5 Stress Hacks to Help You Live a Healthier Life

Man literally under stress.

April is Stress Awareness Month.

Many of us have way too much stress in our lives. Stress doesn’t have to come from dire events. It can be insidious, creeping into your life and taking a toll little by little until you feel like the dude in the picture.

Been there? I have.

It is not new information that stress is physically harmful to you. The Mayo Clinic tells us that, left unchecked, stress can cause serious health problems including heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes. It’s in our best interest to find ways to alleviate it.

I know, you’re thinking, “Easier said than done.” A few years ago I would have agreed with you. But one day, I woke up with the realization that stress was killing me. At that very moment, I committed to making changes.

The first thing I had to do was leave the job of my heart. I loved it, was born to do it, but the stress of being a nonprofit executive was off the chart. But that wasn’t all. Here are five ways I hacked my way to a life with less stress:

1. Breathe. I have experienced the physiological effects of deep breathing. If you’ve never tried breathing mindfully in order to calm down your “fight or flight” stress response, just give this one minute exercise a shot and see how it makes you feel. Deep Breathing Tool

2. Put on headphones and listen to music. It doesn’t matter what kind of music soothes you, but headphones are a must.

3. Drink a cup of tea. Any warm beverage is thought to calm your body, but teas especially so. Mint and chamomile teas are well known to have relaxing effects, but so does rose tea. You can read more about it here.

4. Play with your pets. It’s generally known that having puppies and kittens around lowers our stress levels by increasing serotonin and dopamine. Don’t have a pet? Make a cup of tea and watch this video. Goodbye, stress.

5. Read. I know. You’d expect an author to say this. But immersing yourself in the world of a story can take you away and give you a chance to breathe.

   Do you have any additional stress hacks? Let me know!

Word Candy

Language is fluid, always changing to incorporate new words and phrases. I’m old school and absolutely refuse to accept new meanings or made-up words in my speech or text. 

• My characters will never refer to each other as Bae.

• They will never call something “adorbs”.

Colorful speech bubbles

I am far less rigid when accepting phrases, especially those in an entertainment context.  I have been known to utter. “I’ll be back,” when it fits the situation. “Do you feel lucky?” is a question my dogs have heard when they refuse to do something I tell them to do. I’ve said   “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” and “We’re not in Kansas anymore”  more times than I want to admit.  “Stay behind me if you want to live,” is sure to elicit groans

Sadly, I’ve not been to see a new movie in over two years.  I have, however, gleefully leapt down the rabbit hole known as YouTube. Consequently, I cannot watch a video by a certain group without hearing the comments of Cameron Phillip K.’s dubs.Not unexpectedly, I’ve picked up many new phrases. 

I now submit to you a list of phrases I use all the time that came from my foray into YouTube over the past year.  I’m not including the dozens of phrases that have come from Prince lyrics (you’re welcome) but I apologize in advance if you’ve been subjected to them or the ones below.  

• Party, party, yeah!

• Jimin-Go back to sleep!

• Jimin’s got no jams!

• In this economy, (followed by a non-sequitur: In this economy, she’s prettier than I am.)

• No, not today!

• Stob it!

• World-Wide Handsome.

• He looks like a boiled dumpling.

• and the one we use most—Socks first!

What phrases have inadvertently entered your day-to-day language?

A Circle of Writers

Writing is hard. Even if the story comes easily, figuring out how to tell it may not. Writing is also lonely. You can sit for hours staring at your computer screen. Sure, your cat occasionally graces you with her presence but it’s not the same thing as having other people with you in the sometimes painful, sometimes gleeful, and always powerful journey.

I currently belong to Marketing for Romance Writers. This is an amazing collection of authors who are happy to share each other’s victories and lament each other’s pain. We don’t convene, but we connect in an email loop and social media. CT Romance Writers is another. I’ve belonged to this group the longest and I credit it with helping me to learn the craft and the ins and outs of submitting manuscripts. Both of these groups are relatively large, and while size has its advantages, it also means that it isn’t very intimate and it is not easy to form individual relationships.

That is where CT Writers Circle comes in. This small group of six wonderful women are my tribe. Each of us writes in very different genres—Thrillers. Poetry. Biographies. Ecological Mysteries. Romantic Comedy—and then there’s me, writing spicy LGBT and rock star romance. What connects us isn’t that we write the same thing. It’s that we are compelled to write, and are willing to support each other as women, as writers, and as colleagues.

