Stress.

I'm lying on my bunk in Fort Bliss, Texas, and reflecting on the past few days. They've been very busy, with 5 AM formations, scattered meals, long lines and general chaos. This is all, of course, in preparation for my return to Iraq in a few days.

The other day we were going through medical processing (for those of you who are familiar with the term, we were going through SRP -- the Soldier Readiness Program), and I got my blood pressure checked. 158/80-something. Yow.

Now, at the time I was running on at least two days of 5-hours of sleep per night, was dehydrated and had been scrambling from station to station all morning trying to figure out if anyone actually wanted my HIV test results, and whether I actually needed them faxed from Washington. Today I had to have it checked again, and it was 125/71, which is of course both a) a lot better and b) great, although the 125 could be a bit lower.

Anyway, it got me thinking about stress, and the properly heathen way to deal with it. The Havamal warns against stress in when it brings up the foolish man who lies awake all night worrying about his problems; they're still there in the morning and he's too tired to deal with them properly. It's a great philosophy, but how exactly does one let things not bother them?

This entry never got finished, obviously, but maybe someday. :)

Posted: Thu - February 3, 2005 at 01:11 PM

getCategoryName("C339985351");

Stress.