Stress Management: What Acute Appendicitis Taught Me About Stress

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Stress Management: What Acute Appendicitis Taught Me About Stress

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It's 9 a.m. on a Thursday. I e-mail my column on the power of rest to my editor. Little do I know just how much rest I'm about to get.

At 10:30, I begin to get cramps in my abdomen. By 12:30 I'm pouring sweat, and the couple I'm counseling are telling me I'm getting paler before their eyes. Not a good sign.

At 3 p.m. my wife takes me to see my doctor, who sends me to get a CT scan of my abdomen. Diagnosis: acute appendicitis. By 5:30 we are in the ER getting ready for an emergency appendectomy. By 10 the appendix is out, and I'm feeling much better. Since this was just not on the schedule for Thursday, I'm getting much more rest than I planned on.

I'm sharing this fun little story with you because it was quite stressful and very unexpected, yet I think there are a few strategies we can lift out of the experience for how to manage stress.

Stress requires us to make adjustments. Have you noticed how most of our stress is not on the calendar and not planned for? Yet we take these random events personally. "Why does this always happen to me?" "It's just not fair!" "So I am just going to ignore this and keep doing what I have been doing."

Severe stress is a sign that something is just not right. You must make adjustments to solve the problem. You adapt, you improvise, you overcome. Or you do not, and you get run over by stress.

Stress requires our attention. Stress can be easy to ignore, at least at first. As a result, we tend to do some silly things when stressful situations arise. Ignoring stress rarely makes it go away.

If the car engine is making a noise, you can turn up the radio so that you no longer hear the noise, but the problem still exists. Pay attention to what stress is trying to tell you. Dealing with the problem head on is the best way to handle stress and solve the problem.

Stress management requires the support of others. The power of community in managing stress cannot be overstated. One of the things that made the whole surgery experience and aftermath so much more manageable was our "support families" at church; our son's school; and our neighbors. We all need what business author and speaker Harvey McKay call "3 a.m. friends." These are people that you can call at any time of day or night, and they are going to be there for you, and you there for them. When you are under stress, it's not noble or cool to try to go it alone. It's just plain dumb.

Stress management requires us to take action. The best way to deal with a problem head-on is to take action. While it was tempting to just go home and wait for my stomach cramps to pass, somehow I sensed that this was different from anything I'd ever felt before. When you are under stress, sitting around waiting for it to pass just won't cut it. Take action, do something.

A client recently shared this quote with me: "There are many plans for success. None of them work unless you do." If what you are doing is working, keep doing it, and this will usually lead to solving the problem. If what you are doing is not working, keep changing what you do until something does work and you are successful.

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