To be online is to be stressed, more often than not. We open our browsers or our social media accounts, and the day begins: The depressing news cycle. The latest celebrity failure. The hype. The asks. The constancy.
How do you handle it?
To preserve my sanity and my creative center, I take a full day off—every single week. I don’t even open my computer, or any other device with Internet access. Sometimes I walk, or draw, or just sit and dream. Lately, I’ve taken to losing myself in poetry.
“More poetry, less stress,” is a little phrase that we’re attaching to this year’s Poetry at Work Day. But I’ve been wanting more than a phrase; I want the reality in my own life. After all, historically, poetry has saved more than a few hearts from despair, even in the worst of times; online stress isn’t exactly like living under a repressive regime, yet to our physiological selves it seems the same. Stress kills us slowly, if we let it rule.
How to Get More Poetry (and Less Stress)
Losing ourselves in poetry takes a small effort. But here’s how you can help the process along:
1. Make it a ritual.
The power of ritual, in part, is that it takes away the guesswork. The ritual is something that’s been decided and implemented before, with all its accompanying elements. You know the time. You know the place. You can simply enter into the moment. Having a few dependable poetry books or journals at your side will determine the content. Rereading favorites eases things—like a song you return to, or a peaceful room.
2. Follow a thread.
The intrigue of online life is that it offers us threads. The problem is that we quickly drop them, which results in a feeling of being frazzled or frayed. So, offline where things are more in our control, while I do love the breadth of a good poetry anthology, when I’m going for “less stress,” I tend towards a collection by a single poet—something that allows me to keep following a thread further and further into their language and sensibilities, their history and heart. Some of my favorites are The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova, The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems, and Mahmoud Darwish’s The Butterfly’s Burden.
3. Share over tea (or coffee), with friends, by reading aloud.
This past weekend, I put poetry at the center of my living room, by making a small pot of flavored black tea, bringing a little plate of light confections to the coffee table, and reading a bit of Akhmatova to my twenty-something girls. We simply let the words wash over us, no pressure to make them more than they were. Entirely refreshing.
4. Link it to an everyday cue.
Do you take a work break each day? Consider turning the time into a poetry break. Again, having a dependable collection at your side will assure that your break starts with ease (and leads to peace).
5. Read poetry daily, or listen to poetry daily, so it becomes a habit rather than a foreign experience.
Once you’ve got the habit down, you can more easily enter any poetry moment. Poems will welcome you, and you will welcome them—even the ones that, just a few months ago, might have seemed too challenging.
These are a few of my best tips, and they’re helping me to have more poetry and less stress. Got any good advice to add? I’d love to hear it.
Photo by Gabriel Caparó Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by L.L. Barkat is a modified reprint that originally appeared at Huffington Post and is used with permission.
L.L. Barkat
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Bethany R. says
Love this idea of poetry breaks as a pressure-reliever. And what a lovely idea of bringing cozy beverages and sweets to the living room for a little casual family reading. Just the thing for the holidays—and the everydays.
As far as suggestions, for those short on time (and stressed!) you can even read very short poems like haiku or tanka, to help you catch your breath. 🙂
L.L. Barkat says
I like the idea of haiku or tanka. And you could even memorize something like that and repeat it with some concurrent deep breathing.
Katie says
L. L. and Bethany,
I so appreciate your post and comments here!
“Stress kills us slowly if we let it rule.” I know this full well from experience, L.L.
and, yes, Bethany, even reading short poems can help you catch your breath.:)
In dipping back into some former posts yesterday, I came across the Poetry Prompt Animate: THREAD.
I’m sharing here two acrostic poems I sent to the comments for that prompt, in hopes that they might help us all pause and remember the weight of our words.
These are two poems on “virtual” threads, to possibly prompt any one of us using social media to consider the impact of our words, by reflecting on whether we are making positive/negative comments.
Negative THREAD:
Talking characters
Hurtful and harming
Reaching through cyberspace
Everyday, hour, minute
Adding ever more
Derision, division.
