As a voice specialist, I’ve found that 95 percent of my female spouses experience soreness in their neck and shoulder areas by the end of the day. Some women complain of a sore jaw also. Having worked with thousands of individuals, it’s interesting to note that I’ve had only a small number of male clientele who complain of pain in these regions.
Stress factor
Because we girls carry our stress differently than men; and, we are apt to become more aware of it by the end of the day. While I haven’t done a controlled study on the topic, I have discovered that the anxiety men carry (if they carry any strain at all) is more likely to affect them in their gastrointestinal tract: it’s a medical fact that men are more susceptible to peptic ulcers compared to women.
I would also venture to say that the mothers of the Baby Boomer generation didn’t go through the enormous amount of stress that we women of the’infamous’ generation (as well as younger girls) do today. Again, why the distinction? Because our lives have changed drastically since our parents or our grandparents; and, we’re now faced with not just the stress that comes from raising children and managing a household but the enormous pressure put on us by our professions or jobs. To say that our anxiety has doubled is a mistake.
Remember
Ladies, our anxiety is ten times larger than earlier generations because of our lifestyle. Raising children is significantly harder now than it was previously because we spend time with our kids but put more focus on them when we’re together. Look at it this way: for your stay-at-home mother who manages her kids’ whereabouts during the day, there’s not the exact same pressure for her to ‘concentrate on her kids’ as there is for the mother who picks up her kids from daycare and then must give dinner, do the laundry, run some errands, take the kids to football or baseball practice, give them a bath, read to them, etc..
The list continues on and on. And that record is considered the’little’ stuff. We women are developed to sweat the small stuff as we’re geared for multi-tasking; however, add to our multi-tasking, the difficulties of the job or the career and we’re on overload. It is in fact too much. And, while statisticians might worry about where they are going to put all people retiring Baby Boomers, I wonder if our stress will not kill us until it is time for move to the retirement center.
Final note
Generally, men aren’t great at multi-tasking: they are developed to handle the issues encountered in their jobs or their professions, what can be considered the’big stuff’. I know I’m being politically wrong here but the truth is the truth. If men and women were the same, I’d have men with sore necks and shoulders and far more girls with ulcers! So how can we fight this tension? There are several classes, books, and CDs on relieving, reducing, eliminating and coping with stress and yet the majority of these programs don’t emphasize the most important thing you can do.
Better negotiation or business of your time is definitely an option but it won’t stop the ache in your neck or shoulders until you do one very simple thing: learn to breathe with assistance from your diaphragm and I guarantee you will find a tremendous difference in how you deal with anxiety, in the way it is possible to remove more of your anxiety, and how you can really feel great by the end of the day.