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.