 Hello, my name is Meryl Getty and I am here on Church Street today asking people about stress and how it connects to the mind-body relationship. How do you guys typically recognize when you're feeling stressed, both physically and mentally? I usually feel myself withdrawing. I kind of move away from people and I get quieter and I get a little more sullen and I just try to be on my own more. I agree with that. I think I kind of tend to like isolate a little bit and try to, whatever stressing me out, I try to handle it on my own, like in my room without really consulting other people. And so I know that I'm stressed when I'm alone in my room a little too much. And are there specific activities or practices that help you manage stress? I think kind of doing what we're doing right now, just getting outside and enjoying the day and doing what you can but also giving yourself time to just relax and not worry about things even though that's really hard. So just kind of trying to give yourself space. Yeah, I think what we're doing right now, like I've got my camera, kind of happy to be out and about making art on a walk. I tend to go to yoga a lot. I went to yoga this morning. That helps. I tend to rock climb when I get stressed. I do a lot of things when I can. And to give yourself grace, you are right. Understand that sometimes it's hard to make time for those things and it's okay if you can't. And can you guys give me an example of a time that you responded to stress and what happened to your body physically and mentally? I feel like with me I get panic attacks sometimes. It's kind of a wild experience. It's kind of like numbness in the hands and face, tightness in the chest, hyperventilating, rapid heartbeat. It's kind of intense. It's scary sometimes but usually they pass and if you have friends around or you can call someone they can help you out. Yeah, take a different approach. Maybe I had a lot of midterms the last couple weeks and so I spent a lot of time in my room, not sleeping, studying, not doing my dishes, all sorts of things like that. And it takes a toll on your body. You know, you're tired, you get a cold and things just don't feel great. You get tight in the shoulders and all sorts of things like that. Just long-term stress. How do you guys typically recognize when you're feeling stressed both physically and mentally? My heart starts to race. I get anxiety really bad. Yeah, elevated heartbeat and I would say inability to focus as much. And what are some activities that you guys do to alleviate stress? I go running pretty much or listen to music really, really loud. Make sure I'm hydrated with water and take my dogs on a walk. And can you guys think of a specific example of a time that you responded to stress and what happened to your body physically and mentally? I just had a house fire and my dogs were inside the house fire and not thinking and like going in and like knocking down a door and getting my dogs out. Something that I don't think I would normally have done if I was not stressed out. Evaluate and see what there is I can do. My background is in EMS so I wouldn't show panic because that's the way I was trained. But if you test my blood pressure, it's probably way up. It makes you happier than do it more than less because then you get out of your whatever pressure and you get as bummed out as you can. You get to the bottom of the down here and then you got nowhere to go but up, right? If you stay up here and go, you never get down the bottom of it and then you go, oh, I'm taking myself way too seriously. And then you head back up and it takes a little while so you get happy, right? And how do you typically recognize when you're feeling stressed both physically and physically? I don't know. You can make it like a color contrast like I feel blue or I'm red hot like my temper is too like a spiky ball, you know, like a mace. If you were to lose it, would you tell somebody I lost my temper and you need to help me find it? It was kind of like a red spiky thing with a ball of fire inside of it. Would I pick it up if I found it? If it wasn't mine, no, it might burn your hand off. And then you result in trauma. And what are some specific activities that helped manage- Right now just doodling a gentleman dropped off some stuff for the Saratoga thing. We made a joke out of it. He got stuck. I threw this thing down and said I was framed and he was laughing and he threw me a pen to do some stuff with. I got a nice hercimer diamond and you move on with your day and then things get- I mean the sun came out. It's noticeably better. It seems more like Halloween now than that cold weather that we had last night. I'm starting to rhyme. This is not good. It depends on where you live in your neighborhood. If you have a neighborhood watch, it makes you feel more secure, right? I think it's about coming together as a community over personal answers to your own personal destruction or need to personally destroy anyone else by throwing a bad name at them. Whether it's whatever, I'm not going to say bad names because the kids are on the air as well. If I was live, I'd be saying be nice or somebody might- Look at this guy. You've got to have a cute dog. Look at this guy over here. If you smack his dog, his dog will probably bite you, but dogs have family. This is what they say. Dogs have family. Pets, right? Very important. They're like your little baby. If you only have a pet, that's your kind of your chest drive to see if I can handle a kid. If you're not responsible enough to have a puppy, then you're definitely not going to have a kid yet. But a couple will get up, you know, just to see how they're all together. Will you walk him? Can I feed him? Is it an exchange or do you do all the walking feeding? And she's like, isn't he cute? That's not really fair. Unless she's busy. So dogs have family. But cats, what do cats have? They have staff. In the morning, a cat goes, get my food. Get out of here. And you're like, okay. So the problem with a cat is a name like Bastet. Study your Egyptian stuff, kids. Here's Bastet. She just said, cat goddess. Right? Tell the cat, I'm a god. You never forget that. That's why a cat looks at you like, how dare you even, well, you know, Odie and what's the Garfield? Garfield's a perfect example of a cat who's like, I'm going to beat the crap out of this dog. I'm going to mess with this dog. Sorry, kids. But it's a cat. And a male version of that and a female version are different. If you have cats and dogs, you know, the female cat will be different than the male cat. It's just a, are they different, different? Yeah, she's female, he's male, but look at this guy. He's dressed up for Halloween. Look at your Halloween shot. Look at you. Thank you so much. All right. So what are some ways that you recognize that you're stressed both mentally and physically? For sure. Different parts of my body focus on calming. I find that I have trouble focusing. Like, I have to turn the radio off and concentrate. Thank you guys for watching.