Less Netflix, More Chill

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of speaking to a group of women in our church at an event. This is a copy of that talk!

So something that has interested me for quite a while now is STRESS. 

What is stress? According to the dictionary Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances.

I looked up some stats, and apparently when asked to rate our stress from 1 to 10, the average answer given is 6. So, it sounds to me like we want to be clear that we’re ok- we have it together… but don’t expect too much out of me because I AM just slightly more stressed than I should be. Women report on average, a 5% higher answer than men. And I’m sure none of you will be surprised that generationally speaking, Millennials report the highest levels of stress. 

So, what are we all so stressed about? Beats me. That’s not what I’m here to talk about tonight. The truth is that stress is there in all stages of life, and its real, and it’s probably not going anywhere. 

Almost a Year Down The Road

I can't decided where to start or what to write, so I'm just going to start typing, and we'll see what comes out. Sound good? Great. My last post was on October 23rd. Almost 8 months ago? I'm pretty sure I was a different person on October 23rd. I wrote about post partum depression and how I had just started taking medication, which if I remember correctly, was in late August of last year. So now I've been on medication for nearly a year. 

I want to be very careful about how I share this journey because I realize so much more now than I ever have before how insensitive it can be to make claims on mental health. Whether you admit it or not, we all have preconceived notions on what mental health struggles are like. I'm sure if you hear the words depression or anxiety you have ideas of what those things are, and you likely even have a person in your life that struggles with one or both. You probably also have idea of what medication for these things is like, and/or what it is like to be on these medications.