If you had the perception that you are very stressed out then your grey matter was fully 20 per cent smaller in volume than people who did not have that same feeling. This is the grey matter in your prefrontal cortex: It controls thinking, learning, planning, decision-making. That matters because when we are feeling more stressed, that is when we are at our most vulnerable in our inability to think our way out of it.
Brigid SchulteWhat often matters more than the activity we're doing at a moment in time is how we feel about it.
Brigid SchulteA gift, like a good friend drawing a personal road map out of the crazy busy swirl of our overloaded lives.
Brigid SchulteIt's become such a cultural norm that people brag about it: "Oh yeah, you did that? I did this." Keeping up with the Joneses used to be about "I have the bigger house and car," and now it's much more about how much stuff you can cram into your calendar.
Brigid SchulteI was afraid that I would find out that I didn't work hard, that I wasn't a very good mother. I was feeling so inadequate in everything I did. I was afraid that I was going to come out being this crazy, disorganized, neurotic person. So it was revelatory that I worked more than 50 hours a week and I still spent a tonne of time with my kids. It was like, "Why do I feel one way when the reality is so different?"
Brigid Schulte