Avoiding stress heads!

Jules

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If there's one thing I've learned recently is that my family are stress heads.

Each and every one of them gets themselves worked up about stupid stuff and ends up ill.

They even stress about stuff that concerns me before it's even happened.
They throw bucket loads of 'advice' at me that I never asked for or wanted, and most of it is engineered to vent their stress levels on to someone else.

Now, maybe I'm lucky that I'm able to care less about things, but I actively avoid stress and am healthier because of it.
If I feel a bit of stress coming on, I do some physical exercise to burn off the adrenalin, then do something to change what made me stress a little.


My family think I'm horrible because I don't get involved with family stuff any more, and the truth is I could do without their negative and deconstructive behaviours.

So how do you avoid the 'stress heads' in your life?
 
My family are the same. The only thing I feel that I can do is just treat them the same way as other sources of stress, and just try not to get too involved in whatever it is they're getting worked up about.

My parents are always telling me to be careful about stuff that they know little about. I just have to tell myself that what they're saying comes from concern for me. No point engaging with them and tellng them they're wrong, as it'd just turn into a row.

They're in their 70s, and every time there's a TV show about credit card fraud or identity theft or something like that they're straight on to me. If there's a feature on something on This Morning or The One Show they think they're experts.

Despite the fact I've been into AV for years, my Dad took advice from a free Which? Mag rather than from me when he was buying a TV. He ended up buying a duffer. I was really disappointed for him, but couldn't get into a row with him about it as he was just doing what he thought best.

It's difficult, because sometimes you just want to shake them and tell them to chill out, but if you get worked up you just make the problem worse :)
 
How do I avoid them? Well there's 200 miles between me and my Brother and that does the job quite nicely :)
 
How do I avoid them? Well there's 200 miles between me and my Brother and that does the job quite nicely :)

Bliss. :)

Unfortunately my parents are 80, so moving that far away isn't really a sensible option as they do need help sometimes.

It sounds horribly cruel, but I could honestly walk away from my family and not be upset about it. It's just the sense of duty that keeps me around.
 
Well, there's the English Channel then about 650 miles of the UK between my parents and I, doesn't stop them though. If only the telephone hadn't been invented :D
 
My family are the same, having the ability to find the problem/issue with everything and worry about it.

It's only when you step away, that you realise that other people are having much more enjoyable, happy lives by not worrying, and only addressing problems when they arise.

I fight very hard to avoid it myself, but it does sometimes get the better of me!
 
+1

My parents are always negative about everything, always moaning & arguing. I actually turned round the other week & suggested if life is so dire, either divorce or commit suicide & do us all a bloody favour.

We've not spoken since, heaven.
 
There's an old adage that goes something along the lines of..
Have the courage to change the things you about accept.
Have the strength to accept the things you can't change.
Have the wisdom to know the difference.

Or something like that...

It's pretty much a rule for my life!

My family are not too bad but do tend to think they are resident experts on anything that catches their attention. That can be irritating.
My missus family, are useless ****'s. Lazy, and paranoid and everything is doom and gloom and it's all someone else's fault...
 
It sounds horribly cruel, but I could honestly walk away from my family and not be upset about it. It's just the sense of duty that keeps me around.

I'm sure your parents raised you through love and not duty. I also find it strange that you call them the stress heads, yet you were stressed enough about the situation to go on the net and basically declare you don't give a crap about them.
 
mrtbag said:
I'm sure your parents raised you through love and not duty. I also find it strange that you call them the stress heads, yet you were stressed enough about the situation to go on the net and basically declare you don't give a crap about them.

Heard this before?

Walk a mile in.....


Besides, he could well be saying it in jest, like I was. Lighten up Jeeez Mr Righteous.


BB
 
Heard this before?

Walk a mile in.....


Besides, he could well be saying it in jest, like I was. Lighten up Jeeez Mr Righteous.


BB

Didn't see any smiley or anything that would suggest it was said in jest.

In my life, family are at the top of my priorities.

Sorry to read you haven't had a good experience with yours. I guess you could said i'm the other side of the coin. Nothing righteous about what I said, just a reminder that *most* parents only do what they do through love. Even when they are being a royal pain in arse.
 
My family are OK like that fortunately.
The stress heads I avoid are those on the roads, I find quieter routes and times plus allowing enough time for the journey.
 
I've not been able to avoid the stress heads today, as it's been me!
Working a late turn so starting at 2p.m.. I'd left with plenty of time as I if to get fuel. Stopped off at the petrol station and joined a queue where I was the 2nd car waiting.
ALL the other motorists were pensioners. They seemed to be doing their best to annoy me! Going slower than a sloth on downers, doing a weekly shop in the garage them looking at me like I was naked and trying to hump their cat Tiddles!
Felt like shouting at them!

