Keeping the Spark Alive

Photo by TheChanel.  made you look.

Few of us would consider stress as a  key "spice of life", but according to Dr. Hans Seyle, stress is actually necessary for survival.  In 1975 Dr. Seyle referred to as Dr. Stress, coined the term "eustress" to describe a form of stress that is actually positive and associated with enjoyable times in our lives.   In fact, it is something we all seek out, perhaps without knowing it.   It is a necessary part of emotional health. Stressmatters.com writes "Eustress is the term used for positive stress and [it] is usually working for the individual to improve performance i.e. when tackling interesting and stimulating tasks, being creative and productive, achieving goals and desires or participating in competitive sports. People deliberately put themselves into these situations knowing they can handle it and hoping to enjoy the benefits that eustress delivers such as excitement, increased confidence and self-esteem, improved health etc. "

It's absence can lead to the "blahs".  Getting stuck in a rut, either with work or in your marriage, can deprive the body of this positive stress, and lead to depression, apathy and poor motivation.  In the book, "Reclaiming the Fire: How Successful People Overcome Burnout", Dr. Steven Berglas describes the story of a polar bear in the central park zoo, who was starving himself.  Zookeepers discovered that his life in captivity was too stress free. His food was put out for him. There were no struggles or risk.  Eventually they began hiding his food, forcing him to "hunt" for it.  The polar bear thrived in response to this small change.  Our nature requires us to feel challenged, to take risks and work for our survival.  Turns out, we bore easily.
 
This topic interests me from two perspectives.  The first, as it relates to career burnout and the second, as it relates to keeping marriages interesting.  Seems a little eustress is needed to keep the spark alive in both instances.  Dr. Berglas writes, "Striving for success captures the essence of play, whereas sustaining success is work".  He notes that when we are younger in our careers, we take more risks.  The road to success is filled with challenges and ultimately rewards for their mastery. When we hit mid-life, we become more conservative and take less risks.  Often we feel that if we leave our stable careers the risks of losing all that we have attained is too great.  This feeling of being "trapped" in a career or not having the ability to move on to a new challenge leads to burnout. Dr. Berglas affirms that "success marks an ending and, in a very real way, a loss-of challenge, purpose or inspiration".  To stay motivated we need a balanced dose of challenge, innovation and change.
 
He describes similar issues in marriage, as we become used to or accommodated to the same kind of stimulus, including that with long term lovers or partners.  There is a certain amount of eustress found in the first flirtations, the pursuit of a spouse, planning the wedding, and on to having kids.  In time, as we begin to maintain the status quo, we literally begin getting bored.  In his book, he shares "The Penny Principle" used by marriage psychologists.  For every time you have sex in the first year of your relationship, put a penny in a jar.  The number of pennies in the jar will then represent the number of times you will have sex for the rest of your marriage.  There is some truth to this tragically sad example.  Unless we keep things interesting, the sameness of a long term relationship becomes boring.  If we fail to actively pursue or introduce change, we may end up pursuing "strange". 
 
It is easy enough to imagine what one can do in a relationship to keep a little healthy eustress around.  Introducing novel bedroom exploits, engaging in new activities as a couple, and accomplishing goals together can all enhance the do-able risk and reward system needed to feel engaged and excited.  Stagnant relationships are hard to revive and this is where I guess the "marriage is work" comes into play...remember it is work to maintain whereas it is play to strive for success. 
 
Too bad that simply adding a vibrator to the workplace wouldn't create the zest and passion for our careers we once felt.  No, there is a little more work to be done.  For some, finding new challenges or environments in which to transfer skills can be enough to periodically up the eustress ante.  For others, seeking entirely new careers may be the only answer.  Of course if you are paralyzed by mid-life fiscal conservatism, this is easier said than done.  One recommendation of Dr. Berglas is for professional careerists to create a parallel career.  This career is explored while maintaining your primary career and affords us the opportunity to discover that we won't starve to death if we jump ship.  He describes the story of several successful careerists who were eventually able to make their parallel careers their primary ones, allowing them to find both mental fulfillment and monetary gain.
 
Writing, as a side job, for me, allows me to develop a parallel career.  Novel enough to offer a healthy blend of putting myself out there and working at succeeding at something new.  Maybe someday I can make this my main career, but for now it fulfills some of my eustress needs.  The trick for some might be discovering what second career floats their eustress boat.  In my marriage, I have definitely found that the more connected we are with activities and shared challenges, as long as they aren't so stressful as to become distressful, I feel more interested and passionate with my husband.  Keeping sex interesting is a work in progress.  A part of keeping the spark alive sometimes involves stepping outside of our comfort zones.  I also laugh easily, which might be inhibitory to some of these sex-capades.