An old joke, often seen reproduced on items like fridge magnets, has a woman saying, 'sometimes I wake up grumpy, other days I let him sleep!' If I am very tired I wake up grumpy. I also find tiredness produces symptoms that impact profoundly on my mental health. Simply put, tiredness exacerbates my symptoms; specifically, in my case, my anxieties are hugely magnified by fatigue.
Adequate sleep is essential for everyone at the best of times. I suggest that for the mental health patient and those recovering from mental illness, sleep is not simply essential it is elemental.
I can only share my experiences by way of offering advice to those who share this journey. I avoid looking at a computer screen after about 6 in the evening. I often have a bath before bed and as I enjoy a soak I burn incense and listen to my radio. This, I suggest, serves to illustrate that all of the senses are in need of soothing to aid relaxation in order to facilitate the relaxation necessary to aid sleep. Hot chocolate is also a good unwind - it feels like an indulgent treat at bed time and if taken regularly, in my experience, the body becomes trained to see the drink as a precursor to sleep, a subliminal message if you like.
I also sleep with the window open, I love the fresh air and it has the added advantage that in the early morning you hear the birds sing. The birds have sung the dawn chorus for centuries, a timely reminder that however anxious we may become, most things over time are resolvable in a much more positive manner than our dark thoughts urge us otherwise to believe. There really is nothing much new under the sun, a comforting realisation in itself but one which is much more likely to spring into our minds if we have slept well and avoid tiredness.
Thursday, 20 May 2010
Monday, 17 May 2010
E is for Exercise!
Anybody reading this will not need me to tell them that exercise is such an important thing for the human body. Fitter, leaner, stronger - it's all good! But the impact is not just physiological, regular fitness also has a huge impact mentally. The 'feel good' chemicals which the body produces during exercise lift the mood, make one feel more positive and serve also a a relaxant. The side effects are almost all positive as well - feeling a great sense of achievement, losing a bit of weight, sleeping better to name but three.
If there is one caveat it would simply be that the mental health patient needs to avoid replacing one obsession with another. In other words, don't become so obsessed with a fitness regime that it interferes with normal day to day task completion. Further, when training isn't possible through injury, illness or the desire just to 'chill out', push away the feelings of failure.
A training diary, in my opinion, is not particularly helpful as it can encourage excessive and unreasonable task setting. Recording high points is, however, a very good idea. I usually run four miles each day (or equivalent fitness training) with the exception of the weekends - my old bones need some time to recover! I don't write my timings down everyday, just now and again. When I have a 'slower' day I look back over the timings and remind myself I can, and have, run faster and will easily do so again.
Working hard to improve levels of fitness helps the mind as much as the body. Nevertheless, it's still ok to be a tortoise. You don't need to run like a hare to achieve a positive impact on mind and body!
If there is one caveat it would simply be that the mental health patient needs to avoid replacing one obsession with another. In other words, don't become so obsessed with a fitness regime that it interferes with normal day to day task completion. Further, when training isn't possible through injury, illness or the desire just to 'chill out', push away the feelings of failure.
A training diary, in my opinion, is not particularly helpful as it can encourage excessive and unreasonable task setting. Recording high points is, however, a very good idea. I usually run four miles each day (or equivalent fitness training) with the exception of the weekends - my old bones need some time to recover! I don't write my timings down everyday, just now and again. When I have a 'slower' day I look back over the timings and remind myself I can, and have, run faster and will easily do so again.
Working hard to improve levels of fitness helps the mind as much as the body. Nevertheless, it's still ok to be a tortoise. You don't need to run like a hare to achieve a positive impact on mind and body!
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
L is for Leisure...but T is for Trigger!
Leisure is the first part of my 'Lesson Plan'. It's so important to relax and 'chill out'! I have also come to see that it is important to be disciplined about relaxation. That probably sounds like a contradiction in terms but what I mean to say is that it is important to ensure that relaxation takes place on a regular basis. It helps you unwind, it helps to resist spiralling anxiety (in my case) as tiredness can so often amplify a perceived difficulty and impair one's ability to maintain an appropriate sense of perspective.
The need for this has never been more evident to me than recently. I have written many times about the nature of what I call my 'symptomatic anxiety' and the triggers for them are coming thick and fast at the moment. It's all to do with the election and the differing, but on the face of it equally pessimistic, predictions about the United Kingdom's need to reduce its budget deficit. Simply put, at the moment most of my anxiety is triggered by news reports of what is likely to happen when the next occupant moves into Number 11 Downing Street.
On the face of it I ought not to worry. My employment is secure and relatively well paid, although I do have to do a lot with it. But when I hear, as I did today for example, that The Department of Fiscal Studies are arguing that none of the major political parties have it right my skills as an extrapolator are shown to be superb! What I mean by that is that any discussion in the news about possible financial cuts has me extrapolating problem after problem after problem and they are all going to land in my lap. When I next have to move (and my employer moves me every two or three years) my wife will no longer be able to secure similar employment; my sons will not find work on the completion of university studies (and my eldest son doesn't start his undergraduate studies until October!).
