Coping Skills for Stress, Anger and Depression

I am aggrevated at the moment so I thought I would use this as an opportunity to talk about stress and anger and some different ways I coping with these feelings. It takes a lot to really stress me out. I actually work pretty well under pressure. In fact more often than not I feel like if it weren't for the last minute I would never accomplish anything. However, anger is a whole other problem. I have lots of anger issues. So how do I cope with these feelings.*In no way am I even remotely claiming to be an expert on any of this.*

Let's talk a little bit about stress. Stress is defined as the physical and emotional response to events that threaten or challenge us. So pretty much life is stress. Doesn't mean life isn't good too. Everything causes stress, at least a little bit. Holidays, family, getting older, money, work, school, and politics are just a few things that can cause stress. How do you know if you are stressed? In a text book called Discovering the Lifespan by Robert S. Feldman there is a neat litte test

The test is only to relate to the last month. Add up your score and see just how stressed you are.
1.How often have you been upset by someting that has happened unexpectedly?
   never=0   almost never=1   sometimes=2   fairly often=3   very often=4

2.How often have you felt that you are unable to control the important things in your life?
   never=0   almost never=1   sometimes=2   fairly often=3   very often=4

3.How often have you felt nervous and "stressed"?
   never=0   almost never=1   sometimes=2   fairly often=3   very often=4

4.How often have you felt confident about your ability to handle your personal problems?
   never=4   almost never=3   sometimes=2   fairly often=1   very often=0

5.How often have you felt that things were going your way?
   never=4   almost never=3   sometimes=2   fairly often=1   very often=0

6.How often have you been able to control irritations in your life?
   never=4   almost never=3   sometimes=2   fairly often=1   very often=0

7.How often have you found that you could not cope with all the things that you had to do?
   never=0   almost never=1   sometimes=2   fairly often=3   very often=4

8.How often have you felt that you were on top of things?
   never=4   almost never=3   sometimes=2   fairly often=1   very often=0

9.How often have you been angered by things that were outside of your control?
   never=0   almost never=1   sometimes=2   fairly often=3   very often=4

10.How often have you felt difficulties were piling up so high that you could not overcome them?
   never=0   almost never=1   sometimes=2   fairly often=3   very often=4

How do You measure up? (compare your average scores to the averages below)
AGE                                           Gender                                                Marital Status
18-29------14.2                   Male----------12.1                          Widowed-------12.6
33-44------13.0                Female----------13.7               Married/living with-----12.4
45-54------12.6                                                                           Single----------14.1
55-64------11.9                                                                           Divorced-------14.7
65 +-------12.0                                                                          Separated-------16.6

To make everyone feel a little better (hopefully) about their stress level I can say that mine is double compare to the average.

What is coping? Coping is the effort to control, reduce, or learn to tolerate the threats that lead to stress. So how do I cope with stress. Deep breaths. Close your eyes, try to feel the different parts of your body and breathe very deeply 3 or 4 times. This is my go to coping skill. It only takes a few seconds and works pretty well for me. Other ways I deal with stress-hot baths, naps and probably the most unheatlhy coping skill I have is chocolate. Chocolate cures everything, just ask Harry Potter.

I do not have nearly as good a set of coping skills for my anger. I probably never will. For me anger and depression go hand in hand. I tend to bottle and cap off my emotions. Every once in a while I explode, but it's usually over little things that aren't really that important to me. Can we say road rage? So how do I cope with the anger that I don't let out. I vent. It's probably the easiest and generally the most effective coping skill I have. But I don't just vent to anyone. I have to vent to someone who is completely removed from the situation, otherwise the anger continues to build. I also do a lot of impulse shopping. Another not so good coping skill. One that I am working very hard to get under control. I also need a cooling off period when I get really angry. Oh and I have a tendancy to watch violent movies. I think I need to work on developing a better set of coping skills for my anger. I clean a lot when I am angry as well, but it has to be the right kind of angry. So I guess that is beneficial skill. When the anger turns into depression I sleep A LOT.

One of my biggest pet peeves is people telling me that it is up to me to control my depression. That I can choose to be happy or not. Sorry folks it doesn't always work out that way. Guess I got wired wrong. I'm in my 30's now and my depression isn't as extreme as it was in high school. A big plus to getting older. It still drags me down sometimes. Lately more often than not, but that is another story. Aside from using sleep as a coping skill, I tend to pretend I don't feel depressed. Eventually it becomes true. Let me be perfectly clear, I know I have an illness. I have tried medication and I do not like the effects the ones I have tried have on me. If I get desperate I take St. Hohn's Wort. I do not see a therapist/counsiler. I do not recommend these types of not dealing. It works for ME. If you suffer from depression find what works for you and do not be afraid to admit you have an illness. Depression is NOT a choice. I wish it were. One thing I do when I am depressed, when I hurt so bad on the inside that it physically hurts to have people I love touch me, is pray. Sometimes there are no words in those prayers, but I know my Heavenly Father hears me.

