Making Bracelets Helps with My Multiple Sclerosis

By Carrie Vittitoe

While on a trip to visit her husband Matt’s family, Kelley Hudzik found herself in a Massachusetts craft shop, dropping about $100 on beads and wire. Kelley’s sister-in-law, Kristine, had taught her how to make beaded bracelets. “It was like nirvana in front of me with all those beads,” Kelley says.

How this IT Professional Flies (and Spins) Away Stress

By Carrie Vittitoe

Gretchen Wilkins of LaGrange, Kentucky, isn’t technically a superhero, but that is how I imagine her. She spends her days as an information analyst for a local company that makes software for warehouse management, which seems very professional and Clark Kent-like. During her downtime, though, she flies, she spins, and she twirls.

Softball is Her Go-To Stress Reliever

By Carrie Vittitoe

Fayon Davis has been an avid softball player since she was a child. During her childhood, she was the victim of sexual abuse, and playing softball offered her a way to cope. Fayon says, “I had to keep a lot inside, but softball was my out. I’m just grateful that I didn’t explode through the years.”

How Scrapbooking Relieves Her Stress

By Carrie Vittitoe

Mindy finds peace in her art room surrounded by her many scrapbooking projects. Photos by Melissa Donald 

Mindy Jett has a room in her house dedicated to scrapbooking. She scrapbooks there at least once a week, sometimes for the entire stretch of a day. Once a month, she meets friends at her church, Adventure Christian, where they catch up with each other and scrapbook. She also periodically attends overnight retreats with friends at Pieceful Haven and Sew Pieceful Retreat in Crestwood to do her scrapbooking. Still, “I definitely don’t do it as much as I’d like to,” she says.

Why She Crochets

Maybe from the stress of being around fake sick people all day?
By Carrie Vittitoe

Carrie's daughter Ivy asked her to crochet a "rainbow afghan." Photos by Patti Hartog

Several months ago, Carrie Bohnert watched a few YouTube videos and taught herself how to crochet. “Crochet is easy to pick up and put down, and I can do it safely around a rambunctious 3-year-old,” she says.

An Unstress Activity You Should Try

By Carrie Vittitoe

These are pages Kim has colored. For coloring projects, she suggests buying the bigger box of Crayola colored pencils since it has a wider variety of colors. Photos By Melissa Donald

So many activities we enjoy as children don’t always translate into appropriate or enjoyable adult enterprises. For instance, I have found somersaults and cartwheels to be both un-fun and physically painful as a 40-something person. However, if you walk into any bookstore, you might be surprised to find…

Is My Regular "Wine to Relax" a Problem?

By Carrie Vittitoe

Soon after I began writing this series on ways to de-stress or “take a breath,” I noticed how many women responded to my question, “What do you do to relax or decompress?” with “Drink wine.” It happened often enough that I jokingly told my editor, “Everyone I know is a lush.”

But soon after I made this lighthearted comment, a friend confided that family stress had her watching the clock for 5pm so she could have her first glass of wine for the night. My book club read Jennifer Weiner’s novel, All Fall Down, about a woman who becomes an addict and goes through rehab. The idea of using alcohol as a means of de-stressing suddenly felt much less…

A Stress Reliever That is Profitable and Won't Go Straight to Her Hips

By Carrie Vittitoe

Amy found another way of channeling her creativity. Photos by Patti Hartog

Amy Smalley’s stress relief strategies have taken different forms over the past few years, but they have all been creative endeavors. She loves to bake and started a small dessert business, Suzy Q’s Sweet Tart Bakery, but she eventually cut back the time she spent on it. It became stressful to make goodies under a deadline (instead of just for fun), and she adds, “I realized I like to eat too much of my...

Stress Coping Ideas from the Women of the Kentucky Derby Festival

By Carrie Vittitoe

 These women have learned how to move through the work day without letting stress overwhelm them.
Photo by Marvin Young

I think of the Kentucky Derby Festival (KDF) in the same way my husband and children think of dinner, toilet paper in the hall closet, and laundry: it just magically happens. But the reality is that the weeks of Derby Festival leading up to the greatest two minutes in sports are a year-long effort that involves considerable time, energy, and oodles of….

She has found two great stress relievers!

By Carrie Vittitoe

Heather's outlets for stress relief  have challenged her physical strength and creativity. 

Why does Heather Rountree choose to lift (and drop) heavy things as a means of busting stress in her life?

“Punching people is frowned upon,” she says.

Heather began attending Crossfit Regeneration classes in November 2014 and says she finds them invigorating. In addition to the intensity of exerting her body and lifting weight she never thought she’d be able to lift, there is a huge sensory component that helps her dispel anxiety. The music is loud, as is the clunk of the weights as they hit the floor.

What is paradoxical is that Heather’s other favorite stress-busting activity is…

Stressed? Yes! Mothering three kids under 3

By Carrie Vittitoe

Being a stay at home mom is a full-time job for Mandy that lasts 12-14 hours a day. 

Stress has somehow gotten a bad rap. Stress is now synonymous with terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad things. But there are plenty of stresses in life that are wonderful and that we openly welcome into our lives, stresses like staying home full time with three children ages 3 and under.

Mandy Glassner doesn’t like to think of her life as stressful. She knows this time with Novella (3), Aiden (20 months) and Gabriel (3 months) will pass more quickly than she can realize, and she wants to enjoy as much of it as she possibly can.

Still, she has weathered some truly stressful events in the past year. Read how she has coped with them...

A Fun Way To Relieve Stress

By Carrie Vittitoe 

Amethyst Ramsey knows she can always rely on dancing to keep her calm and focused every day.

I seem to recall being carefree at age 20, feeling ebullient and airy. The sky was always blue and cloudless.

Well, shoot. I’m wearing my rose-colored memory glasses. OK, that’s better.

College exams and papers, part-time retail job hours and schedule changes, dating fretfulness, and wondering what I was going to do with the whole entire adult life that lay before me. Being 20 years old is so very…