The Price of Worry

We've all heard the numbers... Half of Americans report lying awake at night due to stress.  An estimated 15 tons of aspirin are consumed every day – that’s nearly a half million of those little bottles EVERY DAY. And workplace stress costs more than $300 billion each year in health care, missed work & stress reduction.

Dale Carnegie says that you must "Remind yourself of the exorbitant price you can pay for worry in terms of your health.  'Those who do not know how to fight worry die young.'"

At 2:30 AM on Wednesday, I was awoken by Tyler, my almost three-year-old son.  He came bounding into our room, awake as can be!  After trying everything to get him to stay in bed, my husband graciously offered to sleep on the floor next to his bed.  As my boys fell back to sleep, I began to worry. Thoughts floated through my head: "Why did Tyler wake up?  Is his cold getting worse again?  Is he getting that stomach bug that is going around at daycare?  What's wrong?" 
Then, I remembered this week's worry principle and did my best to calm the voices in my head.  Marisa, remember the price of worry.  I soon joined Tyler and Alan in the wonderful world of sleepiness.

To paraphrase someone wise and humorous, "Our worrying obviously works because nine out of ten things that we worry about never happen!"  Join me this week in an endeavor to switch the worry button to the "off" position!  Let's be in the half of Americans that DO sleep!

The goal: let's all sleep soundly like Tyler this week!