No matter you passion, it's important to find your circle. I’m fortunate to have found groups of writers that welcomed me, and who make writing less lonely.

Mercury is in Retrograde, and So Am I

Thankfully, Mercury is retrograde just three more days. It started on January 14 and ends on February 3. “What is this?”, you may ask.

Three or four times a year, Mercury appears to be moving backward, and is thought to cause all manner of communication and technological problems. General advice is don’t sign any important contracts and do not buy technology during this period.

Although I don’t usually seem to be affected by this (and I am skeptical of it most of the time), this year I feel it in my bones. My biggest problem, however, is that the technology I need to use in my classroom is failing me. Every day I have to call in IT to fix the display. They get it running in 20 minutes or so, and assure me it is fixed permanently. If that was the case, why am I calling you every day?

Monday, as usual, I called the techs in again. This time, none of their magic worked. They threw their hands up in the air and exclaimed, “We have to call the manufacturer.”

Seriously.

So I have to now rely on old fashion white boards. Without my regular gear, class could be a snoozefest for my students. I am taxing every creative cell in my body to develop lesson plans that will keep them engaged. Or at least awake.

Three more days.

Our Girl Molly

Our girl Molly.

 The past two weeks have been traumatic for everyone involved.  It started when I noticed Molly had a red spot on her leg. We gave her a bath to be able to examine the site more carefully.  That was when we discovered a lump.  We called the vet and made an appointment to take her in the next day. With Molly’s medical history, we did not want to take any chances. I’m sorry to say it got much worse overnight. Her whole leg was swollen and things had gotten messy.

Because of Covid we were not allowed in the office with her, so the emergency vet didn’t have her record for some reason. Her first concern was the swelling in Molly’s leg so we had to explain she has been diagnosed with tumors in her stomach, her liver, and her adrenal gland.  The vet was not very encouraging that any treatment would help Molly, but we wanted to try.  She is still eating, drinking, and enjoying life.

After a lot of talking and again stressing the downside of treating her, she agreed to do what she could.  So, we brought Molly home with 5 different medications and an Elizabethan collar that makes it hard for us to get around.  If she wasn’t running into something with it, I was running into her.

Isn’t she a cutie?

A week later, we were back for a recheck.  Our regular vet was back and the tech that had seen her the week before was amazed at how healed the wound looked.  Sadly, the collar did nothing to protect her leg when slipping on the ice so she kept re-injuring the spot.  One of the suggestions they made was doggie pajamas. Who knew they even existed?

We ordered one to try which was delivered the next day.  It took two of us to get her into them, not because Molly resisted but because we couldn’t figure out the design. That must have been a sight.  Since we wrestled them on, they have protected her leg and kept her warm in these below zero days. And as you can see in the picture, she looks so cute in them that we decided she needed a whole wardrobe. 

Writers Love Words

It’s a fact. Writers love words. We carefully select and arrange them in order to tell a story. Truly, choice of words can make a difference between a novel that resonates with people and one that falls flat.

Over the course of my life, I’ve been enamored by a mispronunciation or adorable misuse. A child I once knew asked for “chockmage” when she wanted chocolate milk. A former foster kid said “sawt” for salt. My sister used to call fringe “fringles”. Speaking of fringe, my niece used to say “french benefits” instead of fringe benefits. My son (when he was much younger and probably will hate me writing this) referred to goosebumps as “freeze blisters”. A former client of mine used to tell people she had ESPN because she knew things. Another client told me she enjoyed “being in my near”—perhaps the sweetest way anyone has ever told me they liked me.

I’ve also fallen in love with words. Not because of their meaning, but because of how the person (typically a person I cared about) said them. My mom, an intelligent, intuitive woman, played with words. Sometimes literally. She’d make up word games to entertain us during long car rides. But she was also playful. “Absolutely positutely,” was a favorite saying. A caterer by trade, she loved desserts made with “nutneg.” She said she was “exhaustipated”, when she was tired down to her bones. By the way, she used that word DECADES before it landed in the Urban Dictionary.)

Some mispronunciations make me swoon. “Beso foda pop had fiz,” is a lyric Prince once sung. Yet another artist I adore sings “Kismas” and my heart melts. Crazy, right? Absolutely positutely.

What misuse or mispronunciations make you smile?

Starting the Year off with New Books!

I know folks who read at least—AT LEAST—a book a month. I’m jealous. There is nothing like losing myself in a book and falling in love with new characters. Maybe some of you feel the same.