Positive THREAD:
Typed encouragement
Helpful and healing
Really uplifting
Edifying words
A positive force
Doing some good.
I, for one, am very thankful for the atmosphere of the TSP community which is predominantly positive:)
Gratefully,
Katie
L.L. Barkat says
Thanks so much, Katie. We do work very hard to keep Tweetspeak as a safe space. Communities that aren’t managed online can easily devolve, perhaps because there’s no sense that there are persons behind what’s there. It’s a more intensive commitment this way, but it’s what we’ve chosen. 🙂
Katie says
More than welcome, L.L. Effort well and wisely spent. Thank you!
Laura Brown says
Writing a poem is a good way to decrease stress, too. Nicely done, Katie.
Katie says
Yes it is! Thank you, Laura:)
Debbie says
I like these acrostics. They would make great reminders taped to our computers.
Katie says
Thank you, Debbie:)
Laura Brown says
Some of my strategies for handling stress:
Tea.
Recognize stress as stress.
Choose not to be identified by it.
Decrease caffeine and sodium; increase fruit and fresh vegetables.
Tea.
Embrace periods of silence. Even a minute, sometimes. Let the stillness in.
Triage the things to be done, and begin to do the most critical.
Count my gratefuls.
Tea.
Sing, and maybe even dance — engage the body. Take a walk.
And, yes, get away from the electronics, maybe giving them time-out in another room, and read an actual book, poetry or fiction.
Read aloud to someone.
L.L. Barkat says
All wonderful ways. 🙂
I especially like “read aloud to someone.” There’s something very centering about that. And it connects both body and mind with another. Of course, I am also partial to tea. And tea. And tea.
Putting your hands to something is also refreshing. Especially if done mindfully.
Laura Brown says
I read poems to people sometimes, and lately I’ve been reading from a marvelous book of liturgies. Usually to people who are far away, sometimes over the phone, sometimes via recording. It is centering, and actually accomplishes a lot of the things on my list.
Putting the hands to something, yes. Including washing dishes, folding laundry, cooking, drawing, wrapping a Christmas gift, writing a note card.
L.L. Barkat says
I was thinking… sometimes I even read aloud to *myself.* Or to someone as if they are there. Strangely, there’s power in that as well.
Today I am going to spend a little time copying notes from my latest read into my reading notebook. I love the way the pen connects me to the page and ultimately more deeply to the ideas.
(Okay, going to do that now for a little while. Peace on the way! 😉 )
Laura Brown says
Or reading aloud to the cat. Or simply reading aloud — because poems are made for that. Maybe simply providing the voice for the poem to read itself aloud.
Which I will do today with some Anna Kamienska. And some Tania Runyan.
Have you written somewhere about your reading notebook?
L.L. Barkat says
I love that idea that the poem might like to read itself! 🙂 (Which then connects us backwards in time, to the person who wrote the words.)
Hmmm. I’m thinking I’ve not written about my reading notebook except in my private coaching work. Big believer in the value of the reading notebook, and I do have a method. So… okay, I’ll think about writing about it. Thanks for asking.
Katie says
Laura,
These are all great ways of handling stress.
Must say that personally, #1, #5, and #9 are my favorite;)
Katie
Debbie says
I haven’t looked for any but I suppose you can buy a CD of poetry being read and play it to and from work.
L.L. Barkat says
What a fantastic idea, Debbie. 🙂 There are definitely collections. I used to love listening to a set of classic poems. Something like this one: http://amzn.to/2k2np4S
Debbie says
Have you listened to Caedmon Poetry Collection? I thought I might start with that one.
L.L. Barkat says
I’ve not, but that sounds like a marvelous place to start. 🙂 Let me know how you like it.
L.L. Barkat says
I added your idea to #5! 🙂 Thanks again for the inspiration.
Laura Lynn Brown says
You can also borrow, depending on where you live. My library has several shelves full of CDs of poets reading their own work.
This set has a book with the text and CDs. http://amzn.to/2j7u5Ob
And this: http://amzn.to/2k37L97