We’ve been moved in for a week now, and it’s feeling pretty good. So good that I thought I’d check my blood pressure.
Before I started work at Swansea University my blood pressure had always been normal. My physical check up before starting measured it at 120/60, and why not? I’ve always been fit and healthy. Usually very or extremely fit, depending upon what sport I was into at the time.
So I was surprised when in the summer this year a regular checkup showed my BP to have risen to around 145/85. One measurement is never enough for this type of thing, so I had a handful of measurements taken over the next few weeks, and my BP was averaging around 148/88. This isn’t “high blood pressure”. Not yet. It’s an indicator that if you keep on doing whatever you’re doing, you’re going to develop high blood pressure. It’s commonly assumed that once you’re on the slippery slope, there’s little you can do to completely avoid high BP. So I wasn’t very happy, particularly as someone that always used to be fit, and owns the domain name www.dontbeasalmon.net to remind himself of the damaging side effects of long term exposure to “stress hormones”.
I hadn’t changed my diet, I don’t eat much salt, and I hadn’t changed my levels of exercise much (I was cycling to work at about 70 miles per week and running weekly). The only significant change was my change in working habits. I had begun an arguably more stressful job, with a long daily commute by bike and train. The commute is said by many in the South East to be the most tiring and stressful part of their week. OK, I thought, let’s look at trying to change some of this. It was only then that I really thought about the knot of stress in the pit of my stomach that I’d just got used to. Let’s try and remove that.
What do you do? You’ve still got deadlines to meet, challenges to puzzle, problems to solve. It’s not like you can just drop it, because if you take time away it’ll still be sat there when you return, but more will have piled on top of it, creating more worry.
One good bit of advice I took was about attitude. Where does the stress come from? In the past it had largely been self-imposed: the science had to get done, but mostly so I could publish and move on to a new contract. Now, as a lecturer, the pressure comes from the requirements to do the best for the students, to teach effectively and examine honestly and rigorously. It comes from research requirements to secure funding, to be sure that PhD students or post-docs are getting what they need to do their best work. And it comes from the myriad other things that fit into the daily tasks of trying to both set up, configure and run part of a modern medical school. But take a step back – is it all up to you?
Well, no. How well the students do is largely up to them. You’ll never present the information in the best way for all of them, so the most you can hope for is that most of them will understand what the hell you’re on about and then go and read about it and pass their exams. There’s nothing I can do about my teaching except practice, make improvements and repeat, and I’m doing that anyway. Likewise with exams – it’s not just me writing the questions, and there’s plenty of support, so don’t worry about it.
Again, in research the people working in your group are competent and intelligent – that’s why they’re working for you, right? So it’s largely up to them as to how well they’ll do. At this level you must be highly motivated to succeed. So hands off a bit there too.
And so on down the list. The point was that the outcomes of all of the things that were subconciously causing my stress levels to rise were not things that were solely under my control. So don’t worry so much. Just do what you can, be as effective as you can and relax a bit more. Not so much just “delegate” but “sit back and monitor”.
On top of this, my usual methods of combatting and balancing stress at work were gone because of my long commute. Climbing used to be my main method, but any sport gets you thinking in earnest about something that’s not work, and helps. So I planned to race in triathlons again next year. That helped a bit mentally.
The commute was causing a lot of stress, both in time and finance, so working at home an extra day a week helped a lot. Not having to worry about getting up early and getting everything ready in time for the train was really helpful. I had been trying to move house since October 2004, so there were already plans in place to remove the commute. House buying is one of the most stressful things most people do, of course, but to be honest it wasn’t high on my list of stress-causers.
Anyway, before we moved I had my BP remeasured, and it was coming down to about 137/80. Much better. That’s “normal”. After my move I’ve measured it at 127/65. How’s that? So all of these things are working, and it shouldn’t be too difficult to keep them working. I have much more time now, and plenty of new things to do. I’ve just got to worry about how to pay for all these damned carpets!
