ARE YOU STRESSED?
Many Americans say they are:
"In case there was any doubt, a new survey shows that Americans are stressed out.  The American Psychological Association conducted an online survey of 1,134 adults ages 18 and older from Aug. 3 to Aug. 27, including 100 adults who were parents of children ages 8 to 17. In addition to the national sample, the association surveyed another 937 adult parents. The report also includes the results of another online survey from Aug. 19 to Aug. 24 of 1,136 young people ages 8 to 17.  The survey found that a majority of Americans--51 percent--are living with "moderate" stress, which is a stress level of four to seven on a scale of one to 10. Although that's about the same level of stress as the survey found last year, fewer adults reported being satisfied with how their employer helps employees balance work and non-work.Twenty-four percent say they are experiencing severe stress.  Not surprisingly, money, work and the economy are the leading causes of stress, and job stability is on the rise as a source of stress. Nearly half of adults reported that job stability was a source of stress, compared with 44 percent in 2009.  While most parents don't think their children are strongly affected by their stress, their children report otherwise. Nearly three-quarters of parents say that their stress has only a slight or no impact on their children. But 91 percent of children report they know their parent is stressed."

And certainly many adults with Moebius Syndrome or other differences feel stressed, too.  Maybe a way to think about this is to say:  okay, we're stressed.  So where do we go from here?

What do we do to deal with this stress, and perhaps to reduce it?  Solutions differ from person to person.  But solutions can be found...

SPEAKING OF STRESS--HOW TO PREVENT BRAIN GLITCHES
You know, when you forget things and fear you may be coming down with Alzheimer's or something but...you really aren't.  Here's part of a good article on how to deal with the occasional forgetfulness:
"Ever walk into a room and forget why you went there? These lapses involve working memory — that’s when you’re juggling several mental balls. Say you’re at your desk and you need to get a piece of paper from another room. You get up, and go to the other room with a goal-oriented task. Then you mentally leave that task and start thinking about heading to the store to grab something for dinner, picking up your son from school, and oh yeah, you should call Sally. By the time you’ve walked into the room, you’ve forgotten why.
“It’s usually because your brain was focused on the first task and you shifted focus to other tasks, or you multitasked or you broadened your focus,” says McCleary. You decreased the amount of focus you placed on your initial task. Once you start multi-focusing, these lapses are commonplace.  To prevent them, invest more mental energy on one task by slowing down, focusing solely on what you’re doing and paying attention; no multi-tasking allowed."

"The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions
and not our circumstances." -Martha Washington