Stress suggestions

Thanks for all of the good advice everyone. The last 5 or so days have been a bit better. I have been crazy busy, except over the weekend, but the busy wasn't making my head feel as if it was going to explode. We did almost nothing this weekend, first time in a while, and that helped a bit. We just hung out, food shopped, cooked a ton, went for a walk, etc. I was starting to feel a bit better in the days after my initial post and I am feeling fine at the moment. I am still holding more stress than usual, but it doesn't feel as extreme as when I posted. A good sign is that things were going wrong all around me earlier today and I handled it the way I do when I feel OK; no excess stress.

I haven't seen my doctor yet, but I did get my bp checked last week after the posts brow beating me, and it was fine. What I was feeling were more like panic attacks. And sleep has been an issue. That is nothing new, but when I posted, I had had a few particularly bad nights. I am trying to pick up the exercise a little. I do a bit of cardio something every morning, usually jogging or running or rowing if I hit the gym, even if it is only a half hour or 45 minutes, but I don't go at it with the intensity or time commitment I used to. I have picked it up a little the last few days; as several people pointed out that can make a big difference and maybe that is what I am missing. I am trying some of the other things people suggested, too. So thanks again. I'll let you know if anything feels like it has made a difference. I really need to make a doctor's appointment. Even just a check up won't hurt; but I need to find the time and find the will to go.

 

Not sure why I am sharing this, but update: This morning at about 6 am, I was at my desk working and my chest started to feel tight and I suddenly felt weak and dizzy. No good reason -- nothing strenuous or stress-related to the work was the cause. In general, I have not been sleeping well and my anxiety levels have been extreme as ever.

I stood up and felt like I might pass out. I kept it together and tried to walk around, but my body was tensing up and I felt very lightheaded and had to sit down several times. My breathing was shallow, so I had to force myself to breathe and I couldn't tell if I was short of breath or hyperventilating. I'd feel slightly better for a minute then sit down and feel even weaker. The motion of sitting and then standing and walking kept making me afraid if I was going to pass out. I just felt off. Compound it with the fact that I had a bit of dried blood on the tissue when I blew my nose yesterday, and I started to get scared about a myocardial event of some sort -- and it fed on itself in my mind. I was anxious, weak, and feeling very lightheaded and running heart attack scenarios in my head. The chest tightness, in particular, scared me, even though it wasn't extreme. I couldn't tell if it was just chest tightness related to a heart thing, or the fact that my whole body had gotten tense and it was feeding on itself.

I got Ms. Ragu on the phone at around 7 (she was already at work) wondering whether I should call 911 and head to the emergency room, and decided to call my sister who is an MD and she put my brother-in-law on the phone, who is conveniently a cardiologist. He talked me through it and seemed fairly confident that I wasn't having a heart attack based on what I described. Best guess it was an extreme panic attack. I have had them, but never one that felt like that -- and it scared the living hell out of me, because I was feeling it via very weird physical symptoms. I took a mild sedative (I keep a bottle around just in case) and I am working again, and I feel a ton better right now -- close to normal.

Aside from that scary hour or two, I have been trying everything I can to shake the stress, with a particular focus the last week or two on mindfulness and meditation. I even went to a buddhist center last week and tried a group meditation & lecture -- it was torture, because it left me more wound up than before I had gone.

I am arranging with my brother-in-law to have a stress test at his office in the next week just to be certain. Even if there is something there, I'd rather know what is going on and deal with it than just be guessing. Hopefully it is stress-related and I can finally use how scared I felt as an impetus to get serious about fixing this.