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(that's the law!). After work is better
because you have more time. But it's
often not practical because of other
necessities. It's best to exercise away
the stress while the stress is there.
But, exercise is useful anytime.
Laughter is also a good method
of reducing general stress. There is a
Catch- 22 here. The more stressed-out
you are, the less funny humor is. And
the less you laugh, the less reduction
in stress there is. So when you get
home, watch the Three Stooges rather
than Engineering Disasters.
It should be noted that
cigarettes, drugs, over-eating, and
alcohol don't really do much to
relieve stress. Rather, they cover it up.
Worse, these things usually create
additional physical stress.
that there is no release of adrenaline.
Because if you had a load of adrenaline dumped into your system, the
last thing you would want to do — or
be able to do — is go to sleep. If
you've ever been in a car accident, or
other life-threatening event, you know
the feeling.
CONCLUSION
Stress is a common factor in engi-
neering environments. But that doesn't make it good. Stress has been
shown to contribute to many health
issues. Reducing stress improves
employee productivity and reduces
absenteeism and turnover. The three
basic methods for reducing stress are
adaption, elimination, and compensation. Everybody's response to
stress is different. Finding the proper
methods that work for you is an
important personal decision. NV
SPECIAL
CONSIDERATIONS
There is a common source of
stress that is not yet qualified (to my
knowledge). This is video games. It is
clear that intense playing causes
physical stress. The heart rate
increases and blood pressure rises
and there appears to be a release of
adrenaline (however this last point
has not been well-documented). The
question is if this is good stress or
bad stress. It appears to be good
stress in that you have complete
control over it. Like exercise, you
decide when to start and stop.
However, there is no physical
activity associated with it to burn off
the adrenaline. So, that would make
it bad stress.
It seems to me that this would be
a useful question to answer. There are
many people who play video games
for three or more hours per day. This
is a major activity for them. Being at
such a high level of stress for that
long, day after day, would appear
likely to have some impact on the
body. But is it good or bad?
Bad dreams do not appear to be
stressful. This suggestion is based
upon observation rather than documentation. Simply, if you have a bad
dream you wake up, roll over, and go
back to sleep. This strongly suggests
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January 2006 93