Monday, February 22, 2010

Life Can Be Stressful

Stress can be quite damaging to one’s body as it can cause physical, emotional and psychological strain on a person’s well-being. I am one that can vouch for this. For a few months now I have been completely stressed out due to work. I have always been busy at work; however since last November I went from busy to extremely out of control busy. I love it though, but my body can’t handle it. Stress has caught up to me and now I am at the point of trying to figure out how to handle it before it gets any worse. I am still seeing my acupuncturist once a month and when I saw her a few weeks ago I explained my level of stress to her and that it was causing my IBS and TMJ to flare up and be out of control. I have never been one to be stressed out so I didn’t know how to handle this. Ms. Acupuncture told me to a) take two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar a day and b) learn how to relax myself when I reach high levels of stress. The apple cider vinegar was to get my IBS under control. The thought of a shot of straight apple cider vinegar didn’t sound appetizing, but I figured I would try it because she has steered me in the right direction with everything else so far. The first night I did it I about vomited. It is horrible! After a few nights of this though I got used to it and noticed that it was helping my insides get back on track. As far as learning how to relax I had no idea how to do that, so I figured I would skip that homework and stick to choking down the apple cider vinegar, but then I started to get severe pain in my neck and head. The pain got so bad that it was making me nauseous and I knew I couldn’t continue this and had to do something. I then booked a massage and figured that would do the trick since Andy would only massage my neck for about 5 minutes before he would be done. I went to the massage therapist and saw someone who specialized in neck pain so I was pretty hopeful that I would feel a million times better by the time I left. Yup, I was right! This guy, Hector, was amazing. By the time I left the sharp pain in my neck and head was gone. I was so thrilled that I signed up for their monthly membership. This membership allows me to get a massage once a month. So, I will see Hector once a month to take care of my stress. There, I found a solution to learning how to relax so when I see my acupuncturist tomorrow she will be proud of me that I did my homework as I choked down her cider for the past three weeks and I found a way to relax, well at least once a month I did. This massage membership also gets Andy off the hook for having to listen to me whine about the pain and begging him to rub my neck. So, stress is my enemy and it has done damage to my body, but I am in the process of taking care of it.

3 comments:

Pamela U. Parks said...

OMG... Hector sounds amazing.

Anonymous said...

Jaimi - you can also try going to a holistic store and getting for lack of a better word "potion" for anxiety/stress - I've found it to help alot. I wouldn't give up the massages thou - HELL NO!!! Mindy

Laura said...

Hector sounds amazing; however, you should get out and walk the mountain paths more often too. The exercise can help get rid of stress.