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Botswana: How Do Women Fight Stress?

Nyakwar Bara

10 October 2008

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opinion

"Sometimes when people are under stress, they hate to think, and it's the time when they most need to think."

If you were to think back at a time when you were truly stressed, when you were nursing a clouded mind, don't you think these words ring true? Former US president Bill Clinton indeed got it right.

Stress has been linked to problems like ulcers, heart attack, stroke and other complications. But how do women fight stress, if at all they do, and how effective have their strategies been?

"I usually read motivational books, especially John Maxwell, or I listen to gospel music when I need to relax," says Abigael Rantau, 35. "When I feel too stressed, I go out and have a drink or two with some close friends."

Like Rantau, 25- year-old Pauline Maseko goes to church to talk with a priest to relieve her stress. "I also start talking to kids," she says. However her top stress - reliever is just going for a drink when the blues strike. Maseko loves bashing, so she goes out nightclubs to remote suburbs of the town. "There was a time I travelled to Maun and spent the weekend, just bashing."

For her part, Mary Moroka, 24, has noted she whines during the moments of stress, although she never lets the whining get out of hand. "I usually like to complain first, then just fall silent and simmer down," she says. Then, at this point, she prays - but not to seek solutions to whatever may be afflicting her. "I pray because I believe that God Is the best listener. I feel better after telling Him everything," she says. And what a great listener God is!

Twenty - three - old Nancy Nonofo is a new mother who says she is constantly thinking about her baby's future, as well as her own. Like any other mother who has endured the trials and tribulations of tending a child, she says children are a leading stressor. "When I want to relax after a trying day, I pray first then listen to gospel music," she explains.

Sleep is very important to Joyce Mmuso. When she wakes up in the morning after a night of refreshing sleep, she treats the new day as one filled with opportunities, and stress of the previous day is forgotten.

But listen to Kgokgwe Offentse, 28: "When things do not go my way, I usually take a walk or watch Television."

Women generally acknowledge that stress is normal, and part of everyday life. Dealing with stress, they say, depends on an individual. In the tragedy of Hamlet, William Shakespeare wrote: "When sorrows come, they come not as single spies, but in battalions." What then happens when sorrow does not come as one but in a flood? Such a day is popularly known to many as "The worst day of my life." But, like any other day, it comes to an end. The funny thing about such days is that they feel longer than regular, 24 - hour day.

In 2001, Abigael Rantao's parents passed on. But the closeness of the family and her thoughts of her younger siblings made this painful day pass without an incident, as she so emotively recalls. "I had to be strong for them," she says. In the same year, Maseko lost her husband. Like Rantao, she had to be strong for her four children. "To get me through the tough period, I made myself think about my children. I kept reminding myself that I was all they had. Being a single mother is hard; but I have managed."

Moroka's worst day was when she nearly lost her job, which she says she had worked so hard to get. Her problems, she recalls, revolved around the workmate. A new employee, Moroka recalls being disrespectfully 'pushed around' by his boss. "Things got nasty one day and she reprimanded me harshly in front of a customer," remembers Moroka. Unable to take the open censure any further, the woman defended her honour - and a shouting ensued.

The supervisor called both Moroka and colleague to his office. Recalls the woman: "She turned everything around and blamed me. I cried all day. I was shocked because I have never met someone who could lie like that."

That day, Moroka went home convinced that she lost a job. She vividly recalls the stresses she endured, and she related her predicament to her boyfriend. To get over the worries and apprehension, she says, she and her man prayed together. Although the manager gave her the second chance, Moroka has chosen to crossing paths with her colleague - her new way of shielding herself from what she sees as avoidable stress.

Getting through one bad day with one's sanity intact is a triumph. But what about surviving a month of trauma? Last year, Malebogo had gone to visit her boyfriend in the hospital, but he passed away, in her arms.

"For a month, he kept visiting me in my dreams," remembers Malebogo. Her friends and family suggested that she goes to see a pastor, who gave her survival plan: Every time the departed man's image appeared in her dreams, she would wake up and start singing or talking to whoever was with her in the house.

The women have come to believe that talking to friends, especially close friends, is a good way to relieve stress. "The person you are talking to might support or encourage; do not keep it bottled up in your heart," says Malebogo. "If friends can't help, see a counsellor or a pastor."

Rantao believes talking to one trusted friend makes one feel better. And it provides instant relief. Maseko agrees: "Meeting and talking to friends helps a lot," she says, "But they have to be close friends."

For Phoebe Monametsi, the exact opposite is true. Monametsi feels that talking to friends will only add to the stresses you already have. "I think people should be encouraged to solve their own problems," she suggests. "I do not even share my problems with my husband."

For Monametsi, opening up to people arms them with your personal details, which they can use to "go out there and start sharing your problems with the world, gossiping."

In the blind quest to feel better following stress, some people have adopted habits that appear to do more than good. Some people yell at anyone. Others shout at their children. For others, the best antidote to stress is taking it out on unsuspecting colleagues at the workplace.

As more and more women have well paying jobs and a disposable income, alcohol is becoming an evil sort of stress buster. You may have heard of the phrase "A girls' night out". Malebogo says that more women are going to bars because there is this belief that alcohol makes people forget about their problems, yet it actually create more problems of their own.

Among the leading sources of stress for women are relationships and finances. "Business is down, yet I have to foot up bills for my meals and pay for utilities," says Maseko. And what woman has not gone through phases of relationship blues?

In life, not everything goes your way. Indeed, not everything can go your way. And, with things often going wrong, stress is to be expected. Finding the right channel through which to relieve your daily quota of stress will make you a better person.

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