Category: stress

happiness, health, stress

My Year of Hopefulness – The Power of Compartmentalizing

Christa Avampato

You have to let it go. Breathe. Again. Breathe. This year I have really begun to appreciate the ability to compartmentalize the different areas of my life. It’s not a natural skill I have, though one I have developed over and over again with conscious effort. Some days I am better at it than others. Today, I did really well.


I have one area of my life that has been giving me trouble lately, lots of it. I’ve had to learn to let it go and focus on the other great parts of my life. It’s not easy. I’ll find myself walking along the street and it will rear it’s head again, forcing me to stop, breathe, and put it aside. It’s sort of like a bad penny or one of those crazy dreams you have repeatedly.

This exercise has shown me that I do have the discipline to keep negative events in one area of my life from spilling over into others. It’s not something that comes easily, and honestly, I used to be horrible at it. Dreadful, even. I was one of those people who would have 99 great things and 1 bad thing happen, and sure enough there I’d be at the end of day focusing on the 1 really bad thing as if the other 99 great things didn’t even happen or matter. I don’t suggest this method for living – actually, I highly discourage it. You’ll be miserable and unhappy, and quite frankly, the world has enough misery and unhappiness right now without you and me contributing any more.

So learn to breathe a little more deeply, do yoga, meditate, run, have a good laugh, and let it all go. You’ll be healthier and every other area of your life will thank you many times over.

business, economy, friendship, harmony, leadership, stress, work

My Year of Hopefulness – Harmonious Work Environments

Christa Avampato

I love to talk and on occasion someone says something to me that’s so striking that I cannot let it pass without writing about it. A friend of mine recently had her supervisor tell her that she creates a work environment that is too harmonious. I was so stunned by this comment that all I could do was laugh. And once that laughter subsided, I found the very core of this comment to be highly disturbing.

The American workplace right now, particularly in large corporations, is a tough place to be every day. Layoff rounds seem never ending and are referred to with a dizzying array of synonyms: “right-sizing”, “restructuring”, “displacement”, “down-scaling”, and the list goes on. At the end of the day a lot of very talented, bright, dedicated high performers are losing their jobs. Morale is low and bad behaviors abound as a result of fear, angst, and disappointment.

Layer all of these bad sentiments into my friend’s situation. Despite the fact that morale is very low at her company and the environment there is like a pressure cooker these days, she has found a way to bring some sense of harmony to her team and her projects. And the feedback to her is she creates too much harmony?! If she were ineffective at her job and unable to get anything done, I could possibly understand the feedback though that is not at all the case. She’s one of the highest performers in her department, due in large part to her ability to create winning strategies that are widely supported by others.

By saying please and thank you, and recognizing the hard work of her team she is being criticized by her boss who is unable to create any kind of good will due to his bad attitude and propensity for bullying. With all the anxiety in the world, we should welcome the contributions of people who can restore a sense of order and calm, particularly in the workplace. In the case of harmony, there can’t be too much of a good thing.

calm, economy, meditation, stress, yoga

Getting quiet

Christa Avampato

I am a long-time subscriber to Yoga Journal. I read it cover to cover every month. One of my favorite sections is the 10 pose sequence that has a specific focus. This month, the focus is “Inviting Quiet”. What can I say? I like a challenge.


I am a talker, a chatty Cathy in some circumstances. On the Myers-Briggs test, a couple of things stand out as truly odd. I am OFF THE CHARTS on extroversion and ambiguity. Give me a situation that is mired in ambiguity and deals with boatloads of people, and I’m as happy as a mouse in a cheese shop. 

I like engaging with people about 95% of my waking hours. And then in the other 5%, I hide away from the world. It’s important to note that without that 5% of hiding away from all humanity, that other 95% of the time with them is far less enjoyable. So while this introspection is small in quantity, the quality is critical. Yoga generates this necessary high quality.

I think about this need for quiet, even in the loudest lives, as I make my way to work each morning. There is a very short walk from my office building to my subway line. It’s not pretty, but I use it to center myself at the start and end of my day. It’s my gateway between my working life and my personal life. It is especially important in this churning economy to spend some time getting quiet, calming down our nerves, and turning inward to remind ourselves of what’s important. Getting quiet, at least for a short time, may be our only avenue through the noise all around us.   
creativity, insomnia, stress, work

Omnitasking: the latest buzz word to feed our frenzy for efficiency

Christa Avampato

I’m scared. Really scared for all of us. Instances of insomnia are rising, stress levels among Americans are at an all-time high. At this rate, burn-out may actually become a diagnosable disease. In my bio on this blog you will read that I am a “recovering multi-tasker.” Like most people recovering from an addiction to anything, it’s my continuous commitment to myself to not get caught in the trap of always thinking I must do 18 things at once.

So imagine my horror when I learned about the latest term in task-ology: omnitasking, meaning that you are working on tasks at every moment from everywhere. I was almost seized by tremors and an enormous migraine just thinking about being an omnitasker. Zippo downtime. Frightening.

I also think this may be the universe’s reminder to me that it’s time to back away, slowly, from the frenzy and the pressure that reading posts like http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK2FR8DTV9Q2KS1 cause me. With omnitasking, there is no time for reflection, or even enjoying the task at hand. You must always be looking ahead, to the next task that needs completion. And that kind of behavior kills creativity, literally forces you to ignore any kind of intuition senors that we may have.

There have been a lot of scientific studies that come to the conclusion that multi-tasking beyond a certain point actually lowers our IQ. Taking that one step further, does omnitasking do away with our intelligence altogether?

holiday, stress

Wishing for a stress-free season

Christa Avampato

While out shopping for others this holiday, the temptation is high to reward myself with a little something too. Rather than get myself something of material value for the holidays, I decided to do myself a big fat favor – I’m cutting stress out of the holidays. Seriously. I’m giving 13 holiday gifts, most of which I already have. I didn’t travel for Thanksgiving, but spent it in NYC about 10 blocks from my apartment. I’m going to my mom’s an hour and a half drive away on the 25th. And then I’m likely spending New Year’s at a house party less than a block from my apartment. In between I’ll see friends, enjoy the lights, the special Christmas exhibits, window gazing. I’m looking to put the magic back into the holiday.

It’s as easy as it sounds. I made the decision, after years of not really enjoying the holidays all that much for a variety of reasons, that I was really going to love this time. And the best way for me to have a good time is to mitigate the stress. I spend a lot of time taking on other people’s energies, good and bad alike. This is part of the downside of being a sensitive person. I counteract some of this draining with yoga, or meditation, or seeing friends, or taking long walks in the park. My gift to myself is time to do whatever I want – a gift that really does keep on giving.