BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Stress Management What is your stress level today?

Nancy, wow, now that you mention it, it HAS been a long time! It's kind of a sobering thought how we can get used to things like insomnia that instead we should probably be trying to overcome if possible. It's not every night that it happens to me. More like a couple of nights a week, but it's very annoying when it does because I know it's that learned-behavior thing and not due to an actual cause.

Now, depression, that is a very hard thing to cope with. I've never had to deal with that, and I only know what I've read about it, but it sounds very difficult. Because it's a brain chemistry thing. It would be almost impossible to get past having it affect every aspect of one's life unless that person could fix up the brain chemistry -- through medication, or exercise, or meditation, or something like that. I wish you the very best good luck in managing the depression. And once you do, I'm sure the insomnia will clear up as well.

Relaxation music? I hadn't really thought about that. For relaxation, I've tried those nature CDs with the whale sounds and the ocean waves on the beach. Those are very soothing. And I have that CD that everyone bought back in the 1990s of the Benedictine monks chanting. If you like Gregorian chants, that's a fun one!

The link I gave you, yes, that's a book with a CD. The book offers a general explanation of the different types of the five relaxation sessions on the CD. The CD is the real thing that you use with each session lasting 15 minutes. Many people pick a favorite from the five and just stick with that, and others cycle through all five. The good thing is it's only 15 minutes. You know it's working when you start falling asleep during the CD session!

Now the puzzles ... that Simpsons one sounds challenging! Especially at a thousand pieces. I find puzzles made from drawings to be more difficult than those made from photographs for some reason. I mean, when you're looking at a puzzle piece that just contains tiny dots like you say, it can start to resemble some sort of weird abstract art, ha, ha!

Sports, hmmm, so I Googled Michael Schumacher and now I know he's a Formula One racecar driver. And he's been a coma since December 2013? God, poor guy! According to Wikipedia, the last piece of news was as of March, but I hope things are improving for him. That has got to be so hard for his family. And the Dallas Stars, I Googled them, and now I know they're ice hockey. I can see how hockey would be fun to watch with all the movement and action -- same with tennis. I'm too disorganized to find all the matches, but I've watched the Wimbleton a couple of times. It always looks so suspenseful and quiet with the players under such crushing pressure to serve and yet not double-fault!

And your parents -- God, what a betrayal! I am so very sorry that happened to you. I can completely understand that you wouldn't want to see them again. I wish you the best of luck getting a job and getting free of them. And I know that has to be difficult because of the trouble we (US and Canada) have had with the economy. It's also hard to go from unemployment to employment. I've always had freelance writing, but I've had gaps in my work history between day jobs. I've got past this by doing volunteer work as a way to get back into paying work because you get a good reference and some skills after six months to a year. But you'd probably need to commute a little bit to find these opportunities -- like to Rimouski maybe? (Can you tell I've been puttering around with Google maps? )