For our first week’s homework, we worked on identifying what our external stressors are and how we are coping with it. An image of an analog clock was used to represent the varying levels of stress.

Having watched this TED talk by Kelly McGonigal, I approached the clockwork exercise with insights from the talk in mind. Here’s an excerpt:

How you think and how you act can transform your experience of stress. When you choose to view your stress response as helpful, you create the biology of courage. And when you choose to connect with others under stress, you can create resilience.

The following is my interpretation of the clock:

• 1-3: Productive stress. This stress level is energizing and it drives me to stay focused and organized, to reach my goals.
• 4-6: This is where I start to procastinate. Tasks get moved to an unsorted “later” list.
• 7-9: The pile of “later” tasks get larger, but I haven’t realized how large it had become. Losing a sense of goal and purpose, my mind starts to wander and productivity level is greatly diminished. I hop over from one task to another but nothing is making meaningful progress.
• 10-11: The sheer number of incomplete tasks starts to dawn on me. Nothing is prioritized and I feel like I’m failing at everything. There is a mind fog between me and the lurking Beast of Incomplete Tasks. It is now a big mass, ready to swallow me up whole. I forget that I have tools to help me manage all these.
• 12: I stop functioning. I tend to do nothing for awhile, until my mind restarts back to 1. This, according to our instructor, is a form of meditation.

This exercise really helped me to understand how I can identify where I am and how I can stay within productive levels of stress. My mantra for maintaining healthy stress level is Divide and Conquer. Like how one would approach sewing pleats on a garment.

What is your stress-management mantra?