Stress Brain

I feel as though I've been slurring ideas together in my head recently, that there is a blending between what someone has told me, what I have read in case studies, and what was purely a hypothetical I made up in my head in one of those long showers where you forget that time is a thing.  

It's a temporary thing, I think mostly from stress.  But it's also in part due to my shifting understanding of my current reality.  Here are some samplings:

• My schedule has little real consistency, with clinicals slipped into various off days on the one hand and the constant need to change various activities due to COVID changes.
• I have been doing so much reading for class collectively--it's a little lighter so far this term, but there was a fair bit that preceded it in the last two--that there is some very real overload.
• March seemed to be endless last year--why does it get another go this year?
• I'm working on organizing the pieces I need to start a new job, including emails, corrective phone calls, calendar restructuring, and checking with my permanent roommate that I can have the car on that day with what his schedule needs.
• In preparation for a part of the job that is due to start before I finish my program, I have been working to get ahead on a number of different assignments and the like, meaning that I feel an extra crunch on my current due dates, further skewing my sense of time.  In other words, yes, the paper I have been working on isn't due until late April, but that could be one less thing I have to worry about in April meaning that I kind of forget that March is a thing.  
• I've also been contemplating about the shift in my identity, claiming the title of "nurse" and what that can mean.  It's a loaded train of thought.  

All in all, I'm working toward flexibility and proactivity where I am, understanding that I'm moving toward the final leg of my program with all that that transition can and will mean.

So, light, fluffy stuff, really.  ~sarcasm flag~

I know that when I eat well, exercise regularly, and utilize the coping tools I know work well for me that I genuinely feel better.  I know that.  I have also been alternating between comfort eating and eating barely anything this last month.  I have also been either forgetting to do much exercise at all or way overdoing it.  The crux of it is that I do have more to process, but I, once again, have not been giving myself the space to process it.  It doesn't seem like there's enough time.

The result:  grades have dipped slightly (i.e. midterms ate my brain) and my resting heartrate has been higher the last few weeks according to my Fitbit.  What I've been focusing on, though, are that my talking patterns have been more stream-of-conscious than usual.  I would go as far to say that I have the aftertaste of leather after putting my foot in my mouth in a few curious ways recently.  However, it's purely possible that I've been overanalyzing, that I have, in fact, been about the normal amount of weird and occasionally socially clumsy as usual.  It's confirmation bias or otherwise a hypervigilance due to the increased levels of uncertainty (because I've very accustomed to some) in this transition period.   

The solution:  honestly, I just needed to put a name to it.  There's a lot of good stress right now--I'm on the precipice of new things and genuinely intrigued by the material we're learning this term.  Stress is still stress.  I hadn't spent much time to simply acknowledge what levels I was quietly carrying, made apparent by things like my Fitbit data.  As a result, I was spending some time relaxing, but I hadn't really directed it to the right spaces.  Naming the feeling, noting how I was feeling it somatically, that acknowledgement by itself was huge, to notice and demonstrate compassion for those parts of my brain and body.  I've talked about this briefly before with regards to large grief/anxiety/depression, but I hadn't put together how well it can work for those smaller or aggregate concerns, too.  And I began to feel unblocked, that my relaxation time was much more productive to its goal.  I could comfort eat as a treat to myself rather than lay in post-carb-coma guilt; I could exercise and be grateful for the investment in myself rather than bemoan that I couldn't do six things at once to maximize the time.  I could check in with Andy and not be thinking of what else I could be doing to get ahead in my studies.

If it were anyone else, I would talk through it with them, help them name the source where possible, and insist that they not feel guilty for taking time to rest in a way that best helps them.  And once again I have to remember that I can extend that same grace back to myself.  

I don't think I'll ever be done relearning that lesson, but I am also willing to keep trying for it anyway.  With the personal wellness days we have received this week (in lieu of a spring break), I've been striking a balance between getting ahead and actually using some of that time off to relax--writing a paper but also taking a long walk with Andy and Luna; knocking out a couple of longstanding household chores but also seeing my parents.  In short, I'm balancing different ways to be kind to myself but now with a greater awareness of how it's affecting me and what it's benefits will be.  

...and a glass of wine while working on blog posts can't hurt much either.