Stress Theory 101

Pilfered from another blog Kari's Page of Rants but highly relevent to grad students everywhere.

"The fact that I have been having a particularly slothful week, despite the further fact that I really can't afford sloth right now, has led me to procrastinate (again) by refining my theory regarding stress and its relation to space-time. No, I am not an absolute freaking crackpot. After years of careful study and observation, I have concluded that there is a fundamental Law of Stress that grad students can, if necessary, harness. An understanding of this Law will allow one to finish one's dissertation...eventually.

It runs as follows:

1) Without deadlines, Stress remains a latent force only; the deadline is the catalyst that allows the utilisation of Stress. The so-called "false deadline" is insufficient as a catalyst. Though it may activate an initial Stressful reaction, this reaction is difficult to maintain without a genuine deadline.

2) The more stress factors (the dissertation, jobs, family issues, financial strain, lack of chocolate) involved, the more powerful the Stress will become. However, without a deadline, these outside factors will fail to activate the Stress reaction in the subject and will instead bring about Lethargy, Procrastination, and the Tendency to Blame Problems on Software Bugs.

3) The stress factors combine with the deadline to create in the subject a state known as Panic. Panic is not yet true Stress; it is an initial stage marked by its promotion of inactivity. At this point, the Stress is still latent. Panic can be recognised via the presence of tears, pacing, nervous Web-surfing, occasional hyperventilation, long coffee breaks with bored friends, and an apparent lack of progress on the piece of work in question.

4) As the deadline becomes more prominent, Panic will deepen and narrow in its focus, and most of its indicators will disappear, replaced briefly by wide-eyed terror and then more permanently with the ability to open necessary documents and begin work on them. The reaction is now in its most crucial stage. A withdrawal of the deadline will cause failure and residual hyperventilation. If the deadline holds steady, the subject will enter Stress and become subject to the Speed of Stress.

5) The Theory of Stress-Speed claims that the imminence of a deadline, in combination with an apparent lack of enough time to meet that deadline, will cause the space-time continuum itself to become warped. Effectively, the subject experiences what seems to be the slowing of time to a crawl. Activities that should take hours are done in minutes; the world appears to move in slow motion, though in actual fact, the subject is working much faster than seems possible to outside observers. The subject is now in a state of heightened concentration fueled by Panic.

6) The Speed of Stress is notable for this property: it always "slows time" just enough that the subject will finish all necessary activities two minutes before the deadline. The factor of two minutes is a constant that researchers have so far not been able to explain adequately.

7) The passing of the deadline causes a complete failure in the reaction; space-time reverts to apparent normality as the Speed of Stress ceases to apply. Occasionally, a side-reaction will occur, prompting an extended return of Lethargy and Procrastination, both of which states will continue until the introduction of another deadline.

This Law has been demonstrated time and time again by graduate students around the globe. I am currently stuck on #2. Do not follow in my footsteps. If you want to achieve the Speed of Stress, for heaven's sake, get a deadline."

"http://www.massey.utoronto.ca/alumni/rantingkari2006.html" Monday, October 2, 2006 post