Excerpt from Life Beyond Stress by Martin Shaffer, PhD
One's level of muscular tension is a most essential issue that powerfully affects one's flow, speed, efficiency and enjoyment of work. Many events happen when our bodies are tense. There follows a partial list of possible events that each of us has experienced at some time or another and that are signals of tension:
1-the mind wanders and the ability to focus on a task decreases.
2- errors increase in frequency
3- Memory is worse
4-Disorganization of thinking, planning and working increases
5- Tiredness is experienced more frequently.
6- Accidents happen
7- Speech is less fluent
8-The body aches ( eg indigestion, headaches, lower backache)
9- Irritability increases
10-Enjoyment of work decreases
11- Humor decreases
12- The desire to smoke increases
13- The desire to drink alcoholic beverages increases
14-The desire to eat increases for some and decreases for others.
15-The desire to escape and leave work increases, etc.
When we experience these events, we continue a viscous cycle that leads to increased tension and to a compounding of the tension level.