I hope someting I said in this post is helpful to someone.

Just starting out-crock pot ready meals

I guess I could have posted this with the first post, but oh well. My brother is the one who suggested that I create a blog for some of the things I was doing. Like feeding a family of six for two weeks on $100. (That comes out to $1.38 per person per meal for a total of 12 meals.) I don't want to offend anyone, but a lot of the different websites I have come across never seem realistic to me. I don't coupon. I cut them out then never take them with me, so it's a waste of time. With my schedule I don't have a lot of time to waste.
I just recently downloaded Safeway and Kroger apps onto my smartphone. Yes I know a smartphone doesn't exactly scream a simple life, but trust me it makes my life so much easier. I haven't really used these new apps yet. But they are free and promise to give me the weekly sales ads, which means I no longer have to remember to go buy a newspaper.
I have spent a lot of time reading on other blogs about crock pot meals that you make ahead of time and then toss them into the freezer. I love this idea, however I have to deal with weird food allergies and picky eaters. So a lot of these blogs don't help me. I am sure that mine won't help everyone either, but it's worth a try, right?

So I thought for my first real post I would post my freezer to crock pot recipes. I have 8 freezer to crock-pot meals prepped (minus the one I just tossed in the crock pot). Just pull them out of the freezer defrost in whatever manner you like enough to get them out of the freezer bag and dump them into your crock pot.

I spent $100 without coupons. I shopped at Wal-Mart early on a Friday morning because a lot of their meat is on sale then. I also bought store bought brands, except for the Campbells Cream of ___________ Soup. I am picky enough to buy the real thing.  Some of the recipes I planned for the next two weeks cannot be frozen, I will post those later on. On each bag I wrote what the meal is, when I put it in the freezer, how to cook it (i.e. Cook on LOW for 8hrs) and if there was an item that could not be frozen I wrote "add _____" I cook almost everything on LOW so that it is ready when I wake up in the evening. If you want to shorten the cook time the general rule is Cook on HIGH for roughly half the time. I splurged and bought pre-chopped onions and just tossed in a couple of big spoonfuls when it called for onions. I spent 3 hours prepping all the meals after I went grocery shopping.

Bean Stew

6 c. Chicken Broth

1c. dry beans, rinsed and picked through

2 med. carrots, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

3 TBS. uncooked white rice

2 TBS. minced garlic

1 tsp. thyme

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

Cook on LOW 8 hours

Beef Stew

2 lbs. stew meat

1 small onion, chopped

5 carrots, chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

2 tsp salt

1 tsp. pepper

2 tsp minced garlic

3 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed

2 cans beef broth

Cook on LOW 8hrs

Sausage and Bean Supper

1 lb cooked sausage (i used jimmy dean's HOT pork sausage)

1 small onion, chopped

1 celery stalk, chopped

1 TBS Worcestershire sauce

1 1/2 tsp. dry mustard

1/4 c. honey (to be add when ready to cook)

1 can tomatoes with green chili

1 can kidney beans, rinsed

1 can black beans, rinsed

1 can pinto beans, rinsed

Cook on LOW 4hrs

Pork and Veggies

1 lb. pork roast cut into 1/2" strips

1 small onion, chopped

1 green bell pepper, sliced

2 carrots, chopped

1/2 lb. sliced mushrooms

1 can tomato sauce

1 1/2 TBS. apple cider vinegar

1 tsp salt

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Cook on LOW 8hrs

Suggest serving with rice

BBQ Beef or Chicken

Beef roast or 2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 jar of your favorite BBQ sauce (I like Stubb's original)

Cook on LOW 8hrs

Shred with fork before serving

Chicken Taco Soup

1 small onion, chopped

1 can chili beans (i used Ranch Style Beans)

1 can black beans

1 can tomato sauce

1 can chicken broth

2 cans tomatoes with green chili

1 pkg taco seasoning

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Cook on LOW 8 hrs

Suggest serving with chips and cheese

Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice

2 cans cream of chicken soup (to be added when ready to cook)

1 1/2 c. water

1 pkg long grain and wild rice (i used Uncle Ben's)

1 small bag of baby carrots

6 to 8 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Cook on LOW 8hrs

French Dip

2 lbs. beef roast

1 envelop onion soup mix

1 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. oregano

1 TBS minced garlic

2 cans beef broth

Cook on LOW 8hrs

Carefully remove meat from sauce. Skim off excess fat/oils.

Serve with crusty french rolls and a side of the sauce to dip.

An experiment

This is an experimental blog. Hopefully I will be able to share some cool ideas on how to simplify things in your life as well as my own. Some of the things I want to try and to share are recipes ( I <3 my crock pot), craft ideas, coping skills and whatever else comes to mind. Some of this will come from personal experience, some from other places (like Pinterest or reading), while the rest could just be my one brilliant idea for the day. Guess we'll see what happens.