How to build a stress relieving environment
Pot plants? Orderly desks? Music and art? What on earth are you TALKING about? You need 1980s TIGERS. And birthing pools.
When I woke up this morning, pretty much my first thought on hitting Twitterland was “If you’ve got problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems.” At no point did I consider the silver lining that a bytch* wasn’t one of them.
Then a nice person kindly offered to do a guest post for Mookychick about how to build a stress relieving environment. They wrote some stuff about having a few plants knocking around, maybe some art, maybe some chilled sounds playing in the background while you leap on your desk to attack your floor with a dinosaur-headed pickup stick until you’ve cleared enough mess to be able to see it.
All very nice, so very nice, but it wasn’t even trying. A plant? What fresh clorophyll madness is this? How is a plant going to help me destress? I GOT 99 PROBLEMS, MAN. DO NOT SEEK TO EASE THEM WITH YOUR TALK OF PLANTS. And only one of those problems, literally just one of them, is an obssessive tendency to count things. If you’re like me, a pot plant cannot help you now. You need to take it up a notch.
The proper motherfluffing way to build a stress-free environment
1. The key here is BUILD.
Everyone knows about the honest sweat from a farmer’s toil. You need to build something, and build it fast. Build a bed. Why not build a bed, right? Beds are the epitome of stress-free living. Build it out of all the other bits of furniture that have been stressing you out. Chairs, tables… who do they think they are? Build really, really fast so you work up some lovely honest toil-sweat, and make sure you are wearing wellies, white string vest, dungarees and a red bandanna tied round your head. This is important, because you need to get a friend to take pictures of you wiping a sturdy arm across your sturdy brow looking just like Someone Who Has Built Something. If you can hold a soft mewy kitten or a little baby while you’re doing it, even better.
2. There was a man and in his house he had a goat.
There’s a story of a man who shared a single room with his entire family. He was feeling cramped, so a friend who obviously cared in a very meaningful way moved two more families and a goat into the man’s house as he slept. The man was obviously pretty upset about that, but when the surplus bodies were taken away he instantly felt a whole lot more appreciative of his normal circumstances and the two guys stayed friends and everything. I’m not entirely sure what happened to the goat, and I worry about that.
You can do the same. Tell everyone you know they have to come and stand in your room/office then hold hands around your crying huddled form and shout at each other. Or you. Whichever feels better, by which I of course mean worse. After ten precious, cathartic minutes of this and then they have to go away.
Doing this will make you feel AWESOME. If only because you’ll reveal yourself to possess leadership qualities you never knew you had.
3. Bathing helps you destress.
How aquatic is the environment you’re trying to be stress-free? Is it an ocean? If so, good, very good. You’ve done well. If it’s not an ocean you need to consider your options. Your best option is to set up a permanent birthing pool. Don’t come out of it, and feel free to do lazy backflips and nudge bystanders for small tasty morsels. You are no longer stressed, you beautiful thing. You are a graceful, adorable sea cow.
4. Tigers.
Male lions lounging around in your stress-free environment is no good. No good at all. What possessed you? They don’t do anything, they just LIE there, being chilled, waiting for their woman to bring them food. You want that? A male lion hanging around waiting for you to bring it food? Making sammich jokes behind your back? Is that what your life is going to be, now? No, you don’t want that. Of course you don’t. You will get stressed.
You need tigers. Tigers are the go-getters of the big cat world. They have go-fast stripes. If they were people they would have samsonite briefcases and talk very loudly into giant mobile phones. Just looking at that tiger being all busy and sh*t will make you feel very, very relaxed.
“My,” you will say. “I’m so very glad I’m not a tiger.”
5. Have a big TV screen dedicated to back-to-back crime dramas
Choose life. Choose a TV. Choose a really big TV. Feeling better already, yes? You’re living the dream, you moist and sweaty tiger-owner, you! Now ensure that it only plays crime dramas back to back. The more horrid, the better. Ha, ha! Look at those awful things happening! It’s okay, they’re happening inside a box! After a few days of watching their terrible relationships and all the awful murders you are now feeling way better about your life.
And now you are calm. Tranquil. Calm.
You have only two worries.
A flooded stress-free environment, and a tiger.
Look at this man. Is he stressed? No, he is not stressed. From now on he is your buildy mentor. He is offering you the Hammer of Peace. TAKE IT.