Yesterday morning I took delivery of my new bed, but before the truck arrived I had to take apart the old one. I showered and puzzled over how to get the old mattress downstairs. I'd awoken with a crick in my neck, as though my old bed was hurt by the rejection and wanted revenge, but it's time for it to go. It was a hand-me-down bed, too small, and the bedframe was wobbly. It was a big day; I had to get rid of the carcass of the old bed, vacuum the floor, put together the new one, finish off two sections of my draft to send to my supervisor before my meeting, and see the dentist. I most especially had to see the dentist. My teeth had been aching for weeks and there was a persistent taste of copper in my mouth; nothing a clean and scale wouldnt fix, but I'd been putting it off.

The bed took longer to put together than I expected. Ikea instructions have no words, and they don't tell you you're expected to force most of the pieces together, rather than screw them down neatly with an allen key. My neck ached. My supervisor cancelled our Thursday meeting, so I could leave my draft for another day. I listened to Gang of Four and David Sedaris and forced wood together. My hands were slick with pine resin. I got so distracted I didn't get time to shower before the dentist, or brush my teeth again, so I went as-is with greasy hair and a sweaty shirt.

'Are you stressed?' The dentist asked as soon as he looked in my mouth. 'Also, you ticked 'pregnant' on the form.'

'What?! No, I'm not pregnant.' I spun around fast and knocked a stack of paper cups off one of the chair's many Shiva arms.

'I'll take that as a yes to the stress, then.' He went on to detail what was wrong with my mouth. It was gross, and, he emphasised, entirely stress related. 'You need to learn to relax. I play solitaire. You might like to take a walk each day.' He prescribed antibiotics that would, he promised, make me violently ill if I had any alcohol, and told me to come back next week.

I was bummed. I am the queen of the psychosomatic. If these were different times my hands would be paralysed, I'd develop involuntary tics, start speaking German, and they'd send me off for a month of total bed rest and water cures in some Swiss sanatorium. As it is I'm a modern girl, so I grind my teeth and get stomach aches, complain of big, aching knots in my neck and, apparently, develop totally gross dental problems. When am I not stressed, I thought? If it's not one thing it's another, and I function, hare-like, on hypervigilance and hair-trigger reflexes. Not for the first time I wished we still used a Galenic medical system; then I could reassure myself that my constant nervous energy was merely constitutional, an excess of yellow bile, too little blood.

Later that night I called my sister and sobbed that even the dentist could see I'm a nutcase, and detailed everything my choleric personality was just ruining: my embryonic thesis, the dented wood of my new bed frame, cakes, my stalled romantic life, the good-will of my beloved ladyfriends. Blockhead is a phlegmatic person. She explained slowly that stress makes everyone sick, not just hysterical old me. She added that smoking probably wasn't making things any better. I asked what she was doing. She was painting her new bedroom, a smaller, darker room in our mother's sprawling house. She was painting it a soothing, dark blue, the kind of colour to promote sleep. She said she planned on only having her bed in that room, and perhaps an oil burner for lavender oil. Last night she'd taken two valium and still couldn't fall asleep.

I'd like to meet a relaxed person and find out how they do it. I bet they use leeches, or regular bleedings at the barber-surgeon.