Tag Archives: stress

Our Mixtapes: Soundtracks for Getting Through the Work Day

Whether you make money selling or buying, doing or saying, some days at the office (whatever shape that office is) are better than others. One day you might feel like the most productive employee ever and the next day the least competent. Though we don’t all have the same jobs, we all work day to day, pounding the pavement for better or for worse.

But that doesn’t mean that our time in the office has to be without inspiration. Some days we need a little help getting into the swing of work and to honor that, here are some of my favorite tunes to listen to at work:

Productivity Train

Let’s face it, there are some days when BuzzFeed is particularly entertaining and we don’t get as much work done as we should. When that happens I put on my blinders, plug in my headphones and turn on these tunes.

1)     “Elevate” – St. Lucia, When The Night

2)     “Arizona” – Kings of Leon, Because of the Times

3)     “Hollywood [Felix de Housecat Remix]” – RAC (feat. Penguin Prison)

4)     “Macchu Picchu” – The Strokes. Angles

5)     “Gotta Get Away” – The Black Keys, Turn Blue

Calm the Mind

There are just some days where work makes us want to pull our hair out in frustration, no matter how much we love it. For those days, I turn these songs on and take deep breaths before hunkering down again.

1)     “Welcome Home” – Radical Face, Ghost

2)     “Tumblin’ Dice” – Rolling Stones, Forty Licks

3)     “Momentary Thing” – Something Happens, Planet Fabulous

4)     “Take A Walk” – Passion Pit, Gossamer

5)     “We Are The Tide” – Blind Pilot, We Are The Tide

Kicking Ass

A power suit can get you into the zone when you need to kick ass at work, but why stop there? When I need to roundhouse-kick a project into fruition or a jerk coworker who keeps stealing my ideas, I turn to these songs to pump me up.

1)     “Fancy” – Iggy Azalea feat. Charli XCX, Fancy

2)     “She’s Electric” – Oasis, What’s the Story (Morning Glory)

3)     “Troublemaker” – Weezer, Weezer (Red Album)

4)     “Body Work” – Morgan Page feat. Tegan and Sara, Body Work

5)     “Movin’ Out” – Billy Joel, The Stranger

Hangover Cure

As any employed person will tell you, one of the benefits to having a salary and no homework is that you can go out on a Tuesday night. But we always have to pay dearly for it when Wednesday morning rolls around. For that, I listen to these songs and drink lots of water.

1)     “Tennis Court” – Lorde, Pure Heroine

2)     “Back to Black” – Amy Winehouse, Back to Black

3)     “See The Sun” – The Kooks, Konk

4)     “Fool to Cry” – Tegan and Sara, Girls, Vol. 1

5)     “Time Go” – Caught A Ghost

Photo by Rob Adams

Photo by Rob Adams

Office Drama, or #WHATSHOULDWECALLTOXICJOB

How many times do you need to come home from work in tears before you start considering a new job? My last job was terrible almost from the moment it started, but I stayed for nine months trying to make it work, and then trying to hoard enough cash to get out. Looking back on this past year, all I can see is the slow buildup of quiet-yet-demeaning incidents that made me question my worth, my abilities, and my general sense of why I am at all interested in do what I do.

Here is a list of the major red flags.

  1. When I started my job, there was no training. None! They actually said: “Here is your computer!” and then left me on my own.
  2. My supervisors act like they don’t trust me, and revise deadlines without telling me. Once, after seeing the timeline for the interviews that I manage, my supervisor approved and implemented it, and then scheduled all the interviews and emailed the schedule to me. She never addressed whether I had done them wrong or late, or any reason why she had done my job for me, even though it was a full week before we had agreed it needed to be done.
  3. There are three people whom I report to. Every time I ask for clarification on whom I go to for what (even things like time off and emergency situations), they tell me that I was hired because I could “work independently.”
  4. And then when I ask one of them for help with one of the other departments, they usually fail to answer the question because they get sidetracked, ranting about how pretentious the other department is.
  5. Once, in a committee meeting, I had an older co-worker stop mid-discussion, turn to me and say “who are you?” I responded with my name and title, and he said, “Oh! I thought you were a student spying on us. Are you even on this committee?” He checked on his phone, found I was, and said, “Oh, well, what can you do?” We had met multiple times.
  6. When I was introduced to one of the departments, which was formerly all-male, and I’m a young woman, several comments were made to the effect of “Well, now we can’t curse in meetings.”
  7. Recently, one of my supervisors has been asking me to help her with Excel spreadsheets, and when I turned in a draft (like she asked me to), she brought me into her office and pointed at a column without borders and yelled at me, “Where is the column?! Where is the COLUMN?!? There is no column there!” and then had me redo it.
  8. I am required to have an autoreply message on my email instructing students how to make appointments. I have gotten back multiple emails from coworkers who are outraged that I would send them appointment instructions. The first sentence is “This is an autoreply.”
  9. This year, one of my papers was accepted to a prestigious conference. When I asked that same supervisor if there was any funding I could apply for, she said “If you get funding, we might as well add a budget line for my cats.” That was about two months into the position.
  10. I am frequently asked when I am planning on having children. These are not subtle hints from people I am close with. Coworkers who I rarely interact with have come into my office specifically to ask me when I am planning on getting pregnant.
  11. After having congratulated me for improving our numbers so much that a particular department might not be at risk anymore, one supervisor came in and told me that the numbers should go up even more because “we haven’t worked that hard

What I’ve learned from this experience is that—surprise!—my happiness really is affected by being treated poorly by the people whom I spend the majority of my day with. I’m really not sure when the turning point was… when I knew I needed to GTFO. I wish I had known when to say something, because maybe things would have gotten better. But by the time I left, I trusted no one that I worked with or for, and I dreaded going to work. I worry I’ll run into coworkers around town and I feel like I’ve developed some really bad work habits (like hiding from my supervisors) that will affect me in the future. My job was affecting my relationships outside of work as well, I was so emotionally drained that I wasn’t myself.

