Too Busy for Your Own Good by Connie Merritt Read Free Book Online Page B

sought
immediately
if you have one or more of these symptoms:
    Persistent thoughts of suicide or dying
    Attempts to commit suicide
    Panic attacks
    Trouble swallowing or catching breath; fainting
    Feeling of imminent death
    New or worse anxiety or depression
    Acting on dangerous impulses
    Unusual changes in behavior or mood
    Although no single cause of depression has been identified, it appears that interaction among genetic, biochemical, environmental, and psychosocial factors may play a role. The fact is, depression is not a personal weakness or a condition that can be willed or wished away, but it can be successfully treated.
    An estimated 33 to 35 million U.S. adults are likely to experience depression at some point during their lifetime. The disease affects men and women of all ages, races, and economic levels. However, women are at a significantly greater risk than men to develop major depression. Studiesshow that episodes of depression occur twice as frequently in women as in men. Although anyone can develop depression, some types of depression, including major depression, seem to run in families. Whether or not depression is genetic, the disorder is believed to be associated with changes to levels of chemicals in the brain, such as seratonin and norephinephrine.
    Many people cite financial concerns to explain why they don’t seek help for their mental health. Today mental health professionals usually practice cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT has been shown to help ease symptoms of depression and anxiety more quickly than five-day-a-week analysis and is widely accepted as a cost-effective way to treat psychopathology. Check your company’s HR or employee assistance program for low-cost (or free) counseling services. You can call your local public health department or hospital for referral ideas or use a psychiatric nurse-practitioner. And don’t forget that your church or synagogue may offer counseling with a sliding-scale payment schedule.
Beware of
Karoshi
!
    So now you know how stress from your busyness is affecting you. Its consequences range from making you slightly uncomfortable or irritable to miserable, overwhelmed, or severely debilitated. Continuing unchecked, it will cause physical problems threatening your life—high blood pressure, heart disease, asthma attacks, headaches, and increased susceptibility to viruses and colds. In the extreme, even death!
    A recently coined word in Japan,
karoshi
, translates to “death from stress of overwork”! The Japanese don’t have the market cornered on life-threatening stress, though. It’s just as pervasive in America. The American Institute ofStress and the National Council on Compensation Insurance, Inc., recently reported the following:
    As many as 90 percent of visits to primary care physicians are about stress.
    Approximately 750,000 attempted suicides per year are related to stress.
    Up to 80 percent of industrial accidents are due to stress.
    One million people a day are absent due to stress, causing $200 billion in absenteeism, workers’ compensation claims, and health insurance.
    It is estimated that 40 percent of employee turnover is stress related.
    Stress accounts for $26 billion in medical and disability payments and $95 billion in lost productivity per year.
    Keep a check on your chronic busyness. You may not realize the toll it takes on your health until it’s too late. A frog would never willingly put itself into a pot of boiling hot water, but it would relax in a nice warm pot of water that gradually got hotter and eventually boiled. That is what your busyness is like. It gradually propels you forward until you’re in a persistent state of alarm, which then causes stress symptoms to manifest physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Sound the Alarm!
    The human body developed our fight-or-flight reaction, or defense mechanisms, to deal with the threat of predators and aggressors. Cavemen either killed the