In case you do, here are a couple of promotions I recently learned of. Yes, my short story (introducing a new character) is in one and my lesbian vampire book is in the other, but there are also about 70 additional great authors.

Just click on the pictures. The links will take you to an array of books.

This will take you to a page with nearly 50 free books/stories.

LOTS of yummy books on sale!

Enjoy. And Happy New Year. Be safe out there.

The Most Wonderful Time

If you’re like me, December came as a surprise. One second it was Halloween, the next it’s past time to set up the tree.

I know that as you get older, time seems to pass more quickly, but this is crazy. I do have a theory: As bad as 2020 was, 2021 was no better. Covid 2.0 has, much to the surprise of many, been worse than the first. More people are dying, fewer people are taking precautions. Nationally and internationally, t’s been another raging dumpster fire in many ways. So what can we do?

We can have hope. We can have wishes.

Hope for all people, far and wide, to have what we need to have a basic quality of life: food, clean water, shelter, access to medical care. Hope that we get a reasonable handle on our environmental crisis—not for us, but for those who will come behind us. Hope that we recognize that our differences make us stronger, not weaker. Hope that rights for all are recognized, validated and upheld—For men, women, straight , gay, cis-gender or transgender, young and old, no matter race, religion or ethnicity.

Of course, hope requires effort. Let’s do the work. My wish for each of us is that we have the vision and energy we need.

Onward to 2022.

The Meaning of Christmas Cards

Christmas cards are among the things I like most about the Christmas season. There was a time we received nearly 100 cards each year. It was the one time I could look forward to hearing from far flung family members, old school friends, and people who shared my work or other interests. As a bonus many would be accompanied by newsletters, photos, or other extras. It was how we stayed connected to people in our lives whom we seldom saw.

These days I am disappointed at the number of cards that we find in our mailbox. There are many reasons, I know. People died, people moved and lost touch, and people’s lives changed. We have added new ones but somehow our world still feels smaller.

I think cards have become more important as covid has changed so many things that normally make up our behavior. We don’t shop at stores in person, so I really miss all the bright decorations. We don’t attend holiday parties. Our only contact with our neighbors is a wave from the driveway and appreciating their holiday decorations from afar. There is little in my day- to -day life that sets this time apart from any other.

I hope that cards and newsletters make a comeback. They take more effort than some people are willing to put in, but a card with a personal note says that you mean something to someone. And I, for one, consider each and every card a gift from a friend.

Do you send holiday cards?

Grief is an Interesting Emotion

This past week, I discovered that my beloved chiropractor died. His passing stunned me. He was in his forties, healthy and fit by all reports. He died nonetheless.

The day I received the news, I was numb, in utter disbelief. By the time I woke up the next morning, life itself felt surreal. As that second day passed, my sadness, raw as it was, brought to the surface my despair at having lost my sister 4 years ago, and my despondency at Prince’s untimely, senseless death. grief welled up inside me and came out in a torrent. I cried for two more days.

I’m grateful that my partner somehow understands me and tethers me when I feel like I’m drifting. There was a moment where I wailed in lament that life is so fragile and I’ve wasted mine. She said…

“You didn’t waste it—I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

That sweet sentence starting my climb from the abyss. I’m good today, but I’ll carry with me an important observation. No, more than an observation, a truth: Life is fragile. Take great care of yourself, and also live each day as if it could be your last. And tell people you love and appreciate them at every opportunity.

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Abundance and Gratitude

I am, by nature, an emotional person. I cry at television contests (I can’t get through Dancing with the Stars or the Great British Baking Show without tears. Seriously.) I get choked up at family sagas, coming-of-age tales, and most romance stories. My heart is overjoyed when the underdog wins

I’m most emotional at this time of year. Throughout November, I make it a priority to be completely aware of all of the things in my life I’m thankful for: A partner who is my best playmate and who has my back through good years and the rough ones. Friends that love me despite the fact that I’m difficult to love. A job that suits my purpose. Caring and talented doctors. Brilliant and generous coworkers. My lovable dogs. My doll house of a home. Prince. BTS.

I appreciate each and every person who has read my books, signed up for my newsletter, or attended a workshop I’ve given. If you enjoyed them, then I consider you to be a kindred spirit. I’m ever grateful for you.

It hasn’t always been easy. I’ll spare you the details as I’m sure we all have had storms to weather. The point is, I’m grateful for the storms. They brought me here.

From my family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving. May the day bring you peace, joy, and stuffing. Lots of stuffing.