The worst part was that this was supposed to be my dream job—working with exactly the right population in exactly the right role. But my coworkers and terrible supervision ruined it. I put in my two weeks’ notice despite not having something else lined up because not knowing what was coming next was better than being unhappy every day.

Much to my surprise though, leaving my toxic job felt just like a really bad breakup. It probably should have not been surprising, but ah well. My last two weeks were full of utter insanity, and all I could do was hold on to my end date, knowing that it would be over soon. A small sample: My two weeks’ notice was initially rejected so they could “think” (is this legal?). I had more than 12 meetings with all levels of my supervision, where the second question was always “but, your partner isn’t leaving too, is he?” driving home the point that in their minds I was only there because of him. They told me that I would have had a better time in the job if I were “friendlier.” On my last day, none of my supervisors even showed up, wrote an email or left a voice message saying goodbye. And then, as if to tie a big bow on the whole package, about a week after I left, one supervisor sent an email to my personal address about job searching in my field, and how to know if a job is a good fit.

I’ve been free of this job for three full weeks, and let me tell you, life is so much better. If any of the above sounds like your job, get out. ASAP. Don’t wait. If you don’t have a cushion that will let you bail, start sending your resumes faster, network more, do something. It’s not worth being unhappy every day. I also highly recommend just reading the entire archives of Ask a Manager: this helped me figure out the difference between what was simply strange and what actually crossed a boundary, so that I could work up the courage to leave.

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

All Night Long: The Darkness of Insomnia

“That’s the advantage of insomnia. People who go to bed early always complain that the night is too short, but for those of us who stay up all night, it can feel as long as a lifetime.” – Banana Yoshimoto

No kidding.

Insomnia is  many things, not one of which is pleasant. It can make your bedroom feel like the most daunting place on Earth, it can cause your days, weeks, months to bleed together like some crazy, punctuation-free, run-on sentence. It’s the stuff Fight Clubs are made of.

As an anxious-type child and then an anxious-type young adult, I’ve spent countless nights waiting out the darkness for morning, simply so I would have a good excuse to get up and stop trying to fall asleep. I’ve heard all of the tricks, played all of the games. My body is slowly, from my toes, filling with sand, growing heavier. I am on the beach, waves crashing in the distance, sun warming my skin. I am in the mountains, in Savasana on my yoga mat, I am letting Arrested Development play quietly on TV, I am counting backwards from 1,000. I am doing it again. I am taking melatonin. Unisom. Anything with PM on the label. I am listening to waterfalls, I am burning eucalyptus. I am awake.

So, what helps? There’s creedence, yes, to the advice to not overthink it. A hot bath, a well-timed sleep aide. A really, really boring book. Earlier this year I discovered that a noise-maker can really take the edge off of the constant chatter of my obsessive thoughts. But guess what—just like anything else in motion—a mind tends to want to stay in motion, too. When thoughts want attention, they find a way to make themselves heard. I’ve not ruled out the possibility that I am truly my own worst enemy, or that my circadian rhythm is the opposite of how it should be, sporadic and on a phasic schedule all unto itself.

If there’s an article out there about other people who insom, or about how sleep deprivation can feel on par with being legally drunk, or how tons of really smart, high-achieving people are insomniacs, I’ve probably already read it. In the middle of the night, no less. I’ve read the infographics, I know that I’m preventing my body from rejuvenating, that I’m increasing my risk for stroke and diabetes. And I know that I should just relax. But, it turns out that it just doesn’t work like that. Because there’s 3:00 in the morning, staring back at me like dear, God, look away. The hamster wheel in my mind spins. It keeps going. Running, running, getting nowhere.

Sometimes, even, at the beginning of a bout of insomnia I will just surrender to it and make myself comfortable for its stay. Sometimes, with a calm patience, it works its way in and then back out of my life; other times it culminates in a completely unbearable exhaustion wherein a sheer desperation for sleep is all-consuming.

There is no magic pill, practice, or solution to insomnia and everyone will find different things do and don’t work for them: the conditions might be perfect but sleep can still find a way to evade us. Knowing as little as we do about sleep, it makes a person wonder if there’s just some other element to it. Is it like falling in love? Is it possible that even when the setup is Rom Com, meet cute, algorithm perfect one can just simply not be feeling that… special thing? Is it possible, that even with the last cup of coffee emptied over ten hours ago, and the air set at 75 degrees, the sheets fresh and the curtains blocking light, with a favorite wind-chimey, watery, meditative musical number floating above the sound of the traffic, that still something is amiss. You feel calm, you feel tired, you are comfortable, all the world seems right, and yet there you are, wide awake, waiting.

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Being Busy and Taking Care of Yourself

My first semester of grad school was really awful, and it was mostly my fault. I was taking classes in DC, and working and living on a university campus in Baltimore. I got up early and started work immediately. I would dive into my job and not look up until it was time to head to class. It was an hour each way, and a particularly arduous commute. Classes were long and I had little chance to transition between one task to the next. At home, I’d only face another avalanche of work, and then realize that I was starving. In my infinite wisdom, and more often than I would like to admit, I would grab a candy bar from the vending machine below my apartment and keep going. In the zingy sugar glow, I would work until I couldn’t anymore, and then at some point late in the evening, I would collapse, fully clothed, into bed. I felt like I was drowning. Please, please, please don’t do this.

