The topic for #BEDN 6 is National Stress Awareness Day.
I shouldn't but I do tend to stress about things. It's been in my nature for a lot of my life. And yet, I have always had the ability to escape from it too and not let it pervade me too much or find distractions.
Here's my top tips for stress and how I deal with it.
1. My ultimate one is to pray: Just knowing I am not alone and being able to explain to God, what I am feeling really does help. I always calm down after spending time in prayer. Which I need to remember as I don't always in the heat of a moment which is why I prolong the stress.
2. Playing music. I turned up to my orchestra rehearsal a couple of months ago in a really tense mood. Just a couple of hours of playing Mozart and I was buoyant and suddenly everything didn't seem so bad!
3. Reading. Getting lost into a good plot is one way that I find takes me out of the zone.
4. A walk in the green: just a walk in the park, the green fields, a path, alone, breathing in, helps me to get back to the foundation.
5. Blogging!!! Just reading about lighthearted adventures of my fellow bloggers, looking at pretty pictures never fails!And on one of those subjects, I read a super book last night which I borrowed from one of wonderful University friends. It is called, Climbing a Monkey Puzzle tree
Kathy gave it to me because I have just borrowed a load of her Chalet school books and she thought I would like it because it is a school story. However, this is a school story with a twist. Life at Woodmaston School for Girls, a boarding school, is not like the Famous Five and other Enid Blyton books that Canadian new girl Nancy had imagined. She wins a place at the school because of her gift for writing wonderful, imaginative stories but she'd have sooner stayed at home. Right at the start, she comes up against bully, Sharon, whose animosity at first is to have more than one consequence for Nancy. The teachers, apart from a lovely student teacher, seem to dislike Nancy, though she doesn't understand why and seem oblivious to her genius. Jenny, a super cool goth before her time (I presume this book is set before the present day but it doesn't actually say!) is her only ally apart from Rebecca Bigfoot, a sweet girl who seems to feel safe with Nancy alone.
Nancy finds her way by weaving stories for the girls within the confines of her dorm. Her craft is such that even the class bully is addicted to hearing stories of her and Cliff Richard. Caroline delights in tales of her older Brother Michael, who through her story-telling, Nancy begins to fall in love with and hopes to meet.
This book was such an interesting one. It has a mysterious and slight feeling of premonition throughout the book despite having the feel of a school story. The characterisation and description is well written and the ending is a rather good twist! I'd definitely recommend this,especially if you like a good school story!
See you tomorrow for the next installment of November challenges!
