Stress, Available Time and Mental Illness

Time is something that causes stress for many people who happen to have a mental illness/psychiatric diagnosis. Many people feel there is not enough time. Others may feel there is too much time in a day. When there is too much or too little time in our lives it can affect our health.

When we are under stress, when we feel there is too little time and are trying to hurry; injuries and accidents may happen. When injuries and accidents happen, we end up having to take more time to recover or fix what might have become broken. Then we end up with less time than we had to begin with.

Time stress, feeling fatigued and trying to fight that fatigue may feel as if it is a full-time job all on its own. Every day people look for answers to fatigue through energy drinks, protein powders and caffeine. Feeling fatigued and stressed makes many want to inhale calorie-laden foods that are filled with fat and sugar. These foods when eaten are often accompanied by a drop in energy as the impact of the food or drink wears off so then we eat more to bring our energy level back up.

Here are 6 things we can do to help manage what little time we do have better.

Know what your priorities are and focus putting your energy in that direction. Do you want to be more healthy? Focus energy there. Would you like to go to college or get a job or a different job? Focus energy there. Many people try to do everything all at once and it becomes too much. Focusing on your priorities can help. Say no when you don’t want to do something. When one is feeling really stressed for time saying yes to things means less time. Try to say yes when it helps you accomplish one of your priorities and no to other things. Think about what you would really like to do instead of just saying yes. Find a way of keeping track of where the time you have is going. There are a lot of games and applications that take time; is your time getting spent mindlessly in one of the games or on Facebook? Are you sitting for hours in a doctors office? There are a number of ways to keep tabs on where your time is going. Is there an online calendar or PDA that you can use? Many people like Google calendars because they are so simple. Or do you prefer a notebook style calendar? Anyone of these will work if you use them Running late may also cause stress. If you are an “on time” person and all those around you don’t pay as much attention to time, that may cause a lot of chronic time stress. Or if you are always late and find it something to worry about, that may cause chronic time stress. Using a timer set ahead of when one needs to leave may help. There are timers on many watches, phones, ipods, mp3 players and other gadgets that may be used to help one get out the door on time. Get rid of some of the stuff you may have that you don’t use or need. A lot of our time in today’s world seems to be spent getting stuff that we don’t use which we then spend time caring for. When we have more stuff than we have time to care for, many end up feeling overburdened and frustrated. Cars, houses, boats, motorcycles and even little things like toasters, 3 TVs, 6 different kinds of radios, all the little electronics all can cause stress. This is especially true when gadgets don’t work well and you have to pay to get them fixed or have to replace them on top of all the time you spend maintaining them. If you do the freebie sites or shop online for deals, have a separate email account. This can save you from having to sift through endless viagra or other offers while trying to find that important email from your friend asking you to the concert.

One may have to find time by figuring out where what time we have is going. Some may choose to try to find extra minutes by sleeping less while others may choose to eliminate wasted minutes. We each get 1,440 minutes every day. How we spend them is up to each of us.


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