The Stress Quest
Being the mother of seven you would think life would be happy, fun, stress free…wait a minute, stress free? Do we even know the meaning of “stress free”? I don’t think I can remember a stress free moment in this house. Is it even possible? Can a seven year old even have stress? Stress can increase the rate of development for many disease processes such as heart disease. Could this stress be affecting our health? With this thought I set out on an exciting quest. Together my entire family will come up with new ways of making our household life less stressful by putting our heads together and brainstorming in just thirty days. We will monitor our individual stress levels on a scale of 1-10 at family meetings, invent new and exciting ways to lower our totals, and by the end of thirty days, be a happier, healthier family.
My husband and I live a hurried life with seven children and three dogs. I believe that stress has always been an issue in our home due to the number of people and different personalities all combined under one roof. Several years ago when I became disabled, we were forced to live on just one income. Being the savvy person that I am, we made the adjustment. But so many financial problems have come up over this period of time and caused us stress; we always seem to pull through, somehow. As the children keep getting older though, more things keep popping up. Stress has become a part of our everyday life but are we as happy and healthy as we could be?
There have been many contributing factors to our stress; most recently has been several family deaths. Last year, my husband’s grandfather passed way. He meant the world to my husband and he took his passing quite hard. Earlier this year all of my children became ill. After seeing several specialists, my children and I were all diagnosed with Chronic Lyme Disease. The medical bills began pouring in and the fight began with the insurance company to pay them. My mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in August, two weeks later she passed away. I had to make the trip to take care of all those family matters and came home with her dog on the airplane. Last weekend, three weeks after my mother passing, her younger brother passed away. The stress in our home has just been enormous, which is not healthy. Thus stress is something in this home that I would love to improve.
Being a nurse I know what stress alone can do to the body. Each individual handles stress differently and it can take a toll on those who don’t handle it well. Stress increases your chances of a heart attack, can cause blood sugar fluctuations in diabetics, and can decrease the chances that your immune system will be able to fight off infection. The stress that my family has been under over the last year would not be good on any family. I know families who have suffered with much less and been torn apart. I definitely don’t want that to happen to my family. Some of my family members withdraw their feelings while others tend to lash out. So I am going to use this opportunity to strengthen our family unit and make a real difference in our lives.
The first item on my agenda is to start having family meetings again. This was something we had done in the past when I had become disabled and we needed to figure out how we were going to cut that loss into our budget. I have always believed in full family involvement and family meetings are a great way to keep that going. Next, we are all going to monitor and gauge our own personal stress levels. Even my seven year old, the youngest of the group, suffers from the stress level of the household. She has high blood pressure and if we can lower her stress level, it may improve her health as well. Finally, family brainstorming, at our family meetings we will all toss out ideas that may improve the stress levels in the house as well as each of our individual lives. For example, it would stress me a lot less if I did not have to remind my son about his chores every day. We will find solutions to alleviate such things.
The rules of my quest will be that we will have family meetings three times each week. The days and times will be posted on the refrigerator every Sunday night. You may only be excused from one meeting per week due to other commitments. Everyone must complete two stress evaluations each week at a minimum. These stress evaluations will be used to gauge the success or failure of this quest. All family members must participate during family meetings, cell phones will not be allowed in the room. Each family member must bring at least one of their stressors up at each meeting in an attempt to resolve the stressor. Each family member must commit to this cause.
I expect great things from this quest. So many things will be put out in the open for us to resolve as a family. By lowering the stress level in the home, I believe not only will the family feel healthier; the dogs will be less stressed as well. The most challenging part of this quest will be to get my older children to more than one family meeting a week and to walk away from their cell phones for an hour. But with the promise to them that the three meetings per week will only last for one month, I think they will commit without too much resistance.
This challenge will take my family and hopefully other families into a new, more carefree lifestyle. With the drop in the economy, families have been under great stress. This has caused a rise in divorce and family separation that may be completely unnecessary. With the health issues my family is already suffering, cold and flu season is not something we are taking lightly. If we can decrease the stress that we are all under on a daily basis, our health may improve as well. I am making this quest a complete health challenge for my family. And in case you are wondering, I did discuss this quest with my family over dinner to make sure it was something they would all be interested in completing together before taking on such a feat. Hopefully this quest will inspire other families to work together and build up their family unit instead of letting their family slip away.