Clearly, this was not a sustainable model. During the winter break after my first semester, I faced the fact that I had to make some changes. Today, I’m still not an expert at making sure that I am taking care of myself, but there are a few key things I’ve found necessary to avoid completely burning out.

Body

When I’m busy, I can get in this weird mindset where I convince myself its okay to put my physical self last. I have to consciously work to reframe taking care of my body as not being selfish or as putting off “real work,” but rather as taking care of the equipment I need to get the work done. If my brain doesn’t function well, I can’t write, read, respond to emails, or help others. If I think of it that way, it’s easier to justify treating myself with kindness and compassion.

  • Physical exercise. I do yoga, I dance, I run, I sometimes swim when I get super motivated, but no matter what I do something intense, regularly.
  • Enough and consistent sleep. Lots of studies will tell you about why this is important, but seriously, it is so important. I just remind myself that sleep deprivation actually kills people [trigger warning: violence, animal studies]. Work with your chronotype, because it actually makes a difference to your happiness: if you are a late riser, don’t force yourself up every day, or if you’re an early riser like me, go to bed early enough. As would be expected, there’s an app (or two hundred) for that.
  • No sugar (or whatever is your escape drug of choice). Personal but huge for me. What do you do that makes things short term better but long term worse? Is it caffeine? Alcohol? Other drugs? Not-so-wonderful relationships? I am super sensitive to sweet things. The sugar high only gets me so far, and when its over I’m just moody, groggy, fat, and nothing about my situation has changed. Treat yourself, but not with things that harm you.

Mind

There are definitely good ways and bad ways to approach what you have to get done. The following are the things that I need in order to not feel like I’m being crushed when my to-do list expands. This may not seem like self-care, but really, what could be more caring than respecting your own time and worth?

  • Have a plan. Let me tell you about the Planner Pad. I geek out about it on the regular because it is so perfect for when you are busy. It has space to divide your tasks by category or type, then a section for daily lists, and lastly a section for appointments during each day. When I can look at a single page and get a snapshot of what is going on for the entire week, I do not feel buried. I also take a few minutes at the beginning of each day to figure out what my priorities are. I do the same at the beginning of the week, month, and quarter. I think about my goals and my progress and adjust accordingly. Having that time set aside means that I consistently update my plan and can handle curve balls with way more grace.
  • Pomodoros! It may be geeky to keep a timer running in the background of your computer, but it keeps me from burning out. I love the Pomodoro Technique mostly because of the five minute breaks—just enough time to watch a music video or send a text or two to a friend, and keep myself from fizzling during a marathon work sesh.
  • Know when you’ve done enough. What is the bare minimum you need to get done during the day to keep on track? Once I’ve passed this line, I congratulate myself, and decide whether or not I need to keep going. Thinking of working more as a bonus round keeps me from getting caught in the never-ending to-do list.
  • Change what you can change. In my second year of my grad program, I got a different job without a commute and life got significantly better. I think overall it freed up another twelve hours per week to get other things done. Twelve whole hours. It was unreal.
  • Write yourself a mission statement: Why are you doing what you do? Sometimes when I felt my worst, I would stand in the shower and pretend I was in a job interview. The (imaginary) person across the (imaginary) table would say, “Why are you in grad school?” I would have three minutes to explain, out loud to myself, exactly why I was studying what I studied. This distilled my purpose, and cemented my desire to get things done. If I couldn’t say why I was doing something, then I knew it was probably time to figure out how to not do it anymore.

Spirit

Remember to take care of the other aspects of your being.

  • Schedule time for yourself. Again, you are just taking care of the equipment that you need to get the job done. It’s like putting gas in your car. I save this time for reading and sewing and not working on my to-do list.  I put this right in my calendar, because I am a geek and otherwise I wouldn’t do it.
  • Have a support network. Who can you call to get away? Who can you call if you’ve got to cry? Who always finds the best parties/concerts/adventures? To whom can you speak your biggest fears out loud, and know that they will have your back? These people are magic and I keep mine on speed dial. If this is a professional, like a therapist or a mentor at work, even better.
  • Don’t let the important things drop. My biggest regret from the busiest time in my life so far was not being part of a choir. This was the first time since 4th grade that I was not part of some sort of singing ensemble, and I could feel it. I would have been way happier if I had taken the couple hours a week or month to join some sort of group.
  • Remind yourself of your power. Chances are, if you are doing a lot now, you probably did a lot to get to where you are. I have a good friend will simply reread his resume whenever he feels like he’s not doing enough. “Hah!” he tells the universe, “You think I can’t conquer this? Look at everything I’ve conquered in the past!”

When I’m at my busiest but make sure to take care of myself, I have this wonderful, bare bones, stripped down feeling. Treating myself kindly feels like flying. I am doing exactly what needs to get done, working at my most efficient, and making steady progress towards my goals. The days go quickly, and I can think and work hard. I love having a lot going on, but if I’m not treating myself with care, I can’t enjoy it.

Want more suggestions? Peruse these 55 gentle ways to take care of yourself.

