Hello all! Well, I set up this page and then disappeared. I thought it was time that I explained and started communicating! After a number of years doing better (after being wretchedly sick with Lyme disease for years), I went through some very stressful life events and found my health slipping away again. It’s been a tough stretch but I’ve also learned a lot! And, I have come out of it without falling into total disability for years as I did when I first got sick.
I want to share what I’ve learned in a case it can help any of you! I know that we all know this, but boy it has been made so obviously, directly and abundantly clear to me that stress is bad news for our bodies. After so many years and so much neurological damage from Lyme disease, the smallest amount of external stress causes my energy and general feeling of well-being to slip noticeably. Life does happen though and sometimes stress is simply unavoidable. I went through a period of extreme stress and trauma from a few sources all at once and it took me from almost well to a state of extreme fatigue and general feeling of terrible sickness. This round, some issues arose that were new to me. I ended up with silent reflux. This is different from heartburn or ‘Gerd’. Small amounts of acid come up quietly and start burning and damaging the soft tissues of the larynx and throat. It is torture, especially for a singer such as myself. I started all kinds of treatment and nothing seemed to work, but time and a calming of the stress and nervous system have slowly improved my over all situation. My energy, while still quite challenged, is much better and the reflux has started to calm a bit as well. I’m still working on all of it, but at least I can get back to living and working….very carefully…
So, stress. How do we manage it? It is utterly unavoidable in life but the reality of chronic illness of any kind, is that we must do everything we can to avoid and manage it so that we don’t ‘crash’. Meditation is about the best thing that I know of. But it’s not always easy to find that ‘zen’ when we are super worried about someone we love or something critical in our lives. So the thing that I turned to most in my ultra-stressed out state, was breath. I practice intentional breathing every morning when I wake up and every time I think of it or am aware that I’m feeling worried or anxious. You can do this any time and any place. Just pause and take a few deep, slow breaths. Try to count and match the length of the inhale with the exhale. It is scientifically proven to calm the fight or flight state. And I can attest to this! Other great breathing exercises that I use a lot are alternate nostril breathing or just left nostril breathing. When you alternate, put a finger on one nostril as you slowly breathe in the other one, then you switch the finger to the other side and breathe out the opposite nostril. So it’s in the right, out the left, in the left, out the right, in the right, out the left and so on. With left nostril breathing you simply plug the right nostril and slowly breathe in and out of the left nostril. I like to count, as I breathe in and out, working to slowly increase the length of the inhale and exhale. This is very effective. You just can’t feel stress while you are practicing intentional breathing and it calms everything down so that you can think more rationally about what ever is causing worry or anxiety.
I’ll give some more tips next time, but for now, just breathe!
With love, Judy