Ever wonder why you feel so stressed out all the time? We’ve rounded up the most popular culprits.

A recent survey by NeuroBliss revealed 44 percent of Americans spend over 2,000 hours a year stressed out – and that’s just the stress we’re aware of. Holy. Crap.

Stress is good for us in the short-term – it boosts our immune system, motivates us and energizes our bodies. (Admit it: you feel pretty badass when you accomplish something that scares you a little.) But many of us are doing it all wrong, pushing ourselves to extremes and getting stressed out for all the wrong reasons. We can’t tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy stress anymore, and what’s worse: we’re used to it.

“When you have too many stress ‘inputs,’ whether good or bad, they can pile on top of each other very quickly,” says Shawn M. Talbott, Ph.D., author of The Secret of Vigor: How to Overcome Burnout, Restore Metabolic Balance, and Reclaim Your Natural Energy. “The good stressors don’t cancel out the bad – they all add up at once.”

The key, says Talbott, is to take inventory of all of your sources of stress – the short-term, and the ongoing – and start creating boundaries to prevent getting stressed out. Most of us are well-aware of our limits but push ourselves to go further by justifying our actions (i.e. “I really need the money,” or “I don’t want to let anyone down.”), and don’t take stock of what it’s going to do to our bodies in the long-term. Start listening to your body: figure out which areas or situations cause you to be stressed out and decide exactly what you’re going to do about them.

For example, when it comes to my cell phone, I get a little…cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Between checking my e-mail every 35 seconds to lunging at it every time I receive a text, I really need to get a grip. (Sometimes I check for texts “in case” I didn’t hear it! Face. Palm.) By creating a few small boundaries: turning off e-mail notifications, only texting when it’s actually convenient, and turning my ringer off before bed, I’ve managed to be less stressed out and, you know, have a life again.

By being mindful of how you feel throughout the day, you’ll also be able to suss out autopilot behaviors that are causing you stress behind-the-scenes, such as:

1. Ignoring bodily reactions.
It’s estimated that 70 percent of people suffer from food intolerances that cause symptoms – from mild to severe – in any system of the body.

2. Criticizing yourself.
Self-criticism is linked to stress-induced changes in our biochemistry, making us more susceptible to engage in unhealthy behaviors (like overeating or drinking).

3. Watching television.
Sure, it takes our mind off painful emotions and stress – but it doesn’t decrease them. It also contributes to a sedentary lifestyle that actually causes our bodies to be more stressed out in the end.

4. Shallow breathing.
When we’re stressed out our breathing becomes shallow, which brings on fatigue and even more stress because of a lack of oxygen in our cells.

5. Slouching.
Poor posture creates muscle imbalances that can alter your body’s motor patterns.

6. Avoiding emotions.
It takes energy to suppress emotions once they’re triggered. A recent study by the University of Canterbury showed a link between avoidance coping and higher levels of anxiety.

7. Saying yes… to everything.
When we let our sense of obligation call the shots, we overextend and exhaust ourselves.

8. Sweating the small stuff.
A recent study in Psychological Science revealed that people who let everyday stress get to them have a higher risk of psychological distress ten years from now. (Let the hyperventilating begin!)

9. Multitasking.
Women are especially prone to multitasking, says Talbott, which leads to weakened focus, increased errors and lowers our ability to block irrelevant information (which we already suck at in the first place).

10. Hoarding mail.
Letting your mail pile is a stressor on its own, never mind how it contributes to other stressors like lost bills, late payments, finance charges, bad credit… sigh.

Even though stress is no longer considered a badge of honor, tell that to society! Am I right, ladies?

On a scale of one to 10, how stressed out are you?

Related on EcoSalon:

6 Yoga Poses to Help You Chill Out and Wind Down

Stressed, Anxious, Frayed? 24 Simple, Effective Ways to Quiet Your Mind in 24 Hours or Less

Treating Stress the Natural Way

Image: RenaudPhoto

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ColumnWhen health issues get in the way of a Type A.

In case you were wondering, I spent last week in bed. Let it be noted that this isn’t about going green in style, but rather, this is about your editor going bedridden in style. Abject, miserable style.

