Add more relaxation

So, I have been carrying around a lot of tension for a while.

It’s not related to anything in particular. I’m not up at night worried about specific things. I’m not distracted by my concerns in one are of my life.

My nervous system seems to have gotten jangled and it just doesn’t get completely unjangled.

I can feel totally relaxed in the moment – which seems unjangled, right? – and then the smallest thing will go awry and I’ll be in a complete twist.

Which shows me that while I felt pretty relaxed in the first place, my body, my nervous system was actually just on guard.

It kind of reminds me of how, in the movies, you see soldiers who grab some sleep before a mission but if something wakes them, they are on high alert instantly, as if they had never been asleep.

I don’t mean that I want to be groggy or to take a long time to respond to something but I don’t think the instant response is necessary for me – I’m not a soldier, after all- and I don’t think it is good for me.

In fact, I know it’s not good for me.

So, all of that is to say that I have been spending time doing relaxation exercises and listening to bilateral music.

I’ve only been working on this for 5 days and it is already helping.

So, of course, my brain is already trying to optimize the situation, trying to find the optimal time, or the perfect music, and to question how long I will have to do this before I am “better.”

Oh, brain, I know you want to help but this is not the right approach.

Luckily, I’ve been through this kind of thing before with my brain so I know what to do.

I’ve decided to do this for a month – one relaxation exercise and a certain type of music – and then I will review and decided how to continue.

Hopefully, that will keep me from trying to make things perfect in the meantime.

I really don’t need the internal arguments, I’ve got enough to think about.