Item: 4 soothing eye pads that look like cucumber slices

These were part of a gift I got, and they've been in the refrigerator for awhile waiting for use.  I've been thinking tonight about how stress begets stress, and wondering what to do about it.  Whatever the stressful circumstances are is one thing, but then at some point the obvious reasserts itself:  this is bad for you.

Once you remember that, you can start constructing a frightening picture of these things eating away your physical health, your mental health, thereby adding more anxiety on top of what was there already.  Ugh.  Most of the time you can treat it casually, as if it's a just matter of adjusting your perspective, but at some point it becomes more than that.  Imitation cucumbers only soothe your eyes; they don't soothe you.