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

The Time I Worked For The Devil at an NGO

When I moved to India in February 2012, I reached out to a NGO that my family had supported, seeking employment opportunities. Within a few hours of sending out my earnest email, the anonymized “Dr. S” replied, immediately inviting me to his government hospital in a small village town in India. That weekend, he personally walked me through the hospital, school, and eco lodge he had set up to help tribal children gain access to education. This campus was the basis of his NGO, which employed over a thousand people and managed over twenty-five government hospitals in rural areas throughout India.

You see, Dr. S never used his medical degree to pursue a traditional for-profit practice. He never married, had children, or even opened a bank account—opting instead to devote his entire life to offering free healthcare to the poor and forgotten. He is the recipient of numerous awards, has campaigned for health and transparency initiatives in the Indian government, and is the winner of multiple prestigious grants.

Dr. S won me over with his work, lifestyle, and mission. I immediately accepted his job offer to manage family planning initiatives from his head office in Bangalore.

But my first day in the office already seemed… off. The other twelve employees were fluttering around stressed, mumbling under their breaths, barely acknowledging anything around them. Until Dr. S walked into the room and, like a military regime, his soldiers immediately straightened up, addressed him as “Sir,” and bowed their heads when his eyes met theirs.

Initially, I thought it was a bad day. But the day turned into weeks and the weeks into months without any change. He never acknowledged good work, but broadcasted any problems. In fact, he created problems just to gloat in his ability to scream at his employees. Coworkers who had PhDs and Masters were treated like toilet cleaners. Every detail, document, and phone call had to be approved by him, stripping other managers of any real power.

Oh, you want a pen drive? Better email him for approval. Oh, you want to print a legal agreement? First, ask if you can use the printer.

Then I began to observe the day-to-day office dynamics. When Dr. S entered, the entire office came to a standstill. No one so much as whispered. They just stood there and waited for him to bellow out names and commands. Except, he never called any of the employees by their actual names. Instead, he would use derogatory insults in the local language: “Hey Owl! You couldn’t even take notes properly? You might as well shred up your PhD because you can’t be any stupider than a second grader.” “Donkey, how long does it take to show up when I call your name? You better clean your ears out with your degree since it’s not good for anything else.”

I worked six days a week, Monday through Saturday from 9 am to 5:30 pm. The turnover rate was incredible.  In my three months, I saw six people (out of twelve) come and go.

Since Dr. S was the Chairman of the NGO, my direct boss was the executive director, Rekha. In the beginning, she seemed harmless—dare I say, even charming. We sat next to each other, telling jokes (only when Dr. S was out of the office, naturally) and discussing execution plans for our various initiatives. I figured if I just kept my head buried in my projects, I could slip in and out without attracting much attention.

The reality was, though, that I never really handled anything. The executive director would give me instructions, but when I presented the final result to Dr. S, he would shred it apart, yelling and screaming about how awful and horrible my work was. He would outwardly contradict any direction that Rekha had provided, and cut me off when I tried to point out this fallacy. With each outburst (and there were at least two a day), I started to realize that even Rekha was a nut case. Though she’d give me guidelines, she would stand smirking when Dr. S yelled opposing directions. When I spoke up Rekha would dismiss me by saying, “I don’t know what you are talking about. Don’t you know how to follow instructions?”

Pretty quickly, I started to feel crazy. I would put together a budget just to have to redo it every other day depending on Dr. S’s moods. News flash: the mood was always horrible. Not only was I not contributing to anything (because Dr. S would halt any project or hinder any effort), the general abuse was starting to suffocate me.

I was not allowed to eat at my desk. I was not allowed to eat at any point except lunch. I was not allowed to leave for lunch. Bathroom breaks had to be approved by the doctor ahead of time. When I traveled for a week straight to different Indian villages, I was to sleep in a hospital bed to save money on hotels.  On one visit, I stayed up all night next to three cockroaches and two lizards, picking at my split ends, wondering if giving back to the community was meant to feel this shitty.

And yet, I still craved for those times I would get to travel to the hospitals, just to be out of the office. Honestly, I also secretly wished the Dr. would just get hospitalized in his own rural treatment center. Every time a funding partner would join us in a meeting, Dr. S and Rekha smiled, told jokes, and even served biscuits outside of lunch. I would also laugh uncomfortably, suppressing the urge to shout to the partners “HELP! RUN! DON’T FUND A DERANGED PSYCHO.”

One day, after a long week of yelling, retyping the same document fifteen times, and barely eating, I went to a friend’s goodbye party. By midnight, I received an insanely long email from Rekha, listing out each flaw in me as a human. My clothes needed to be baggier to hide my body, I slouched too much, my legs crossed funny when I was sitting, my walk could be improved, my left nipple was larger than my right. Okay, she didn’t really mention the nipple, but you get it.

After only three months, I felt entirely destroyed. But I was too scared to leave. It was like an abusive relationship. Maybe I was as stupid as Dr. S claimed. Maybe I was just being too fussy and not making an effort to work harder. If I left, would anyone else want me?

The following week, Dr. S called me in for a meeting with his infamous leer. He leaned over the table and finally looked into my eyes and said, “Everything I make, I donate back into the trust. Technically, you make 5000 rupees more a month, but I’ve taken the liberty of withholding that amount as donation. So, we will deposit all the money we’ve taken and you just need to write us a check in bulk, making the donation appear…you know… generous.”

I was flabbergasted at the deceit and fraud. I nodded, frozen in my own thoughts and spent all evening bouncing ideas off my mother who was adamant that I quit immediately. In India, the notice period is generally one month. But I had seen how heinously Dr. S treated those employees serving their last month: I wouldn’t be able to handle it.

