Comments on: Seven ways to cope with stress

By: Jacky

Jacky — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:20:15 +0000

Great article. It would help me release the stress and sharing to my friends to cope with stress too.
As I know if we don’t focus on stress, we will not feel the stress is stress.

By: Layla

Layla — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 21:56:45 +0000

For engineering students: eliminate some projects by dropping a course, and sleep for 12 hours while your super-friends are studying for the midterm.

By: Doug P

Doug P — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 03:22:48 +0000

All are great ideas.

I am wondering if Mr. Bach was stressed how stressed his wife must have been?

Thanks for the great posts.

By: Laetitia in Australia

Laetitia in Australia — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 02:13:46 +0000

Of Bach’s 20 children, only 10 made it to adulthood and of the ones who died young, only one made it to the vicinity of age 5 (haven’t found exact birth and death dates for this one). The oldest and youngest surviving children of Maria Barbara (1st wife) were about 15 and 9 respectively by the time the first child of Anna Magdalene (2nd wife) was born.

The eldest child being a girl could well have been working (mother’s helper / servant / lady’s maid / governess – depending on the father’s social standing at the time) and therefore neither a burden nor underfoot by the time her half brothers and sisters were born.

All that being said, parents in those times may have been less stressed about parenting simply because there were less choices. There’s only so much information our brains can handle and they wouldn’t have had things like 20 different lines of toilet paper to have to chose from or 15 different health insurance provider plans to differentiate (and that’s the whittled down list!) or multiple lines of electronic media, let alone paper or parish gossip sources of news to process.

The survival mode Allen is talking about is when things are so bad or schedules are so tight that all the dross falls away and the truly important things about which decisions MUST be made shine through. When assignments are due, non-essential housework doesn’t happen.

By: lafou

lafou — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:47:44 +0000

Put Bach in an apartment with 20 kids and see what happens.

By: WilliamB

WilliamB — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 12:51:10 +0000

The remedies are all good but I think the example of Bach is specious and distracts from the good remedies.

In addition to Violetsrose’s excellent points, Frau Bach wasn’t caring for all 20 at the same time, that children were raised differently and to different expectations (e.g., less parental oversight, more responsibilities, apprenticeship), and that many mothers had help – hired, relatives, older children.

I also wonder if David Allen’s proposition – that people back then didn’t feel overloaded as we do now – is correct. Parents in that century faced famine, war, numerous lethal childhood diseases, needing much of the day for the labor to keep a household fed and clothed. And little way around any of these. For example, watching your child get a disease you know will be fatal and that you can’t do anything about, is overwhelming for most.

By: Violetsrose

Violetsrose — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 08:54:04 +0000

Comparing modern parents’ busy lives with Bach’s life with his 20 children is nonsense – when he lived the convention would have been for women to do ALL the childcare – he would not have cooked for them, fed them, washed their clothes, changed their bums, got them ready each day, bathed them at night, got up when they cried in the night, nursed them when they were sick, driven them to nursery/school/football practice/ballet – none of these things – even in the picture this links to you see him carrying on with his music, oblivious to what is going on around him
Now if you’d compared our busy lives with his WIFE, that would have made more sense!

By: Dawn F

Dawn F — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 20:15:37 +0000

@NettyM: WELL SAID!

By: Rashelle

Rashelle — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:54:00 +0000

I’d add one more strategy to the mix: simply pay attention to what is going on in your life, right here, right now. You might be able to nip stressful situations in the bud!

By: NettyM

NettyM — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:47:10 +0000

Related to staying healthy: Maintain healthy relationships.

For me this means both personally and professionally. Toxic people are a drainon everything – they literally suck the life out of you to try to make themselves feel better. A toxic boss (or spouse, sad to say) won’t allow you to do the other things on the list. You’ll find yourself being far more productive when you’re not constantly hearing negative comments, pressure, and blame. You are more than what these horrible people may say.