Q: I do not mean to be ungrateful but I would like to take a few weeks and just hibernate, to be away from everyone.
So much has been going on. I got a new job with a lot more responsibility and much more pay. My fiance and I had a new baby just over a year ago and we bought a new house. My best friend is getting married and has asked me to be her maid of honour.
My parents bought a new car to give me for a birthday present. And my old school, which is making a big deal out of pictures I painted when I was a student there, is going to have a special evening to celebrate as they hang them in the library. Everything is going great but I feel crumby. Does that make any sense to you?
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A: You are going through too much change in your life. It doesn’t matter whether change is good or bad but how much each of us can tolerate. Your stress intensifies with each new experience within a 12-month period.
In the 1960s, sociologists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe created the Rolems-Rahe Social Readjustment Rating Scale, a stress inventory that identified possible changes a person might experience. They then assigned what they deemed reasonable stress points to each of the changes.
When I applied what little I know of your life to the scale, I came up with a score of 162. To put that in perspective, anyone with a score of more than 150 has a 50 percent chance of experiencing a major health problem within two years. One with a score of more than 300 is at 80 percent risk for problems.
To get back on track, you might try organizing as much structure as you can into your daily activities. If you and your fiance can work together on this, you will be surprised at how much you can organize your time, even with a new and unpredictable baby.
The same is true with your new responsibilities at work. If you take time and build what you can into regular items in your daily planner, you will achieve much more and feel better for what you have done.
On top of your structure, you could also look at aerobic activities. Yoga or exercises that depend on your breathing are great.
Deep breathing is often an antidote to stress.
With a little structure and timeouts to regulate your breathing, I think you will find yourself enjoying, perhaps even celebrating, changes in your life. If you don’t, then I suggest seeing a mental health therapist.
