Micro-relief?

You may have perused my earlier writings on stress relief [1, 2, 3]. What different am I going to discuss now?

I first came across the boiling frog analogy when I read Peter Senge's classic book on learning organizations, "The Fifth Discipline". The noteworthy point from the analogy is how pernicious our environment can be at times. We are dealt with stress repeatedly before we get a chance to cure ourselves of acute stress.

Though acute stress can be energizing, (chronic) stress fatigues us. First and foremost actionable item is to be aware of when stress becomes chronic. Stress, unless relieved, acts on a routine basis causing the condition to become chronic . We may ignore the stimulus or distract ourselves from emotional details only for too long. So, what's missing here?

Regular check-ins once in a while. We may call them Micro-reliefs. You may use Google's Gemini assistant to evaluate: "What are we required to do regularly in order to return to healthy levels of stress?"

The regular check-ins must be based on self-awareness and meta-cognition. You must have heard the saying, "we suffer more in imagination than reality". This presents a tremendous space for relief practices to be grounded in reality. Another key take away is to notice how our thinking transforms with time. Unless a tiger is too fond of you, you can rest assure that you'd live. Or you can get fond of the tiger too. Stress is a bit of shape shifter.

https://gemini.google.com/