Coffee and Stress

I hadn't thought about the relationship between coffee and stress before today. I now gather that drinking coffee not only provides a 'wake up' kick-start it can apparently affect the part of the brain which controls anxiety and stresses you out. I was therefore unwittingly adding to stress levels........

The photo is of the Starbucks coffee shop in the new Forth Valley Royal Hospital at Larbert, near Stirling, Scotland. This is a brand new hospital (not fully open yet but it is operational). I'd gone there for the first time this morning, and - amazingly enough - I was then down to go back there this afternoon to take some photos of hospital staff being presented with hard-won certificates after completing some training.

That's where the stress comes in. I'd not done any photography of that nature and organising groups and individuals into good photo positions is not something I'm practised at. I like to take photos on a whim, as the mood takes me, and am not too bothered if its not 'perfect'. I've now spent most of the evening mulling over the photos taken. Some are ok, some not so ok and lots discarded. I hope my wife and her colleagues are ok with the end products!

That's where this blip photo comes in. I'd gone to the coffee shop this morning and had 2 large Lattes whilst wife and daughter were somewhere in the medical suites of the new hospital. At the back of my mind I was worried about taking photos in the afternoon. So I took the Starbucks photo in case I'd run out of time to look for other blip opportunities. After the (only mild) stress of the day and evening taking then poring over the photos I Googled for the relationship between coffee and stress and - lo - here is my blip for today.

On the upside, I learnt a fair bit and worked out how I'd approach a similar event differently. Another upside today was finding an hour to upload into Blipfoto a bundle of archived photos for 2009 and it was great to re-live those memories. They're posted now for blip-world to see. I plan to do some more soon.

I've now ditched the coffee this evening in favour of a much more relaxing large Whisky.