Columns

Hi everybody!

A wise old man (who happens to be my boss so I should probably go back and replace “old” with something less pejorative) once posed the question, “how do you boil a live frog?” Allegedly it’s by slowly turning the heat up.

As my wise, devilishly handsome, and incredibly youthful employer went on to explain, a live frog will jump out of the pot if you throw it into boiling water. If, however, you put it in cold water and slowly warm it up, it will get used to the ever increasing temperature and stay there until it finally croaks (in the non-frog definition of the word).

Now I’m no frogologist so I’m unsure if this tale is true, but the underlying metaphor remains like that knob rash you came home with last week: stress affects us in different ways depending on how it hits us.

Like the frog thrown in a bubbling pot, we’re great at reacting to big stressors. Our bodies push the whole fight/flight/deer-in-headlights sympathetic nervous response and we spring out of the pot. We don’t always handle big stress in a healthy manner (jumping out of the pot only to land in the toaster) but as long as we’ve got our metaphorical frog legs attached we’ll do something about it. So when an exam comes up, or there’s sickness in the family, or your employer calls you after reading your latest column, you’ll generally jump somewhere.

However, give us a load of little stressors over a long period and we’ll let them build up without reacting till it’s too late. Like the One Direction song of the same name, the Little Things annoy us ever-so-slightly, unnoticeably chipping away at our fortitude every time they rear their ugly, autotuned selves until suddenly it’s 90 degrees and our half-boiled legs can’t get us out.

If you’re feeling the little stressors build up, try to do something about them. Take some time out for yourself, talk it out with somebody (friends, family, OUSA support centre, GPs ...) and try to address the cause.

If your floor is too noisy then talk to your RA about that, if your flatmate isn’t pulling his weight then talk to him earlier rather than yelling at him later, and if you’re feeling homesick then pull an ET and get on the blower to home.

It’s easier taking on little things than big ones. If you don’t address the little things as they crop up you’ll find yourself at breaking point pretty smartly. Keep an eye on your pot’s temperature and don’t be afraid to jump when it’s still luke-warm.