The bed rest is owing to what my doctor calls an “isolated spastic event” and I call hell. (He is so diplomatic.) A sudden and severe back spasm well before the AARP years is insulting enough, but try not even having a good reason for it. There is no exotic escapade involving clowns or swings that I’ll take to the grave, no tragicomedy about the ladder and the nosy neighbor’s roof with which to regale dinner party guests into the next decade, not even a “We’ll laugh about it someday” sigh owing to the thing with the omelet and the Pergo. Nothing offends quite like acquiring a spasm for simply getting out of bed in the morning. I like to think I hold myself to high standards, health maladies included, so you can imagine the disappointment.

Also, a week in bed isn’t as decadent as it sounds. It isn’t even a good value. You would think you could find a lot to do while lying flat on your back, but you would be wrong. For one thing, sleep really begins to lose its luster when you realize you can have all you want of it. For another, you still have to get up to pee. Dispatches from the pillowtop soon go ignored as your friends lose interest in your boring injury. There is no competing with Lou, who sprained her neck while blowing out her forty birthday candles, the bitch, or Tom, who sustained sixteen paintball welts dashing across the shooting range and still found the strength to rescue yet another “orphaned” bunny. “Don’t you think it’s a little odd that this is the third baby bunny he’s rescued during paintball?” you ask, quickly adding, “And my back is like, level 6 right now, but could be up to 6.5 pretty soon if I don’t take another pain pill. It’s called Flexeril but the generic is…Hello? Katie? Hello?”

Despite the lack of support from both my lumbar and my friends, I was determined to keep calm and carry on for the green internets. With my faithful feline companion, Roo, beside me, I propped up my head on pillows and perched my laptop on my belly. I wouldn’t call this exactly ergonomic, nor the drugs exactly organic, but then beggars can’t be choosers. That’s why, when my hands would go numb from incline typing or I’d find myself slurring my emails in yet another prescribed cyclobenzaprine-and-ibuprofen bender, I took to long, so very long, episodes of gazing out my bay window at the San Franciscans walking by. It is thus my great hope that my pain can be your gain. Welcome to EcoSalon: Semi-conscious culture and fashion.

The first thing you will notice is that San Franciscans are inconsistently helpful. They are happy to inform you that the world is melting and how much they pay in rent or how many badges they’ve earned on Foursquare, unless of course they are anti-geolocation because they’re suffering from app fatigue. But when it comes to the weather, you’re on your own, cupcake. San Francisco weather is fickle; in the course of a day the city will rain, fog itself, sun itself, and rain again. But looking outside at the variously-clothed city passersby (mostly-clothed if you live in the Castro) to determine what you should wear in the event you ever walk again will only leave you more confused than before you took the pain pill.

Case in point, Monday, 8:30 a.m.: Sun peeking out, tall man in t-shirt and shorts and Tevas. If, like Lazarus, I depart my cave, I shall leave the coat inside it. Nevermind, that very fashionable woman is wearing a hideous puffer and looks upset. Clearly it must be freezing. The tall man is a masochist, or perhaps he is in the throes of euphoria from his Blue Bottle cappuccino. Then again he may be rebelling against his mother who always admonished him to take a coat, and he’s probably on his way to discuss it with his therapist right now. And this slight girl, how is she not shivering? In her tank top and American Apparel jeggings through which I can see her wedgie, or is it a thong, dammm thess Flehzexerelle druhgz, and yet her friend is wearing a Prairie Underground jacket from Clary Sage Organics with an awning of a hood. That thing could support an avalanche. Scratch the weather assistance, then. It’s fine. It’s not like I was going to walk anywhere, anyway. Stupid hills.

By Tuesday the ennui is unbearable. How’s the back, my writers ask, hopeful that they can stop hearing about it once and for all. How many more New Yorkers have I not managed to read? Back to staring through the looking glass. There are the compact, blond Pacific Heights wives in needlessly fattening mom jeans and diamond rings perpetually sliding around their spindly fingers, directing their imported nannies to direct their becurled offspring to direct their shizapoos and cavalieradors and chihuahauxers.

But wait! There’s more! Pay dirt: a couple right out of a Long Island summer catalog, he in khakis and a pink polo, she also in khakis and a pink polo. Then they turn and take pictures of my house, of me peering sideways out the window from the place where the magic happens, meaning the Icy Hot self application, one bedhead of the human variety and one furry head of the cat variety. Tourists. So much for that. I note Roo’s apathy in my journal. I am meticulous, or something.

