of the house and laugh. Laughing is so important!
I would love to see more recognition of how stressful our lives are, now. We talk about it, and folks go to yoga class, or get massages, or take drugs or drink, or whatever will help for the moment. Our nation could probably benefit from some collective notion that group tai-chi could be helpful, but I know it is too commufascist to happen. The atheist "church" movement captures the real need we all have for connection with each other and our greater community.
I don't know how we can start grassroots stress reduction, but I hope we can find ways to begin, or continue, the process of doing so. It won't be the same for each person. And lots of people find their own ways to deal. But we need much more.