So, the following Monday, my mother came with me to the office. I was the only one there. She had the getaway vehicle waiting while I snuck in to drop off my company laptop. I took the liberty of writing a goodbye email to the entire company stating:

Thank you for giving me this opportunity. However, I will not be a part of an organization whose leadership team strongly conflicts with the humanitarian mission of the NGO. This is my resignation, effective immediately.

Though I was burning bridges and quitting in an unprofessional manner, I couldn’t bear to work for an organization where the employees were treated like farm animals.

Within a few hours, my phone was blowing up with calls and texts from Rekha and Dr. S. I just pulled out the battery and went to sleep.

Clearly, not all NGOs or companies are run like North Korea. However, this three-month immersion in hell showed me exactly how not lead a company and how deceptive a company’s image and media can be. To this day, I have no idea how Dr. S functioned in the humanitarian space as an awful human and why Rekha stayed for over a year with his abuse. I’m just happy I moved onto a normal, functioning company where the CEO must take his meds daily.

More importantly, even on the really tough days at work, I’m grateful that I can always eat lunch.

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

We Don’t Know: What Does “Busy” Mean?

“Busy is a way of organizing your priorities and we use being busy or thinking that we’re busy as a reason not to do something that we really want to do. If you’re not doing something that you really want to do then you really don’t want to do it. If you really want to do something, you will find the time to do it. Be honest with yourself. If you’re not doing something that you tell yourself that you want to be doing—it means that you don’t want to be doing it. Figure out either how to do it or what to do instead.” — Debbie Millman

In the following video, Debbie Millman gives a great talk for designers (but really it’s good advice for everyone) about “The Top 10 Things I wish I Knew When I Graduated College.”

2011/02 Debbie Millman from CreativeMornings on Vimeo.

Debbie’s argument is that using the phrase, “I’m busy” is an excuse. That being busy is a decision that we make and that we should stop apologizing, stop making excuses, and decided what we really want to be doing and actually do it. What do you think?

Editor’s Note: Also in her talk, Debbie talks about three ways of knowing things which are particularly pertinent to our UE mission (You don’t know everything. Neither do we.): “I know what I know. I know what I don’t know. But I don’t know what I don’t know. That’s the important stuff to know.  The only way to be able to find that out is to ask somebody.”

Thank you to Sara Hamling for submitting Debbie’s video & quote.

Photo by Michelle White

Photo by Michelle White

Medication? Meditation

I always love when people ask me what my favorite position is. Why, lotus, of course. What were you thinking?

It may seem like everybody and their mom is meditating these days. And, well… my mom just took a meditation course after seven years of my incessant nagging, so there you have it. Yet I meet so many people who are wowed by the fact that I’m a longtime meditator (7 years and counting, son!) and that I have a daily practice at the tender age of 25. So often, I hear the sentence “I wish I could meditate…” and I’m always stunned by it. I seriously mean this when I say it: anyone can meditate. You don’t need to be a monk, hermit, or even have a guru or teacher to learn to meditate (though it can help).

Simply put, meditation is being still: physically, verbally, and mentally still (eventually at expert level). It is not a Buddhist practice (though it can be.) It is not a Hindu practice (though it can be.) It is literally just sitting with an intention for stillness. There are many types (even standing and walking ones), but the two most basic ones are:

  1. Mindful meditation – Taking your awareness to different parts of your body, breath, thoughts.
  2. Concentration meditation – Actively trying to concentrate on a thought, sensation or a visualization and bringing yourself back to that when your mind wanders.

 

There is no poster child for meditation. I am a rowdy hockey fan whose favorite band since 16 has been Tool and I grew up in a third world country. None of those facts have any relevance to my ability to meditate. If I can do it… so can you.

When I first started, I wondered what good could possibly come of me being still sitting in silence doing absolutely nothing. Well, let me tell you—one UNDERenlightened to another UNDERenlightened friend. I can only speak from my own experience but a lot of research backs up my positive experience with meditation.

  • I feel more energized.
  • I feel calmer and less stressed.
  • I feel more focused and clear minded.
  • I can control my emotions better (e.g. not throw my drink at the TV screen when the San Jose Sharks make a terrible play).
  • I am more aware of my own self and others around me. (This one sounds pretty new age-y and I apologize for that. What I mean is, for example, if I feel angry, it’s easier for me to pick up on the fact that I’m angry and stop to think before saying or doing something hurtful. Similarly, I am more aware of how others around me are feeling and, honestly, sometimes they don’t have to say a darned thing for me to know.)

 

I’m a true believer in this preflight safety message across the board: Put on your own oxygen mask before tending to others.

How did I get into this life-changing practice? A 5-day course called YES Plus. I took my first freshman semester in college. I had just moved back to the United States after 12 years and was having a tough time adjusting to suddenly not having any friends. After attending an introductory meeting for a meditation group, I signed up. Initially, I believed it would just help me de-stress and show me the ropes of yoga. But little did I know that it would change my life. YES Plus is a course offered to college students and young professionals to learn meditation, gentle yoga, some simple, effective life skills and finally (and mainly) breathing techniques. It ended up being the best thing I’ve ever done for myself and since then I’ve assisted with at least 10 seminars at various universities (including Stanford University’s own YES Plus chapter—my main YES Plus community, since I work at Stanford.) I learned to manage my emotions better (which we know is most difficult at the dramatic age of 19), learned to be happier and more energized, and gained a huge ever-growing group of incredibly inspiring friends. I’ve never looked back since.