Wednesday. I’m contemplating changing my email signature to: “Apologies for all of this, I’m on muscle relaxants and painkillers.” At least I think it’s Wednesday. I complain to a friend about my inefficient plight. “Find the Zen,” she says. “Isn’t that what it’s all about, consciousness and reflection? Maybe you got this because your body wants you to slow down and just be and you were ignoring it.” I draw a measured breath. “If you tell me to ‘have a heart’ for my back spasm, I swear to you I will hang up this phone.”

How often do I take the time to explore thoughts and feelings in a meditative, uninterrupted, conscious way? Not often enough for my back’s preference, evidently, which is why it would be great to get over this spasm so I can actually put that on my to-do list. In honesty, I suppose my friend is right: how very un-eco to assume restful breaks don’t fit into the fabric of a sustainably lived life. Whatever.

Thursday. Pretty sure I have bed sores. What is the purpose of this sentence, universe? And by sentence I mean being sentenced to bed rest, not the words preceding the question mark, although that would be both admirably meta and naively humble. I call my mother. I text my kid brother about my dating life. He indulges me and then asks if I have life insurance. I ask my father to send me a juicer. I don’t know why.

Friday. I’ve emailed the office so many days in a row about my continuing vertebrate drama, I only have to type the letter “w” and the subject line autofills “working from home again; back still bad; call if you need me”.

I am weary of the grown men parading past my window like bipedal crabs in their hipster skinny jeans with bottoms so saggy it looks as if they are wearing ill-fitting diapers. I want to throw eggs at them but broadcast my sentiment on Facebook instead. Plus, my back hurts too much. I decide today is the day I will sort and clear and assign stories and delegate tasks from my fresh folder of 497 bookmarks for February; I get to 11 and fall asleep. I wake at 6:42, pleased that I’m up earlier than usual, and realize after a full half hour has gone by – which involves frying up eggs for breakfast – that it’s the evening. Also, I am frying up goat cheese, not eggs.

On the weekend, I give myself mini-projects to do, hobbling around my apartment rearranging the orchid twenty times, reading fascinating entries about SEO and HTML5. I decide to take up meditation and lucid dreaming. I decide to forget about them. I Skype with our writer Mike Sowden in York, who tells me about his new kidney ailment and I tell him about my new back ailment. We quietly feel relieved that the other is worse off. Another writer is concerned that the spasm is lasting so long; I phone a physician friend for his thoughts. He promises to check in on me in another week. Another week! Listen to me, back, and listen good: it’s been fun being in the sack with you, lazing about like a slug, but I am better. Hear me? I am better!

I go to sleep and wake up Monday morning feeling much better. Pain scale: 3. Zen of the spasm: Check in on me in a week.

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, politics, and style. Cheers and spellcheck!

Image: Madeline Louise

The post The Insider’s Guide to Life: Fun in the Sack appeared first on EcoSalon.

Tight schedule with no time for an outdoor dose of fresh air? Not too worry. Bottled Air brings that breath of fresh air to you, leaving you the time to get your to-do list done.

Yes, bottling fresh air is an actual thing.

In the UK, a study found that 74% of workers feel stressed on a daily basis. (Shocking, we know.) But instead of considering promoting 20 minute breaks for a set of sun salutations or a brisk walk outside, The National Trust has a better solution: offering bottled fresh air to stressed out Londonites.

“With most of us living in an urban environment and having little time to escape to the great outdoors, we thought it was about time the National Trust shared just a fraction of our copious amounts of fresh air with the nation,” says Andrew McLaughlin, Head of Communications at the National Trust.

The fresh air, which comes from three different rural and coastal locations, is bottled in recycled glass jars and is said to “relieve stress for up to ten minutes with each 454 gram jar containing 0.42 grams of fresh air.” And when you’re done enjoying your breath of fresh air, you can reuse that bottle for many things, including “capturing your own locally-sourced fresh air.”

I’m all for providing the tools to allow for a stress-free work environment, but I’m not entirely convinced that it comes bottled in a jar. Yes, fresh air in the countryside is unbeatable, but that shouldn’t stop you from getting out and exploring your urban environment.

Need help? Check out our guide to urban hiking. Or go plan an urban bike ride. Whatever you do, make sure you’re allowing yourself to spend time outside of the cubicle doing something active. That’s much better than sniffing a glass bottle.

Photo Credit: National Trust

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