Stress at 45, Part 3

I was suffering, but I had slowly begun climbing out of the hole of depression I found myself in.  The key was getting my relationship with God back on track.  I had many friends and family members praying for me, and I realized I had to give it all to Him in order to be free of the depression and stress I had been feeling.  It was working, but I needed to make other changes.

The next thing was sitting down with my boss and explaining to her my issues with the new job responsibilities I was given.  It was a good conversation.  I didn't want to give up on what I was doing, but I certainly was not having much success with it.  The lack of success was hurting my confidence, and I also wasn't giving my primary job responsibilities the attention they needed.  By reassigning that work to another manager who was better suited to doing it, plus the fact that we had a major automation effort occurring with my other area of responsibility, I quickly eliminated a great source of my stress.  It was amazing!  A great weight was lifted off my shoulders, and I could feel the difference.  It was freeing.

Backing up, way back in December, I did a sleep test that determined that I did, indeed, have sleep apnea.  Once that was diagnosed, and I began to use a CPAP machine to help me breath at night while sleeping, and I was a new man.  For too long, I was not getting proper sleep.  I was not getting any deep sleep at night, and it made me tired most days.  I would come home from work and need a nap.  I had no energy.  I couldn't think straight at times, and that lack of sleep made concentrating difficult.  With the CPAP machine, I was finally getting the proper deep sleep that resulted in a lot more energy during the day.  I now can't sleep without it.

The combination of better health (through proper sleep), less stressful work conditions, and a much stronger, more fulfilling spiritual life, and I really felt like a new man.  By finding solutions to the issues I was facing, I was able to lift myself out of the stressful situations I was in.  I'm so thankful for God's presence in my life.

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The blog has been hit and miss the last couple of weeks.  Last week, it was due to my trip to Oklahoma City.  When I'm traveling and I don't have my laptop, it's too hard to type without a full keyboard (I don't text very quickly), so I have to do short posts, if I do one at all, or I fill it with pictures instead of words.  This week, I was hit with either a summer cold or severe allergies.  Whichever it is, it has knocked me on my butt.  I'm taking Alka Seltzer Plus, which puts me right out, so that saying about resting a cold is absolutely true.  I've been sleeping a LOT this week.  I missed work today, too, so the extra sleep was appreciated.  Anyway, just wanted to say that I try very hard to provide daily updates to this blog, but sometimes I can't help it.  The rest was needed.  Thanks for understanding.

Have a great evening, everyone!