Bossy Friends, Massage, and Yoga:
The Timeless Triage for Stress

Before you read on, take a long, slow breath through your nose. Do that a few times a day and you could live longer, and perhaps more importantly, better. I'll tell you why later.

What's on my mind right now is stress.

It seems as though we live in an era when using several ways to manage stress is a hallmark of today's successful American life. Stress and ways to manage it are on my mind because of a lunch I had a month ago with Dan, a former colleague...

I met Dan at the same tiny restaurant we frequented nearly weekly while working together in Seattle. If he hadn't been waiting at "our table" I may not have recognized him. He looked easily 10 years older than when I'd seen him the previous spring. Still his cheerful self, his eyes betrayed weeks of poor sleep; his skin looked dull and droopy. When he stood up to hug me this usually super-fit man patted a growing belly and said "let me introduce you to the new me". Dan's previously thick salt and pepper hair was dull and thinning. Dan's life had changed dramatically in the previous year and at 52 his body was bearing the brunt of the impact.

Dan's parents owned a very popular nursery in Seattle. His mother had been running it for the past 5 years since her husband died. Just about a year ago, though she died unexpectedly, leaving uncertain the fate of the family business--which employed the same people for so many years the whole staff was as much family as Dan's birth family.

Dan and his sister decided to run the business-no small feat for an educator and a physicians' assistant! Over the years the nursery has struggled to remain a place that provides employees with a living wage. The entry of stores like Walmart and Home Depot to the nursery market has seriously challenged their viability.

The challenge to get up to speed on the business was formidable for Dan and his sister, and it was showing. The stress of so many responsibilities to his staff and customers, not to mention that internal yearning to succeed against the odds, were taking a toll. In Dan's case, the progression was rapid.

Over lunch, Dan confided that the stress wasn't all work-related. While not a "high maintenance" partner, Dan's wife, Sarah grew increasingly dissatisfied with the amount of time Dan was spending at the nursery and the toll it took on many aspects of their relationship. Sarah's needs weighed heavily on this remarkably kind and responsive man.

On top of all the stressors from work and home, Dan wasn't taking time to do the things he loved to do-the things that kept him sane and healthy while working in other stressful jobs. Once an avid kayaker and bicyclist, Dan had done neither since taking on the family business.

Now, I like to think of myself as a person who listens well and I typically regard everyone as the expert of their own experiences so usually don't offer unsolicited advise when friends confide in me. But when I heard Dan's story and saw the startling changes in his body my strongly held philosophy, plus 33 years of training and experience as a social worker, teacher, and massage therapist completely escaped me. I flew into an uncharacteristic frenzy of commands, directions, and ridiculous questions, like "what are you, nuts?" and "who gave you permission to treat yourself like this, Buster?"

Nice, huh? I bet you're wishing you had kind, supportive friends like me. It gets worse: my triage-like intervention in the face of such startling change in Dan moved from kind and supportive to controlling and bossy...

I contacted a massage therapist friend in Seattle and set up massages for Dan including Massage-for-Two so he and Sarah could enjoy some time together doing something relaxing and healthful for both of them. Stress-busting massage works to decrease muscle tension, improving the circulation of blood, lymph, and the nutrients they carry to organs and cells throughout the body. It strengths the immune system which can become weakened by extended bouts of stress. Best of all, it engages the body's relaxation response, improving sleep, calming during wakefulness, and lowering blood pressure.

I wasn't done yet. No. America's favorite health expert, Dr. Oz, calls yoga "the ultimate de-stress technique"; probably because it combines deep breathing, stretching, reflection, and fitness. So, since I was already WAY off the control and interference charts, I consulted yogafinder.com to locate yoga studios in the neighborhood of Dan's nursery. I wanted it to be easy for him to engage in this rejuvenating activity and get his body moving again.

There's more. When I got home I sent Dan a year's supply of organic green teas. Okay, I admit, that at the recommended 4-5 cups of tea a day that's a ridiculous amount of tea to send. But for all the cellular rejuvenation green tea is proving to fuel, I thought the gesture just might move him to drink the stuff.

Dan's situation seems extreme, though not uncommon: living with chronic stress, often precipitated by big life changes. But while Dan is managing his new old business, he's also incorporating some new old tools. Nearly all of his stress management resources are thousands of years old, including good, interfering friends.

Now, back to that deep breath through the nose... In 1998 the Nobel Prize for Medicine went to three men who figured out that a gas--noxic oxide--produced in the top of our nasal cavity and drawn into our lungs with each nasal breath acts to relax and open the arteries so blood can flow freely. So freely as to slow the aging of skin, the thinning of hair, the onslaught of heart and arterial disease, and a slew of other stress-related problems. So, go ahead, take another deep breath.

Then, if, like the majority of Americans, you're still a bit stressed, find a yoga class near you, drink green tea everyday, and most importantly get that massage you've been telling yourself you need!