Humor
Five Totally Serious Ways to Deal with Stress
Everything’s terrible, thanks for asking.
If you’re a human being, odds are, you have stress in your life. Work, relationships, family, your toddler just tried to dry his toothbrush in a candle flame and almost set fire to a couch, your dog threw up God knows what onto the carpet, you sneezed while shaving your legs and now your shower looks like a crime scene. You know, stress.
How we deal with stress says a lot about us. Do you eat a pint of ice cream at midnight while watching an episode of “Breaking Bad”? Do you go jogging at 5 AM and start sobbing uncontrollably as you round the corner next to your neighbor’s house with the “BE HAPPY!” flag above the front porch?
Let me help. I have a lot of stress in my life. My cortisol levels are so high that they touch the sun. I vaguely remember sleeping. So without further ado, please allow me to share my totally serious top five ways of dealing with stress.
Number one: Swearing. Just let loose with every curse word you know. Combine single curse words into multisyllabic curse words, like motherfuckingbucketofgoatshit. Or goddamnittohadesonafuckingstick. The more ridiculous the better. SonofabitchinaVolkswagen. None of these make any sense, which is kind of the point. Do not yell any of your new curse words on a playground, in the halls of a grade school, or at church.
Number two: Eating. Before anyone says “Erin, you’re encouraging an unhealthy coping mechanism,” yes, thank you, you motherfuckingbucketofgoatshit. I’m not suggesting that you wake up and have two Twinkies and a bottle of Scotch for breakfast. But chocolate makes me feel better. I don’t eat an entire bar of Hershey’s dark chocolate because that would make me sick. I eat a few squares. At 2 AM.
Number 3: Self-care. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA whew, sorry. Okay, self-care. Still laughing, give me a minute. I can’t stop, so here’s something I wrote about self-care.
Number 4: Punching things. Punching things helps with stress. Punching people or animals do not, please don’t do that ever. Punch a pillow, punch your couch, punch your mattress, punch the seat of your car. Go to a gym and punch a punching bag. Punching while swearing is good, do a lot of that. Beating the crap out of a throw pillow and yelling “FUCKALLTHISSHITINTHEFACE” can be very relaxing. Relaxing might be the wrong word…
Number 5: Hugging. I hug trees. I am an actual tree-hugging liberal. I also hug our dog, my husband, and have been known to ask random strangers in Costco if I can hug them. In my defense, that was right after TFG announce he wanted to ban Muslims, so I hugged a lot of Muslims. I wanted them to know not every white person was a steaming pile of shit. Hugging releases oxytocin, which is a good and happy brain chemical. The longer the hug, the more oxytocin. HUG THE SHIT OUT OF PEOPLE but ask them first. Don’t try to hug a cat. They will murder you.
You’re welcome.