The most impactful thing I learned in YES Plus was breathing. Sounds silly, right? Different breathing techniques help segue into meditation—the ones I learned helped me breathe deeper (Pro Tip: use more lung space; if you’ve taken a biology class, you know that respiration is an act of energizing and detoxing your body so breathing deeper means more of that), and made me feel awake yet calm afterwards.  It’s like having caffeine without the anxious jitters. For people like me who think it’s incredibly difficult to just sit and be… breathing as an active and engaging process helps the transition into peace of mind tremendously. I’ve found that I can get to a deeper space of meditation faster.

To this day, I have trouble meditating sometimes—I have been conditioned to be on-the-go and I feel like I’m wasting my time sitting and ‘doing nothing.’ But the fact is that you are doing something in meditation. You are giving yourself peace of mind (a mini brain vacation, if you may) and that will translate into everything you do. Trust me. You can’t knock it till you try it! Perseverance is key. Set a bar for yourself: ‘I will meditate for 5 minutes daily for a month.’ If it feels good, up the ante by increasing the time or number of times you do it in the day. If it doesn’t, then you learned what doesn’t work for you and are one step closer to realizing what does.

Now that I have gotten you stoked about the prospect of meditation (hopefully!), here’s what I tell people who ask me how to meditate. Quite simply…

1. Prep yourself – Give yourself no excuse to get up once you’ve finally settled into a meditation. Listen to mom’s advice and go to the bathroom, drink water, eat a light snack, wear comfortable clothing (yoga pants/ sweat pants, etc.; not tight jeans and a corset). Do not eat a huge fatty meal because you will sleep, not meditate.

2. Exercise (yoga is a fantastic segue into meditation) – You will be sitting very still for a while so let loose any ants in your pants. Set a gentle alarm if you need to restrict time. There are plenty of meditation apps to help. Don’t startle yourself into consciousness with loud, sudden sounds; that defeats the purpose of relaxation. The best duration is around 20 minutes—not too much, not too little (though your perception of time can vary each and every instance!). But you can meditate for as little or as long as you damn please. As mentioned above, breathing techniques are amazing and simple ways to ease you into zen mode.

3. Keep your back straight – This can be uncomfortable to begin with because we’re a species that loves to slouch, but hang tough the first few times and you’ll even begin to see a change in your daily posture. Do your best—otherwise, soon you’ll be drooling on your shirt and sleeping, not meditating. Big difference. Use a backrest, pillow or wall. If you can without a wall, you’re already semi-enlightened… oh wait, this is about being UNDERenlightened. Scratch that.

4. Sit symmetrically – This means both feet on the ground, seated on a chair, or cross-legged on the floor. Essentially, both left and right sides of your body should look the same. Palms facing up (preferred personally, but try both) or down on your lap.

5. Set the mood to be relaxed and comfortable – You can’t meditate if your body is not where it wants to be. Snuggle up in a blanket, don’t sit cross-legged if it’s not comfortable, turn off or dim the lights. Keep your cellphone on silent or locked in a safe on top of the fridge.

6. Pay attention to your body and breath – Literally what those words mean. We often don’t even realize how much tension we carry physically. I often have scrunched up brows or tightly pursed lips or my shoulders are up to my ears. When you stop and just be with yourself, you’ll start to notice these things, trust me. It’s wild. Loosen up those parts taking deep breaths.

7. Here’s where you can go two ways: you can continue to just be mindful of your thoughts and body, and every time you get too wrapped up in your head, remind yourself to bring yourself back to the breath and focus on that. No need to get mad at yourself for your brain wandering. It’s got a PhD in it! Or, alternatively, when you feel calm and settled after step 5, you can walk yourself through all your body parts gently and take deep breaths as you do so.  To give you an idea of an order to follow, this is what I do (you can say this in your head slowly as you go along): Take your attention to your right foot, right knee, right thigh and hip. (Follow that with the same on left side, and don’t forget to keep breathing; also, if needed, feel free to pause and stay on any body part as long as you wish.) Abdomen, stomach, chest, right shoulder, right arm and hand. Left shoulder, arm and hand. Neck, face, cheeks, top of the head. Throughout, you can be as detailed as you like. And finally, just take your attention to your whole body.

Now. ‘Take your attention to’ does not mean ‘pay attention to.’ You don’t need to focus like it’s two hours ‘till that O Chem exam you’ve stayed up all night cramming for. It’s just a gentle awareness, like, “Hey foot, how’s it hanging? Say hi to your mother for me, alright?” It’s really more of a “Oh, that’s my foot. Deep breath.” And if you feel like moving on to your next bit… swell. If not, just listen to what your body is asking you to pay attention to.

NOTE: You may experience tingling, lightheadedness, have a movie of thoughts, or even the dreaded… nothing. Nirvana wasn’t achieved in one day. Practice is key to going deeper. Even if you do it 5 minutes a day, the quality will begin to shift. Even if you don’t experience a life-changing shift right away, maybe you’ll see a change in your energy levels or mood. Give it a fair chance before declaring yourself a meditation squib (inside joke for you Harry Potter junkies).

8. Once you’re far away in Blissville or Zenlandia, you have two more options… to stay there or to lie down on your back (bed, floor, whatever is closest and requires the least movement) until you’re happy to get back to the real world or until your alarm goes off. Or you may just fall asleep and wake up 8 hours later.

9. Repeat steps 1 – 8 as often as possible. There are apps to remind you of these too. I use a free basic meditation insight timer.

