When I start to get an involuntary twitch in my face, I know that I am overly stressed, and I need to separate myself as far from the human race as possible. In the past couple of weeks, my facial tic has started to recur, even though I haven't had it in a couple of years. I can't quite place what is happening in my life to cause this. Sure, I am dealing with difficult people at work; there is someone very angry and toxic that I am currently dealing with. Just having my cube sit kitty-corner from his has been stressful. All day, I listen to him complain, hit his keyboard in frustration, and deride everything and everyone. I honestly don't know how some of the other people around me can stand him. What's worse, he's in charge of fixturing one of my mechanical designs and can't seem to make it work properly. Therefore, he blames my design instead of looking at his own work to fix the issue. Even the most senior people make suggestions, and he refuses to follow through on those suggestions. Whenever I try and make a suggestion, he rolls his eyes at me and looks at me like I'm the dumbest person on earth.
I also have a small elderly parent issue that is contributing to my anxiety. Sure, I don't have to be financially responsible over my parent or be a care-taker. But I do have to be emotionally supportive as she goes through double hip-replacement surgery. And then, there's an underlying financial problem that my parent is having in her semi-retirement, which shouldn't ever happen when you are about to retire. It's a lot for my delicate nerves to handle. And I actually got into a public screaming match during this time that I should never have undergone had I been more mentally stable.
We are also working on a bathroom and kitchen renovation at the same time. Yesterday, I spent a good 3-4 hours trying to cut kitchen cabinet doors on a very intimidating CNC router on a very expensive $300 piece of hardwood. Unfortunately, this very dangerous and scary piece of equipment broke, and had to be taken down for a few days for repairs. Thank goodness the wood is still intact. But it was enough to ruin a few hours of my day. Bless Mark, my husband, for sitting very patiently next to me this entire time.
Anyways, I am dedicating my day off to relax as much as possible. I am on the look out for ideas for how to de-stress beyond the normal: "get a pedicure" solutions. Here are some ideas I might want to try to help me recover from eye-twitch inducing stress.
1. Eat lots of ice cream, buffalo wings, whatever comfort food you can think of.
2. Watch a fashion documentary in bed, preferably with the lights off -- Yesterday, I rented "Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's" and watched it in bed in the dark on my iPad. I felt sort of like in a womb while watching it.
3. Read self-help books and articles. If you haven't heard of Martha Beck, you should totally look her up. She's a Harvard trained life-coach and is also a regular columnist in Oprah magazine. Not only is she sharp, but she is super insightful, and funny to boot. Also, I enjoy her spiritual almost "magical" beliefs about how life works. I am such a sucker for her form of new age spirituality!
4. Get away from the TV-blaring husband. I have found out that I really need silence sometimes to get any inner calm. Even if daily meditation practice is beyond my reach at times, just being able to sit and read in silence can really do my frazzled brain some good. Reminder to self: must get some Bluetooth enabled noise-cancelling head phones.
5. Eat lots of kale and spinach. This is in direct conflict with item #1 above, but apparently these veggies contains folate, which is good for cognitive repair.
6. Roll on a foam roller, or invert. Unlike yoga, these are almost effort free ways to work out knots and stretch. To passively invert, I like to sit on our sofa with my feet up, and my head and arms hanging over the edge of the seat. This backwards bend is pretty intense, the subsequent neck cracking that I get from this inversion is delicious.
Anyways, I'm still thinking of more creative ways to decompress. Surely writing this blog post has been one great way to de-stress.
