Authors have always been lucky enough to have a built in stress reliever whether they know it or not. It's called writing a book. Once I'm working on my characters and their lives for a new book I'm so absorbed that nothing or no one in today's stress filled world bothers me.
I like getting lost in a developing story and putting the main idea whirling around in my head down. It's a challenge adding to the skeleton story I've created to fill in and build a book. That takes all my concentration. I get excited every time I'm working on a scene, and when something new pops into my head for the character to say or do that fits into the story. Humor is important to me. It should be to everyone. The more we laugh the better we feel. Humor is a stress reliever. Being able to laugh can make you feel more relaxed. You smile at someone, and they'll smile at you. You laugh and someone laughs with you. The scenes in my book I'm working on that make me giggle while I'm writing them are the moments I'm told by readers that make them laugh out loud when they read my books. What a delightful feel good moment for me to hear this from readers.
Sometimes, the comments are that my characters draw the readers into the story. In my mystery series of five books, the characters are so colorful that once the readers have finished the first book, they have to read the other four to see what happens next to everyone in the book. The same is happening now that I've written two books in my Amish series. Readers like the characters Nurse Hal and her Amish family. They want to know what will happen to all of them next. The readers are so deeply absorbed in the characters lives to the point that they try to read my books in just one sitting. While reading my books doesn't leave any room for thinking about something stressful. It's simply a time to relax. I know all this because I hear it from my book readers.
Not everyone has the inclination to write a book just to find a stress free time but if writing interests a person keeping a journal might be helpful. I've written daily journal logs over the years. Now it's fun to look back and read about something that I had long ago forgotten. One journal was about the ten years I helped care for my father while he was battling Alzheimer's disease. Talk about feeling stressed. In those days, I'd come home from my parents home and plop down exhausted emotionally and physically. I'd pick up my journal and write about that day with my father, entering my thoughts, emotions, fears and dreads. Though I hadn't thought about writing a book at the time, that journal later became my book Hello Alzheimer's Good Bye Dad. I've hoped that the story might be of some help to others. There are many similar books on the market about a family coping with Alzheimer's. To make my book an educational tool rather than just a story, I added helpful tips throughout the book and in the story. Perhaps, reading that book would be a stress reliever for caregivers. They learn ways to help their family member while they become educated about what the disease will do to their loved one next.
I know for a fact that books help readers relieve stress. When I don't like the programs on television in the evening, I tune out by reading a book while my husband watches a program. Then there is maybe the extreme when one buyer wrote me that she read one of my books (A Promise Is A Promise) six times while she's been going through a tough spot in her life. Wow! I as an author am helping myself and helping others at the same time just by being creative. So if you're a writer, relax and work on that story. If you're a reader get you a good book (of course I'd like it if you bought one of mine at ebay, amazon or www.booksbyfaybookstore.weebly.com), set down in a quiet place with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and go with the flow.
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