“You need to reduce your stress levels,” my doctor told me today after finishing an endoscopy on my stomach. “You’ve developed a nervous stomach that is physically reacting to stress in your daily life--you need to relax.”
Does that mean I can get a prescription for a chill pill?
Now, I’m not a firefighter, or a doctor, or a police officer. Nobody’s life depends on my work, but I’ve been conditioned to believe that somehow the world is going to collapse if my work isn’t perfect all the time. Sometimes it’s hard to step back and realize that the cold hard fact is that my job, while I am passionate about it, is really just a job. It’s not my life and it’s not the definition of who I am.
Many of my college peers have moved on to high flying careers. Late nights spent at the office have paid off, as many have excelled in their jobs. However, the more I look at the big picture, the more I wonder if the true cost of these promotions and raises isn’t only our time, effort, and social lives. I wonder if maybe we’re paying for it with our health.
In recent months I have heard my friends complain of health problems that in my mind were isolated to our parents and their age bracket. Slipped disc, stomach ulcers, and high cholesterol are only a few of the different conditions that have begun to plague the younger generation. The saddest part is that most are attributed to work related causes, such as long hours in front of a computer or high stress levels at the office.
To put things simply, our jobs are killing us.
I’m unsure if our parents encountered the same amount of stress we do at our age, but I do know for a fact that high cholesterol was among the last things on their minds when they were 24. In my yoga class, the instructor constantly reminds us that we need to listen to our bodies, and never push them further than they are ready to be pushed. While I adhere to this during downward dog and sun salutations, I find that I mute my body during the rest of my life. Instead, I shut it up with coffee and trudge on despite its weary cries.
And so my body seems to have decided that desperate times call for desperate measures and descended these cries upon my stomach. It took fear of an ulcer for me to step back and realize that I really do need to slow down, that I do need to respect my body more.
Maybe in modern times it’s no longer just a work/life balance that eludes us. Maybe now it’s the work/life/health balance.
At a conference I recently attended, there was a presentation about new global trends. The one that piqued my interest the most was a movement toward conscious efforts to slow down our fast paced lives. To illustrate the point, the speaker showed us a product called Slow Cow (www.slowcowdrink.com), which is a drink that parodies Red Bull. The drink’s main ingredient is L-Theanine, a derivative of tea leaves that produces a “feeling of relaxation.”
I was amazed by the insight that this product was built upon, this constant urge to slow down in a world that is forever telling you to run faster. It’s almost a need for rebellion against a society that had taught us that take-away coffee is no longer a novelty, it’s a necessity.
So is the era of travel mug coffee over? Are we ready to listen to our bodies and take a few extra minutes every day to slow down the clock? Will we really accept replacing Red Bull with Slow Cow?
If you ask me, I’m ready. I do still think I need that chill pill prescription, though, because green tea and Slow Cow are definitely not enough to fuel my internal revolution.
