A schedule for worrying?

I read an article today called 15 Ways to Stop Worrying and Sleep Better. Before we get to that, though, isn’t it funny that self-help articles always claim that there are a “pretty” number of steps/tasks to do in order to accomplish something? I always wonder how many items on these lists are padding to bring it up to an even number. Or, God forbid, what crucially important thing was cut out to get it down to a good count?

Anyway, the most useful and interesting thing I pulled from this article was #4 – Put worry on a schedule. The idea is not to try to stop worrying, but to set aside some time regularly to deal with your anxieties so that they don’t interfere with your sleepy time.

“In today’s busy world, we don’t have time to do normal worrying until the lights go out,” says Dr. Mary Susan Esther, director of the Sleep Center at South Park in Charlotte, North Carolina, and president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. “Yet everyone needs a worry time,” she adds. The trick is to schedule it on a regular basis, early in the evening—any time before 8:00 p.m. 

The article goes on to suggest quickly jotting down each worry you have on a separate index card brainstorm-style. Then, go back through the cards and think about each problem. Is there anything you can do about this situation? If the answer is no, rip up the card and throw it away. If it’s yes, write down some possible actions you can take, put the card in a “worry box” and then give it some more thought the next day and decide what you’re going to do.

I like this approach. As someone who does what I feel is probably more than my fair share of worrying/obsessing/panicking, and often about things I have no business worrying about, I think it would be unnatural NOT to worry. Instead, this exercise would focus on getting things down on paper (already reducing their scariness by making them tangible) and then clearly thinking about them. If I can’t possibly do anything to change the situation or issue, I should just rip up the card and maybe hope for some of that serenity thing people talk about.

I would go a step further on the action side, though. Goal-setting experts always stress the importance of forward motion, or inertia, when accomplishing tasks. So if there’s something that can be done about a worry, I would say that your best bet isn’t to write those things down and then set it aside. Take a few minutes to estimate how long such a solution would take and write down the various tasks involved. Then, schedule something you can do the next day or at the very least this week. That way, you don’t have to start a whole new “worry box” for all the worrying you’ll do about the stuff you’re not doing about your original worries. Or maybe that would just be me…

Coming soon to simplysonya, “10 Things You Can Do at the First Sign of a Zombie Apocalypse”.

Dealing with disappointment

Sorry for the delay since my last post. I’ve been focused on other things for the past few weeks…some of which involved a major positive change I was hoping to make. I found out yesterday that I came a close second for something that I really, really wanted. I got excellent feedback but I was still quite disappointed.

I suppose I’ll treat it as a “sign from the universe” that I need to stop and reassess where I’m at and where I’m going. It’s better to be running towards something than running away from something, after all. I’m better to set my sights on a goal and focus on developing myself to get there, as opposed to whining about the place I’m at now.

I do know that lots of positive vibes can be had simply by accomplishing small things on the way to a goal (the act of forward motion is quite powerful to your state of mind). But as I warned Joe, I am allowed to mope for a few days until the dust settles. Then, after enough self-pity has been had, I can pick myself up, dust myself off and start again.

These contents may be disturbing

I came across the most disturbing photographs today, courtesy of the website Life Without Plastic. Chris Jordan is a photographer who recently spent some time on Midway Atoll, “a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific” as he describes it on his website. There, he found a few of the tens of thousands of albatross chicks who have perished with bellies full of human plastic waste fed to them by their parents.

If there exists a more powerful visual cue of the horrific impact that we ignorant humans are having on this planet, I don’t want to see it. I warn you, it’s pretty heart-wrenching. Please see Mr. Jordan’s website here and click on the “Midway: Message from the Gyre” link to see the collection.

Please – stop using disposable plastics! And for the love of the planet, RECYCLE!

Look who’s forty!

Sesame Street begins its 40th season today, can you believe it? The Ottawa Citizen explores all the famous guest stars on the ‘Street, including Michelle Obama, in an article today.

And OH MY GOODNESS if you ever want to re-live your childhood, check out the wealth of clips on YouTube. Have you seen the latest clip? A Mad Men parody featuring Guy Smiley as Don Draper…a perfect muppet match if there ever was one!

