Blogging Stress: Something New to Worry About?

"Blogging stress" joins the list of 21st century evils making news.

My dear friend, IPC Board Member, and fellow blogger Roger Ehrenberg drew my attention to the growing interest in blogging stress.  Turns out that mega blogger Om Malik suffered a heart attack just before New Year’s and blames in part the stress from trying to keep his blog updated.  The New York Times picked up the story this week:
“The trouble with a personal brand is, you’re yoked to a machine,” said
Paul Kedrosky, a friend of Mr. Malik’s who runs the Infectious Greed
blog. “You feel huge pressure to not just do a lot, but to do a lot
with your name on it. You have pressure to not just be the C.E.O., but
at the same time to write, and to do it all on a shoestring. Put it all
together, and it’s a recipe for stress through the roof.”

One of my New Year’s thoughts was to write more consistently for this forum.  I’ve received great feedback about the expansion to the IPC site, and I really enjoy the dialogue we’re creating about issues affecting our children’s health.  But blogging takes time – and time is a most valuable commodity.  Historically, I’ve tried to write posts that involve a level of detail that makes it hard to put something up every week, which was my initial goal.  So it’s something I’ve been thinking about – and trying to figure out a way to achieve this while balancing family, clinical practice, consulting, and so on. 

 Now, when your blog is about integrative health, coping with stress is part of the conversation.  I’ve written a number of times about stress and children.  I know it’s a bit self-serving to even write this post.  And you could argue that I should have spent my time writing about really important things going on in the world – autism or vaccine debates, for example.  I will.  From time to time, though, I may drop smaller posts – research notes, updates, even photos or videos or poems to stimulate conversation – but I will still focus on longer, more developed topics.  I am going to try and be very zen about my blogging, and I hope you’ll all understand.   

In this spirit, I thought I’d sign off with one of my favorite quotes, from chapter 15 of the Tao Te Ching.

Do you have the patience to wait until the mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself?

Have a great, mindful day.