And there you have it! I like to say that meditation is my medication—my cure-all. I sure you hope you try out a dose or two to see if it’ll change your life like it did mine. If you do, I’d love to hear about it.

Your first step toward enlightenment is now complete. Your first step toward UNDERenlightenment is understanding irony. May the force be with you.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

What is “Normal”? Dealing with Depression & Anxiety

“It’s okay. It’ll get better. Everything will be all right.” I hate when people casually say those words to a distressed friend—and, usually, I am that distressed friend.

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Looking back on my teen years, filled with moments of extreme sadness and anger over my body-image issues and my limitations, it’s tempting to say that my panic attacks and depression started then. I think, however, that I was just a regular moody teenager. But I do know that it was around this time that I adopted habits that later led to my anxiety disorder: I stayed silent, I ate my feelings, I avoided talking about it when others broached the subject, and I became resentful of my friends for their “easy” lives.

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illnesses in the U.S., affecting 40 million people, roughly 18% of the population. There are a wide variety of them: generalized anxiety, OCD, PTSD, phobias, etc. If you’ve never experienced depression or a panic attack, here’s a rundown: We all experience anxiety, but those who do not have a disorder can rationalize their fears, work through them, and come out with a plan of attack for any issue they’re facing. But when you have an anxiety or panic attack, the fear takes over. You can’t step back, you can’t shake yourself out of that place of fear, and you can’t force yourself to “just not think about it.” I’ve heard people say a panic attack feels like having a rubber band pulled across their chest, or having an elephant sit on them. The first time I felt it, I thought it might be a heart attack: the shortness of breath, the erratic breathing, the tears. After the attack passes, then comes the self-admonishment, the feelings of inadequacy, the thoughts that you must be weak and inferior to those around you because they don’t go through this—all of which feed into depression. And when you’re depressed, you can’t lift yourself out.

Depressed isn’t just sad or frustrated or down. Depression is detached, and that feels worse than the sad times or the panic-stricken times. You hear people say that if you put on a happy face, the good feelings will come. It’s not true. I’m putting on the happy face, I’m being my perky self. I’m at work, I’m with friends, I’m joking, I’m laughing. But there’s a cold layer around me. I feel as though all my movements are jerky and disjointed as I’m internally debating and debasing myself. You try to pull yourself out, wanting to feel something because anything is better than nothing. You try to talk to friends and family about it but you can’t get the words out or, when you do, they don’t know what to do. So they just offer the only comfort they can—“It’s okay.”

Anxiety disorders and depression do not always go hand in hand, nor does one predispose an individual to the other. However, studies show high co-morbidity rates: in a study of 3,000 patients in clinical trials for generalized anxiety or depression, about a third of anxiety disorder patients had severe enough depressive symptoms to enter the depression trials, while two thirds of the patients in the depression trials had anxiety disorders that warranted joining the generalized anxiety trials. I’ve gone through periods of both anxiety and depression, and because I have—because I’ve sought help—I know I’m likely to go through them again. I know it’s not an instance; it’s a cycle that’s repeated and feeds on itself. But I’ve also learned I’m not alone.

When you live with anxiety or depression, you might feel like you’re the only one, until you meet another ‘only one.’ When my attacks clustered closer and closer together and I started distancing myself from friends, I was scared about where I’d end up if I didn’t get help. So, I started talking to friends who I could trust. It helped me to vent and their comfort kept me from feeling like less of a person. But I still felt disconnected from my peers who all seemed to excel, unhindered. Then, a friend confided in me and told me about her own struggles. A coworker revealed the truth about her battle with the same illness. Suddenly, I wasn’t an imperfection in a perfect world; my struggles weren’t proof of my inadequacies as a human being. I was normal, beautifully and imperfectly normal. It seemed weird and maybe even wrong to feel legitimized by other people’s struggles. But I was. And that was worth something.

I’m not saying talking about it always helps, but not talking about it never does. I’d talked to friends mid–panic attack, either calling them or tracking them down at school to explode at them. They weren’t prepared for it, nor did they have the knowledge or skills to deal with it. But as I became more comfortable telling friends about the imperfect areas of my life, they reciprocated that comfort. I found safe zones to talk and let off steam before I reached attack mode.

So, how can you tell if you’re near this precipice? If any of the above resonated with you, you may want to talk to someone (yes, actually voice the thing you’re most desperate to quell). There’s a stigma associated with “not being able to deal.” A coworker who’s faced similar struggles told one of our peers and was discouraged from telling anyone else. But what we’ve experienced is real, and so is the connection I now have with this amazingly strong and beautiful woman. If she hadn’t told me about her situation, we might not have ever had this connection.

Okay, so what should I do? Again, talk about it. I couldn’t afford a therapist, so I looked into group programs I could join, which are cheaper. The people I met there provided me with a support system. If that doesn’t help, maybe one-on-one sessions are a better fit for you. Bear in mind, however, that it can take a couple of tries to find the right therapist or support group. You have to feel as though you’re in a safe place. Don’t settle until you’ve found that.

Aside from the importance of talking about it, I’ve also learned the value of the following:

Don’t Assume

The perception that your friends and family have it easy builds negative emotions and increases your feelings of being different. It’s hard to remember that those around us suffer too, that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, but try. Resentment only distances you from the positive influences in your life.

Sleep

This can be hard when you lie awake at night for hours thinking of what’s to come. But if you’re prone to missing sleep, don’t go to bed when you have to be up in eight hours. It sounds weird, but budget for the freak out. You’ll cry and you’ll stress, but eventually you’ll be so drained emotionally and physically that you will drift off to sleep. However, if you suffer from insomnia, consult your physician.

