How To Stop Being Stressed About Stress

“Let me recall a case. A young physician consulted me because of his fear of perspiring. Whenever he expected an outbreak of perspiration, this anticipatory anxiety was enough to precipitate excessive sweating. In order to cut this circle formation I advised the patient, in the event that sweating should recur, to resolve deliberately to show people how much he could sweat. A week later he returned to report that whenever he met anyone who triggered his anticipatory anxiety, he said to himself, ‘I only sweated out a quart before, but now I'm going to pour at least ten quarts!’ The result was that, after suffering from his phobia for four years, he was able, after a single session, to free himself permanently of it within one week” (Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankel, 2006, p124).

I enjoy this story from Viktor Frankel. It’s funny, but maybe that’s just because I’m a guy and it’s talking about bodily fluids.

And it’s also something that I see in my own life.

The fear of the possibility of anxious behavior can end up producing that anxious behavior. The stress of sweating makes one sweat.

Frankel’s solution is to play a trick on yourself. It doesn’t matter if the trick is true or not, it just needs to be effective. In this case, his patient was encouraged to try to sweat even more.

Using a trick or turning the stress into a game can be a great solution. The Christian, however, can even go one step farther. Because you know that the purpose of every stress in your life is to make you grow, “count it all joy when you fall into various trials…that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:2 NKJV).

What do you think?
Joseph