What's Up Wednesdays: Stress and Anxiety

Do you ever feel like the girl above? Do life’s stresses get to you? Do you feel like screaming sometimes? Well, you’re not alone. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that stress and anxiety are inherently aspects of our everyday lives. These challenges are necessary and it’s how we choose to overcome them that makes all the difference. It’s how we grow.

For this week’s edition of What’s Up Wednesdays, we turn to the blogging community to see what they have to say about stress, anxiety, depression, and related circumstances that may appear to be less than pleasant on the surface. How did they deal? How would you deal?

Kathryn Vercillo can get stressed out, just like the rest of us, so she’s trying to commit to a strategy for a better life-work balance. She’s trying to take tech-free days, completely eschewing the attraction of the computer, cell phone, and even the television! While I try to avoid doing too much work on the weekends, I don’t think that I could cast my cell phone and TV aside for entire days at a time.

Damien Riley has found a natural cure for depression anxiety. The idea may have come from a pediatrician’s office, but it’s just as applicable to the adults in the audience. Overcome that depression anxiety with a hobby. Pursue something that you really love and let life’s stresses melt away, if only for a few minutes each day. Collect stamps. Learn karate. It doesn’t matter; just do something.

Bob Buskirk works from home and he’s in business for himself, so he and I share many of the same kinds of experiences. We both struggle with motivation sometimes and it can feel like we’re just running in a hamster wheel. That can be very depressing, so that’s why it’s important to set the right goals using timelines of different lengths. What do you want to accomplish today? This month? In the long term?

Jessica Gottlieb is having a reflective moment that can be quite depressing. She lost her dear friend two and a half years ago and she still misses him terribly. To make matters more complicated, she lied and she’d do it again. She told the hospital staff on that fateful day that she was the sister of the AIDS patient, because his partner of 14 years had no legal rights. The laws of gay marriage can be very painful and discriminating.

The Simple Dollar feels that it is important to save for your retirement, but there is such a thing as going too far. It is very possible to over-save for retirement. Haruki wrote in and he’s setting over 30% of his annual salary aside for retirement, quite possibly at the expense of his happiness and lifestyle today. It might sound like a good problem to have too much money upon retirement, but it has its pitfalls too. How much do you save?