Stilettos

Only a woman would wear a pair of stilettos that will inevitably leave her feet two painful blistered wrecks, simply because they are pretty and feminine and make her legs look svelte. (For that reason and of course for the wonderful foot massage her man will give her in the evening!) I worked with an Obs and Gynae reg who insisted that wearing high heels on her overnight calls was more comfortable than the very unflattering flat crocs the rest of us shuffled around in. 

Women are good at ignoring pain or just setting it aside, if there is a worthwhile reason for doing so. It may be the lovely way that your new heels compliment your outfit. Or a more selfless reason: encouraging your kids to spread their wings and leave the nest so they may grow and develop while you cry your heart out because your babies are gone.

I've always been under the impression that if one indulges in emotional pain you give it more power. I thought the best way to deal with hurt and disappointment is to try not to recognise its existance. Pain and sadness is part of life but there's no point wallowing in it. Instead of allowing sadness to affect my person, I would concentrate on getting on with life. My masterplan was not to ever get hurt by simply not allowing myself to FEEL the hurt. I thought that a person who breaks down in a flood of tears over something non-earth-shattering was just being self-destructive by indulging in the bad emotions.

Then I heard about a study conducted by a group of psychologist that unequivocally proved suppressing negative emotions is dramatically more damaging to the body, in a physical sense, than feeling the hurt and crying is. Participants in the study were hooked up to a number of monitors, measuring pulse rate, blood pressure etc. Couples were asked to discuss topics that both parties felt strongly about. These topics evoked strongly negative emotions in both. One of the parties would be asked to suppress all feelings about the topic and remain calm. The other party was instructed to react in accordance with their feelings on the topic. Then they would alternate roles.

The heart rate monitor beeped like crazy and the BP went through the roof every time a participant was suppressing his negative emotions. The cardiovascular derangements lasted longer in the outwardly controlled person that in his "emotional" counterpart who experienced only a brief surge in stress markers with a quick return to normal levels as his emotions were allowed a release.

It appears that the human body is equipped to deal with negative feelings by expressing them. Getting "worked-up", sad or angry over something and really FEELING and expressing the emotions is the healthiest, most natural way of dealing with stress. I was quite shocked, to be honest, to learn that my survival strategy was causing me more long-term hurt than protection from pain, as I'd thought.

So, since I learned of this remarkable study that disproved one of my core principles, I am no longer avoiding my stilettos. I now wear them with the full knowledge that my feet may be blistered by lunch time. If my feet should hurt I'll admit to it and I might even cry about it. Does this strategy seem a little pointless to you? The point is that I'd get to enjoy my legs looking lovely and svelte which wouldn't have been the case if I'd hidden my feet in the protective recesses of my old crocs.