During times of crisis, our body can have a lot of different responses. During our current pandemic where we do not have any opportunity to plan, means we are proverbially “holding our breath.” This is so true for me and while I thought I was handling the stress of the pandemic pretty well, I realized that I was actually holding my breath. The stress of holding my breath was causing some mild anxiety in my body, a physical anxiety as-it-were that made me feel like I was amped on caffeine. If you asked me if I was anxious, I would have responded with “No I am doing fine", but deep down I was still causing my body stress.
After all, I am a “planner.”
I especially noticed the feeling after Zoom meetings and appointments, and that is when I knew I had to make a change. It was as though the act of being on the computer for prolonged hours or feeling like everyone was looking at me even though they were not, was making me amped.
Thus, I decided to do two things to help me during this time.
First, I started brewing a cup of relaxing tea to have during a meeting because no matter the meeting, I was stimulated and the physical element of holding and sipping tea was calming me down.
Secondly, I downloaded the Breath application on my Apple Watch and iPhone. I scheduled the application to go off several times a day to help remind me to breathe, since now I was aware of holding my breath. Every time I was in a meeting, I would start the application. How it works is simple; it takes you through breathing for one minute and sometimes I repeat the one minute cycle more than once. Of course, make sure you are doing this when it is not your turn to talk!
I have found that since I do these two techniques during meetings, and adding the tea routine with my husband at night, my jittery and hyper feeling has almost gone away. I have also stopped over planning or worrying, and just try to have a good day everyday. With lots of prayer and breathing, my overall stress has improved drastically!
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