Consider text message stress and your thumbs. The link is not as tenuous as you’d think. My end, text messages come in at a rate of approximately ten an hour and would no doubt continue to 24 hours a day were I never to turn off my phone. Otherwise, when it’s resting on metal, wood, or indeed any surface capable of vibrating that will amplify the sound, every few minutes, incoming texts are announced with a rude, nasty, insistent sound repeated twice like an angry killer-bullfrog demanding instant attention. I’m fine with that in the morning when my energy, hence resistance, is strong but as time goes on, my text-tolerance diminishes to the point of wanting to hurl the phone through the nearest window, especially when many of the tests are totally pointless – messages like, ‘sittin on a cliff in ibiza n d sunsets amazin :) x’, which is very nice and thanks for sharing but it doesn’t help make a busy day any easier. Now obviously the text message facility has its value, not least to the mobile phone operators who never realised what a massive free lunch they were in for when they stumbled across the idea by accident – it’s a convenient and less microwave intensive way of saying hello when you don’t have time to chat, good for sending a bit of info like someone’s number, good for getting out of arrangements if feeling too shy to do it vocally, handy for the occasional ‘luv u x’, ‘luv u 2 x’, ‘ta’, ‘me2’, or ‘u2 ’ but the price you pay for this convenience, apart from the exorbitant addition to your monthly bill, in terms of stress, is high. The medium, by its very nature is so instant and close up to your person no matter where you are or when and this combined with your innately human sense of reciprocity, leads to feeling obliged to answer every text as soon as you can so as not to appear rude or uncaring and also to prevent yet another backlog along with your email backlog and all your other backlogs. You could indeed, spend your entire day and night boosting the operators’ profits in this way – indeed many do. Well-known addiction clinics and rehab centres are even offering treatment for text-message addiction now. However it’s not just the stress it causes - the headache over how many kisses to stick at the end, the increased pulse rate, disturbance to your breathing pattern and sweaty palms at the sound of the killer-bullfrog coming to get you. The repetitive strain on the thumb of your dominant hand can be a problem too. For the stress, as with dealing with any kind of stress, it helps enormously to keep your breathing slow, deep and even and use the bullfrog noise as an erstwhile biofeedback mechanism by which you play a game to see how unstressed you can be, or be like one friend of mine who simply never replies. For the thumb – and this applies no matter whether beset by text-obsession or not, your thumb being essential to your dexterity in handling your affairs in general – try following this Taoist martial art thumb-stretching procedure, daily practice of which will give your thumbs and hence your whole approach to handling life, more flexibility and strength. Looking at the back of your right hand, spread your fingers and thumb as far apart as you can. Enjoy the sensation of releasing all the tension from this hardworking friend. Now taking hold of your thumb with your other hand, slowly, gently pull it further away from the the (original) hand until it’s at a 90 degree angle or more and hold it there, feeling and enjoying the stretch for 15 seconds or so. Now, slowly, gently push it back in the opposite direction angling it across your palm so its tip touches the base of your little finger. Then, adopting the limp-wrist posture, so your thumb is now directed along the underside of your forearm, tip pointing towards your elbow, slowly, gently pull it closer to your forearm until it touches and hold for 15 seconds or so, enjoying the stretch through the wrist and release slowly. Then repeat the whole sequence on the left. No less than six came in while I was writing that. This stuff works. All remain unread and unanswered. And if it wasn’t for my fatal curiosity, I’d leave them that way for the rest of the day.
