18 Chapter One
What Are the Signs?
While we all suffer from our its in unique and special ways, their
impact on our bodies, attitudes, and outlooks is similar. The fol-
lowing are some common signs that your its are overwhelming
you and leading you away from your smile and toward burnout.
If stress and burnout don’t have much hold on you, you may only
experience symptoms occasionally—on those rare days when
your it attacks. You probably don’t experience more than a few
of them, and they don’t hit you that hard. On the other hand, if
your stress and burnout are stronger, multiple symptoms may
be a part of your daily life, and those symptoms may be nearly
overwhelming. You may even start thinking about driving into a
clump of trees.
HeadacHes and Muscle Tension
It may be a sharp pain in the center of your head, as if someone
just jammed a freshly sharpened number two pencil through
your left ear into your brain. It may be a numbness that throbs
through your whole head, although for the life of you there is no
memory of being injected with 60 cc of Novocain. Then again, it
may not be your head. It could be your shoulders that ache like
they are carrying the weight of the world or a neck so stiff you
can’t look both ways before crossing the street or a lower back
that won’t bend or knees and feet that burn with pain. Physical
discomfort is an early sign of stress for many people.
PHysical and eMoTional ailMenTs
The physical signs of stress can go deeper than headaches and
muscle pain. Over the last few years, I have met many providers
and parents stressed to the point of physical and emotional ill-
ness. One family child care provider said that after repeated tests
failed to diagnose the reason for an ongoing problem, her doctor
asked her a simple question, “Are you experiencing any stress in
your life?” Since this was the first time she remembered being
asked this question, she answered “yes” and then spent half an
hour providing details. His diagnosis was quick and simple: “If
you don’t deal with it all, it could kill you.” Researchers are con-
tinuing to find connections between stress and illness that back