When I say my new role is that of head-case believe me it isn’t supposed to be. If in fact that were my job, I’d be getting quite the bonus but unfortunately that isn’t the case. My newly found nuttiness is merely a side affect of my horrible new job (that I will most likely grow to love in time). The problem with me is I do not like imposed change. I hate it in fact. If I had my way things wouldn’t change. Well, perhaps there’d be fewer market researchers cluttering up the streets and George W Bush would retrain as a circus performer but the big things would stay the same. God help us all if the Euro is ever introduced here!

“Change helps us grow” people keep telling me. Well, if things go on the way they are that will literally be true for as my stress level rises so too does my yearning desire to eat my weight in Mars Bars.

Don’t get me wrong, to a degree I can thrive on stress as well as the next person. At the right level it makes me witty and sarcastic (and you know how much I love to be sarcastic) but in high doses it makes me dangerous and unnerving.

Take last week for example. There was an incident involving a biro, which resulted in me being likened to Nikki from Big Brother. This caused me much distress and alarm bells started to ring. I had been feeling completely stressed out all day and a customer complaint tipped me over the edge. My eyes glowed with a disturbing redness that you would see in some sort of horror film involving evil demon pixies. I stood up and stormed away from my desk. A colleague walked by and asked if I was okay.

“Leave me alone” was my curt reply.

“Claire” they continued.

“Leave me alone. I’m serious,” I said as I stormed past the filing cabinet and launched my biro off in its general direction causing it to ricochet and bounce along the floor several times. Fortunately nobody was seriously injured but after I calmed down I decided that it might be necessary to take steps towards dealing with this stress in a slightly less dangerous way lest I find myself on a one way road to ASBO City.

And so at lunchtime I took a walk to the bookshop and stumbled upon a CD called Self-Hypnosis – Dealing with Stress.

“Perfect” I said to myself, drawing a few strange looks from some of the customers that were wandering around the self-help section.

Though I was slightly wary about the prospect of being hypnotised into believing I was a chicken or a dog named Maxwell every time the phone rang, the prospect of running up an expensive biro bill was far more daunting and so I bought my CD and tried it that night.

The first time I tried it bought strange results. I dreamt about huge pink bunnies and, although they weren’t chasing me, I found the entire ordeal quite disturbing and if anything it added to my stress levels.

The next evening I tried again and this time I was disturbed by the sound of either cats or chavs fighting outside, it was very hard to tell what with the spooky man hypnotising me. Now, semi-conscious I listened to the man who in my imagination was wearing a top hat and a cape, telling me

“You cope with stress in a calm and orderly manner. Stress does not affect you.” Clearly this man didn’t have a clue! I sat bolt upright in my bed outraged! If stress didn’t affect me and I dealt with it in a calm and orderly manner, why on earth would I have bought the bloody CD. Besides, I hardly call launching biros at frightening speeds into random pieces of office equipment a sane reaction DO YOU?

Clearly this person was insane, probably been driven mad by too much stress, not unlike myself, and so I decided that I would take another approach. Research. So, to the Internet I went intent on finding the perfect way to deal with my stress. Do you know what it said? Can you guess? You’ll be amazed.

Breathe, Get enough sleep, eat properly, Connect with others, Take time out. These are all fine in their way I suppose but I decided to write my own definitions for each one, which I think you’ll find much more helpful.

BREATHE.

Aha. That’s where I’ve been going wrong all these years. I hold my breath in the morning until I go to bed at night and wonder why I’m tried and irritable. I think these specialists are confused. Breathing is a vital part in the activity known as not dying. Breathing alleviates death, not stress, death. Anyone would feel stressed if they didn’t breathe for heaven’s sake. If these experts aren’t breathing and then suddenly discover it for the first time, of course they’ll feel better. And I must say the way they describe this breathing is somewhat extreme for my liking. Breathe in slowly for as long as you can until your lungs hurt. Hold your breath until you go pink and then purple. Breathe out slowly until there is no air left in your lungs. Repeat until you pass out. When you wake up you’ll feel much better because you’ll be in a hospital.

Strangely, another one of the tips is

GET ENOUGH SLEEP

So perhaps these two are directly linked.

One of my favourite tips is

EAT PROPERLY

Keep your elbows off the table, chew with your mouth shut and for goodness sake don’t talk with your mouth full because you KNOW that will piss me off and cause me lots of stress and my provoke me into hitting you with a sausage.

CONNECT WITH OTHERS

Being on your own is fine, but sometimes it’s important to reach out and slap someone. It might not make you feel better in the long term, but it can be quite satisfying at the time.

TAKE TIME OUT

That is a particularly good one. Especially if what you’re stressed out about is not having enough hours in the day to get things done. Denial is a very helpful coping mechanism. Put a finger in each ear and close your eyes. Now chant LALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU LALALALA.

Feel better? I suspect not. Neither do I so, my new plan to deal with my stress is a much simpler one and is as follows.

Lock the scissors and any other sharp or dangerous implements (staplers, letter openers etc) away in a draw somewhere so I can’t accidentally throw them at anyone and continue to rant and babble quietly in the corner.