Exercise

To quote Elle Woods, “Exercising gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t kill their husbands. They just don’t.” I’ve always hated when people suggested exercise to help with mood, cramps, whatever. But it does help. Exercising results in an increase of serotonin and endorphins, which are chemicals that alleviate depression. But even if that twenty-minute walk around your neighborhood doesn’t do much for you chemically, it at least allows you to have some time alone. You have the opportunity to think things through, to be away from the pile of bills waiting for you on your desk, or your spouse who you just had a fight with.

Stress Less

Easier said than done, I know. But map out the major stressors in your life, talk it through with someone if it helps, and formulate a plan of attack to deal with each one in turn. Try not to think negatively. It’s hard but doable. Instead of thinking of “I can’t get a better job,” say to yourself “I’m going to revamp my resume by the end of the week.” Turn your fears into a to-do list. When you make a mistake, instead of obsessing, take a step back and see what you learned from the mistake and do your best to accept it.

Focus on the Happy

I love journaling because it’s a great way to document milestones and see how far I’ve come. However, when I’m upset and want to gain perspective, looking at old journal entries from when I was down can actually increase my feelings of anxiety or depression. For my New Year’s Resolution, a friend and I started a little yearlong project. We each bought a mason jar and pretty stationary. Every time something good happened or we stumbled upon something random that made us happy, we would write it on a piece of paper and stick it in the jar. Whenever I’m down, I open the jar and read through some of the anecdotes. Remembering those moments and how happy I was when I wrote them down helps to lift me out of my funk.

Dealing with Workplace Drama

Raise your hand if you have ever lost your cool, reacted harshly, or said something you regret to someone else? Now, raise your hand if you were at work when it happened.

Workplace drama exists. We all experience it. The question is how do we deal with it?

I have been working in at least some capacity for several years now and every job has had some sort of office “drama.” I entered the workforce thinking that I would finally get a break from all the unnecessary crap I had to put up with in school.

Right. Then I promptly woke up from my dream-world.

People will always have different emotions, jealousies, dreams, and personalities, no matter where they are. While we cannot control others, we can change how we choose to react to them. Here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Be yourself.

Before you roll your eyes and sigh at the platitude, hear me out. When I first started at my current job, I found myself acting how I thought my coworkers wanted to see me. After a few weeks, I was exhausted and felt like I was trying too hard (because I was). Slowly, I began to reveal more of my actual self. I talked about books that I loved, expressed excitement at nerdy things, and made jokes during staff meetings. I stayed professional while still showing who I was and what made me tick. It helped me develop relationships with my coworkers, and cope with stress, because I wasn’t focused on maintaining my work personality, just my work.

2. Pick your battles.

My current job is pretty high stress. We have tight deadlines, a lot of outside pressure, public visibility, and sometimes-unpredictable work hours. While this can create a great adrenaline rush, it can also bring out some pretty intense emotions. When the stress gets high, everyone has to think fast, and sometimes we’re so focused on the end result, that we lose sight of each other. It’s important to remember that multiple approaches can achieve the same end goal.

Knowing when to speak up and when to hold back can have a monumental impact on how you are perceived and how you get things done.  Arguing over every choice might lead your coworkers to see you as an agitator who only wants things to go your way. But if instead, you discipline yourself to only bring up concerns that could have significant impact, then you will be seen as helpful and strategic. By sometimes holding yourself back, you can make the moments when you do enter the fray all the more meaningful and powerful. This same concept can be applied to nearly any office disagreement or issue.

3. Try not to wear your emotions on your sleeve.

This may be the hardest, as many of us do this without even realizing it. I do, and it’s a constant battle to keep hold of myself when all I want to do is scream, cry, or run away.

I am not saying that there is no place for emotion in the workplace, because that can be just as destructive. But being able to control your emotions rather than letting them dictate the direction of a situation—whether it be a meeting, an argument, or just a particularly long day at the office—can make all the difference in keeping your professional cool.

For those of you with a terrible poker face, when things get too intense, try forcing yourself to slow down. At a performance review, in a tense meeting, or when dealing with a particularly difficult person, remember to take a deep breath and think before you respond (I promise that’s not just overused self-help advice, I’ve done it–it works). Even a few seconds can make the difference between an overly emotional response and a rational one.

If your emotions do get to be too much, excuse yourself. Take a walk, go to the bathroom, or find a quick distraction. And, remember, don’t hold it against yourself. We all have bad days once in a while. Emotion is natural and, more than anything, shows how much you care.

4. Know the difference between drama and harassment.

Much of what is discussed above are situations that can often occur within professional environments. However, when something turns into possible harassment, it is important to know when to speak up and take action. There are laws in place to protect you if you feel that someone’s comments or actions are inappropriate, threatening, or violent. If you feel you are being harassed, document everything and talk to someone you trust or your human resources department to confidentially explain your rights and options. It is never okay to be made uncomfortable or threatened in your workplace and it is your right to speak up and change the situation.

Remember, drama finds us everywhere–people don’t magically become professional adults–don’t let it discourage you. It’s ok to make mistakes when it comes to figuring this all out.

One more cliché for the road? For better or for worse it’ll all work out in the end.

…Okay, maybe that one was a little overboard.

Photo by Michelle White

Editor’s Note: This is one of our anonymous articles. We’ll have these from time to time so that our writers can more freely share difficult subjects.