Stress

At some point in our life we all experience some shape or form of stress. Everyone handles stress in different ways but some of us don’t know how to, which can lead to mental, physical and emotional problems. But what is the definition of stress?

According to answers.com the definition of stress is “A mentally or emotionally disruptive or upsetting condition occurring in response to adverse external influenced and capable of affecting physical health…..”. Now for me when I’m under a lot of stress, I feel like I cant handle life and it leads me to be a little depressed. If I am under stress for long periods of time I loose weight without noticing, well, until someone tells me. The other day at my work was a real stressor ( I don’t even think that’s a word but too bad, im going use it). I work at McDonalds by the way, just so you know what I am going to be saying. So around 6pm is out dinner rush, and their were 2 people taking orders (me and some other guy) and their was 1 runner (the person getting the food and giving it to the customer). Well around 5:45 they sent the other person taking orders home early. I don’t know what they were thinking but whatever. Anyways didn’t we get a rush and I got overwhelmed and felt like crying. When im stressed I scratch myself without noticing (don’t ask me how because I don’t know) and I get mad and have a short temper. Luckily I didn’t loose my temper with anyone, but I was mad. Luckily my hair was in a pony tail cause I have been known to pull my hair as well. But my poor neck was all red and I still feel it today.

Now you may be asking how to calm down and let all that stress go away. The first thing you want to do is understand why your stressed and what caused it because if you don’t you will keep getting stressed out. Once you know what stresses you out, you can try to avoid those situations. If you cant avoid those situations you will have helpful tools to help you calm down. What I find helpful is to do something you like doing. For me that’s mostly reading. Now for those people who know me, I have a walk in closet with shelves at the back and two full levels of those shelves is dedicated to my books. I have A LOT of books!! But I also have other ways to calm down, for example playing guitar, singing and doing nail designs. Another thing you can do its remove yourself from that stressful situation and close your eyes and take a deep breath. Try to calm yourself down, because the more stressed you are the more you are going to feel like you cant handle it. When you have calmed yourself down try to go back with a positive attitude. I also find a stress ball helps, I know it may sound silly but trust me it helps.

     So I hope this helps, and just remind yourself you can get through this. Everyone goes through stress and that includes kids as well. Talk to your kids about what stresses them out and help them through it. Find a way to release that stress in a positive way that works for you.

Good luck!

Titanic

The last photo of the Titanic, taken April 11th, 1912 

On this day at 2:20 am 100 years ago the Titanic sank. Today my mother, my sister and I went to go see the movie titanic. Now I have seen this movie many times, and I’m sad to say when I was younger I laughed at people who fell, and made jokes about peoples suffering in the movie. But today as we were watching it, my mom leaned over my sister to tell me that today was the day that the titanic went down. Now before she said this to me I was having a good time making jokes about the movie, but after she told me that, I just sat back and thought, I may have been laughing at things people may have actually gone though. Now when I was younger I went though many stages of interest, for example for a year I read as many books, articles and watched many videos about the holocaust. Then I went through a stage about finding out as much as I could about the titanic. Now I’m still very interested in both those topics, but as I watched the movie I could see much truth/facts about the titanic. Like the people, Margaret Brown (Molly Brown) was a true person, and according the book “Titanic love stories” by Gill Paul, she did indeed argue with the crew members on board the life boat to go back to search for survivors. In the movie they also speak of John Jacob and Madeleine Astor, they were true people as well.



Now that I’m 19, I’m starting to see things in a different way. Things that were funny before are not that funny now. Its like I’m seeing the world with new eyes. I cannot imagine the fear those people felt when the Titanic was sinking, the sadness they felt when they got onto the life boats, never knowing if they would see their loved ones again. The part that makes me sad the most is that the Titanic was carrying 2,223 people and 1,517 died. 130 first class passengers died, 166 in second class and 536 in third class. Their were 899 crew members and 685 of them died. Most women and children in first class survived, the same cannot be said for those in second and third class. Although their were not many children on board a lot of them died. 53 children died that night which is about half of them. In the end the highest casualty rate was men, 1,347 of them died and 103 women died. Their was a strict women and children first rule when it came to letting people on life boats.


So lets take a moment to remember those people who died on the Titanic.