Posts Tagged ‘stress’

As a child, did you ever read Aesop’s fable of the city mouse and the country mouse? After a visit to his cousin showed him the sparseness of country living, the city mouse reciprocated the invitation, and the country mouse ventured to the city. The country mouse was impressed by the splendid feasts available in the city’s huge garbage dumps … but he didn’t appreciate having to dodge so many cats and other dangers trying to get at them. The moral of the story: “A modest life with peace and quiet is better than a rich one with danger and strife.”

Apparently the Greek writer, who’s believed to have lived sometime in the 3^rd to 5^th century B.C., was wise beyond his time. By using functional brain imaging, researchers from the University of Heidelberg have been able to demonstrate that the brains of city and country dwellers respond differently to social stress. And that probably explains why people reared in cities are more prone to developing mental disorders.

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

English poet and playwright William Congreve penned this famous and often misquoted line for his tragedy, The Mourning Bride. That was in 1697 … centuries before anyone conceived of a phonograph, radio, or MP3. But even then people recognized the tremendous influence music could have on human emotions.

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No wonder our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents talk so longingly about how much more relaxed life seemed in their youth. A quick Internet search reveals the term burnout didn’t go mainstream until about 1980. That’s when headlines suddenly began warning that health professionals, office workers, parents, priests, ministers, teachers, perfectionists, coaches, air-traffic controllers, child stars, and holiday celebrants were in danger of incinerating. Burnout, the papers proclaimed, was pandemic. People were even burned out on talking about burnout.

Three decades later things have gotten worse. A recent survey of British human-resource execs by Capital Learning and Development finds that two-thirds are worried about their employees burning out from added responsibilities following recession-based layoffs. And the outsourcing provider found more than half those HR execs are concerned extra duties have kept employees from learning new technologies. Their skills are becoming obsolete, which could impede them from fully exploiting any economic recovery.

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You know things have reached a sad state in your life when you realize you’re envious of a saucy little miniature Daschund.

Oh, I know. I’m not the first to write about a dog’s life. But those who came before were lamenting how nice it would be to lie in the sun with no responsibilities.

For me, it’s all about the chew toy.

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