Here are a few of my favourites from childhood: Fishing with Ernie and Bert, The Count counting sheep, and those Yip Yip Martians! There’s also Kermit’s News Flash (there they are again!) and a skit about cooperation that my husband and I were just talking about the other day, the Geefle and the Gonk. And one to scare my brother…Cookie Monster’s nightmare!

Was there anything that Sesame Street didn’t teach us?

Thoughts are brewing

I’ve had some great ideas for blog posts the past few weeks but very little time to write them down. Hopefully that will change soon; in the meantime, I’ve added a new page called “Quotes and other tidbits” where I can drop all those little things that strike me as I find them. The kind of things that can be so powerful when you discover them but can get lost along the way if you don’t collect them in one place.

Please feel free to add your own favourite quotes or thoughts in the comments!

If a tree falls in the forest and you’re talking on your cellphone…

A study out of Western Washington University is the latest in a long list of experiments that demonstrate just how distracted the human mind can be when focusing on a mental task like talking on a cellphone. In psychology, this phenomenon is called “inattentional blindness” and it’s the reason that cellphone usage should be banned for drivers altogether – both hand-held and hands-free. It’s not only the physical dialing or texting on a phone that distracts drivers and causes accidents but the conversations themselves. When the mind is busy focusing on something, even the most obvious things can escape our attention.

Not convinced? See if you can count the number of basketball passes the team in white makes when there is another team in black shirts running around them distracting you in this awareness test (video) from the UK.

Although Ontario’s new law banning hand-held devices is a good start, it’s simply not enough if we want to prevent distraction-caused accidents. Besides concerns about the actual impact of bans and their enforcement, I think what truly needs to happen is a movement that makes people aware of the consequences of driving while distracted and makes it socially unacceptable, much like the anti-drunk driving movement has accomplished in the past two decades. Maybe a TV spot showing a mom driving her children to an activity, the kids buckled snuggly in the backseat while mom is having an animated conversation on her cellphone. The camera angle switches to an upcoming street light, which turns quickly from yellow to red. Mom doesn’t notice and continues into the intersection, where the SUV is broadsided by a fast-moving transport truck. Squealing tires, crunching metal, shattering glass, and then the commercial fades to black while a car horn blows continuously. “Driving while distracted kills” in big bold letters. That kind of thing.

We want to consult the public…without hearing what they have to say

Don’t ever send an email to the mayor!

You know, I can’t say I have a final opinion one way or another about the Lansdowne Live proposal; I haven’t done the in-depth research required to hold an educated opinion. I’m hesitant because it’s a lot of money and it appears that only one company/group was able to submit a proposal. On the other hand, I think Ottawa needs to stop cancelling projects and concentrate on developing an all-encompassing vision of its future. What will make this city better? What will make people want to live here? What will make residents at their wits’ end want to stay?

Until city council has developed such a vision, I think they’ll just be chasing their tails until election time.

And they needed a study to tell them this?

Scientists confirmed today what most have already expected…that the scientific community spends far too much time confirming things we already know instead of discovering things we don’t know yet and/or want to know. Did you know that girls cry more than boys? http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Women+more+than+longer+Researchers/2100091/story.html

Irony…or stupidity?

Hmm…who would have thought a gun-crazed attitude would lead to a violent end? http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/08/gun.soccer.mom.dead/index.html

I only feel sorry for the poor children who are left to pick up the pieces. Hopefully they’ll learn the lesson that guns are bad.

Happy blog-iversary

Well, I’ve been at it for more than a year! Not writing as often as I would like, mind you, but it’s always nice to leave some room for improvement, right?

Joe and I are in the process of starting a master to-do list for the house – we’ve decided it will be much easier to organize and far less overwhelming to get everything down on paper and start assigning some deadlines to the top priorities. Otherwise, the winter will pass just as quickly as the summer did and we’ll still sitting around saying “gee, we should really…”.

Maybe I’ll post a few things just for fun so everyone can see if we’re really accomplishing what we’ve set out to do. Nothing like making yourself accountable to your plans to ensure you get things done!