Stress and Swimming

I’ve been really stressed at work lately.  Everyone at work has been stressed lately.  Late hours, extra work.  We’re undermanned–about 70% manning just at a guess and have been that way for awhile, so this stress has just been building up.  I’ve found myself being really grumpy the last two days and snapping at people.  Not good.

So today when I got home from work I went swimming.  It’s gotten warm enough I could do that.  I didn’t get off work until 1800 (6:00 p.m.) and it was getting dark and then my battery in my car was dead, so I walked home.  Thankfully I live close enough to walk.  So when I got changed and went up to the top floor (the roof) it was dark.  It was odd swimming in the dark, but at least I didn’t have to worry about sunburn!  I spent half an hour in the pool and was the only one there.  I enjoyed it.  I may make a regular habit of it.  I know I need to do more exercise than what I get in command PT (an hour 3x a week), and I do do tae-kwon-do, which is two hours on Saturday, but I feel I need to do more the rest of the week.  Either that or cut back on the junk food.  And I don’t like running; so swimming may be something I can do.  We’ll see.

The main reason I went because “they” say that exercise is a good stress-release.  I’ve always found exercise to be stressful, so I don’t like to do it.  But maybe that’s because I don’t do a kind of exercise I like.  So tonight I did a kind I like.  So we’ll see if tomorrow I feel less stressed.  I know it will be just as busy as today and yesterday, and even though it is supposed to be a short day (Thursday is like your Friday–the last day of the work week), I know it won’t be.  So we’ll see if “they” are right.

Don’t be surprised if posts are erratic in the near future.  I may not have much time to write posts.  So bear with me.

And swimming is fun even though I’m not very good at it.  Maybe I can develop this “culture of fitness” the CNO wants all sailors to have, yet.