And breathe.....
 
Jules said:
Bliss. :)

Unfortunately my parents are 80, so moving that far away isn't really a sensible option as they do need help sometimes.

It sounds horribly cruel, but I could honestly walk away from my family and not be upset about it. It's just the sense of duty that keeps me around.

that is exactly how I feel, it may seem stupid to a few care less people that I didn't upsticks from Liverpool to Bournemouth last month when offered a golden opportunity BUT however, I feel a duty of honour to be here when my parents 70+ yo need me

no one else will give up their lifestyles to do it and nephews and nieces certainly wouldnt

mum n dad are fairly cool for me though but just a tad unadventurous
 
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My wife's family is just like that. Absolute experts at making mountains out of molehills. And once they've got a mountain, it's time for the family to "rally round" (ie interfere). And it's a bloody large extended family...aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, pets...I don't know if it's because they are Catholic, or just very close. But the family motto is clearly "a problem shared is a problem multiplied" :)

Fortunately we live in Germany now, so the days of us being physically involved in the rallying round are long gone...bliss! Wife gets dragged in via telephone, but usually I stay out of it, because almost without exception the crisis is actually nothing of the sort, and usually resolves itself in a day or two anyway. But until then, the phone lines are humming white hot!
 
Each and every one of them gets themselves worked up about stupid stuff and ends up ill.

They even stress about stuff that concerns me before it's even happened.
They throw bucket loads of 'advice' at me* that I never asked for or wanted, and most of it is engineered to vent their stress levels on to someone else.

On what exactly? Genuinely silly little things or stuff that many would find serious.
 
On what exactly? Genuinely silly little things or stuff that many would find serious.
Here area a just a couple of very recent examples:

1) My job has just been made redundant, I'm setting up a partnership with an ex work-colleague, and I'm moving in with a girl more than 10 years my junior.
My family see all this as a disaster waiting to happen, where I see it as an amazing opportunity to be happier and more successful in something I love doing.

2) I'm doing a bungee jump this weekend. My family are convinced I'm going to die and tell me I'm being selfish and stupid.
Don't get me wrong, I'm secretly pooping my pants (lol) but when I listen to their dull attitude to everything it makes me want the bungee chord to snap! (not literally of course).


Of course these are just things fresh in my head and might seam like they are just caring about me, but it goes way beyond that.
If they themselves find something as little as a dud lightbulb, it starts a 2 hour whinge about how rubbish lightbulbs are these days, how expensive they are and how the light they give off is the wrong colour.
 
I'm the same as some here i.e. lucky!

Me - Newark

Brother -Brighton

Parents - Ireland

Sister - New Zealand

State of mind - bliss...

As for avoiding stress at work, dead easy, I picked a spot with a massive monitor which means I can't see my colleagues and they can't see me! Oh and if they start bitching about someone else I clearly state, 'I don't want to get involved' and walk off..
 
If they themselves find something as little as a dud lightbulb, it starts a 2 hour whinge about how rubbish lightbulbs are these days, how expensive they are and how the light they give off is the wrong colour.

Ah that's just called getting old. Try taking them into Costa coffee and watch them moan about a Latte costing £2.50, and how a coffee used to be 10p a cup. :)
 
Here area a just a couple of very recent examples:

1) My job has just been made redundant, I'm setting up a partnership with an ex work-colleague, and I'm moving in with a girl more than 10 years my junior.
My family see all this as a disaster waiting to happen, where I see it as an amazing opportunity to be happier and more successful in something I love doing.

2) I'm doing a bungee jump this weekend. My family are convinced I'm going to die and tell me I'm being selfish and stupid.
Don't get me wrong, I'm secretly pooping my pants (lol) but when I listen to their dull attitude to everything it makes me want the bungee chord to snap! (not literally of course).


Of course these are just things fresh in my head and might seam like they are just caring about me, but it goes way beyond that.
If they themselves find something as little as a dud lightbulb, it starts a 2 hour whinge about how rubbish lightbulbs are these days, how expensive they are and how the light they give off is the wrong colour.

Sounds to me like you've got the right attitude there!
In my experience people don't like to see someone they are supposed to be close to, succeed. So they hide it by being negative about everything. Because they are too lazy and too selfish and too scared to try to improve themselves because they are scared of failure.
They don't want you to succeed and improve yourself and possibly move on and away from them.
 
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orpheus said:
Ah that's just called getting old. Try taking them into Costa coffee and watch them moan about a Latte costing £2.50, and how a coffee used to be 10p a cup. :)

Despite the lightbulb subject being quite silly to me, this seems quite rational and fair. Give me one reason as to why it was a good idea to increase the prices, eh? eh?
 

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