What does all of this detail demonstrate? I believe, in a nutshell, it demonstrates that whatever the nature of your anxiety (for me finances, for other their health, for others whether they have closed all the windows before leaving for work) there are times when, as much as you would wish it to be different, the triggers come thick and fast, it feels impossible to fend them all off, one extrapolates worst case scenarios from all of them (what therapists call 'catastrophising') and it feels an impossible task to challenge these imagined catastrophes with logic, common sense and contrary evidence. Constructing an alternative argument, in these circumstances, never felt so difficult.
Leisure remains important and never more so than when one feels so overburdened by anxiety that one knows all the terrible things extrapolated from 'anxiety triggers' are inevitable - even though those closest to us, and all the contrary evidence, suggests that to be highly unlikely. Under such working conditions leisure seems frivolous and distracting. Not so, I know I need to keep on with the 'discipline' of leisure activities in the hope and prayer that one day soon they will reintroduce a note of reason and appropriate perspective. Perhaps at some point the 'grounding' provided by such activities may even prove more powerful and persuasive than the 'triggers'.
The need for this has never been more evident to me than recently. I have written many times about the nature of what I call my 'symptomatic anxiety' and the triggers for them are coming thick and fast at the moment. It's all to do with the election and the differing, but on the face of it equally pessimistic, predictions about the United Kingdom's need to reduce its budget deficit. Simply put, at the moment most of my anxiety is triggered by news reports of what is likely to happen when the next occupant moves into Number 11 Downing Street.
On the face of it I ought not to worry. My employment is secure and relatively well paid, although I do have to do a lot with it. But when I hear, as I did today for example, that The Department of Fiscal Studies are arguing that none of the major political parties have it right my skills as an extrapolator are shown to be superb! What I mean by that is that any discussion in the news about possible financial cuts has me extrapolating problem after problem after problem and they are all going to land in my lap. When I next have to move (and my employer moves me every two or three years) my wife will no longer be able to secure similar employment; my sons will not find work on the completion of university studies (and my eldest son doesn't start his undergraduate studies until October!).
What does all of this detail demonstrate? I believe, in a nutshell, it demonstrates that whatever the nature of your anxiety (for me finances, for other their health, for others whether they have closed all the windows before leaving for work) there are times when, as much as you would wish it to be different, the triggers come thick and fast, it feels impossible to fend them all off, one extrapolates worst case scenarios from all of them (what therapists call 'catastrophising') and it feels an impossible task to challenge these imagined catastrophes with logic, common sense and contrary evidence. Constructing an alternative argument, in these circumstances, never felt so difficult.
Leisure remains important and never more so than when one feels so overburdened by anxiety that one knows all the terrible things extrapolated from 'anxiety triggers' are inevitable - even though those closest to us, and all the contrary evidence, suggests that to be highly unlikely. Under such working conditions leisure seems frivolous and distracting. Not so, I know I need to keep on with the 'discipline' of leisure activities in the hope and prayer that one day soon they will reintroduce a note of reason and appropriate perspective. Perhaps at some point the 'grounding' provided by such activities may even prove more powerful and persuasive than the 'triggers'.
Friday, 23 April 2010
Lesson plan
I've had a long break from the blog. It wasn't intentional, it just happened. But lately I have been 'struggling' so I have decided to pick it up again and then to make a concerted effort to keep it going. I hope this will help me to be more consistently positive about believing that whilst I am definitely in this for 'the long haul' progress has been and continues to be made. I hope this will also be of some encouragement to others.
I am still struggling with anxiety big time! I have, in previous blogs, been honest enough to admit my symptom based anxiety focuses on money; it's always money and it drives me nuts! No matter how many times I sit down, plan, prepare spread sheets, count my blessings, I am frequently frightened I have a major problem. As Gavin said to Stacey 'it's just the way it is'!
So what am I going to do? Good question! What I going to try to do can be summarised as a LESSON plan; L for leisure; E for exercise; S for sleep; S for spirituality; O for optimism; N for nutrition.
Which, conveniently, gives me much raw material for future blogs which I am determined will, once again, be a regular feature of my life.
I am still struggling with anxiety big time! I have, in previous blogs, been honest enough to admit my symptom based anxiety focuses on money; it's always money and it drives me nuts! No matter how many times I sit down, plan, prepare spread sheets, count my blessings, I am frequently frightened I have a major problem. As Gavin said to Stacey 'it's just the way it is'!
So what am I going to do? Good question! What I going to try to do can be summarised as a LESSON plan; L for leisure; E for exercise; S for sleep; S for spirituality; O for optimism; N for nutrition.
Which, conveniently, gives me much raw material for future blogs which I am determined will, once again, be a regular feature of my life.
Friday, 13 November 2009
The Curate's Egg
This has been the longest gap between posts since I started my blog. The gap has not been particularly deliberate but, positively, I have been busy trying to keep 'pushing the bar up'.
My experiences of returning to work, albeit, part-time have been very positive. Many people with whom I normally work have been quite clearly aware of my illness and yet I have not received one single word of criticism neither encountered even a modicum of hostility. Even better, and refreshingly so, I have not been treated with 'kid gloves' either. I am only working part-time and even this I find exhausting. However, the exhaustion is a satisfying one. Further, I am not afraid now to say 'that's enough' and stop when necessary.
My level of physical fitness continues to improve and has seen me raise this 'bar' to a very satisfying level running between four and five miles every week day. This is both satisfying and painful!
Despite all of this, there is something of the curate's egg about my continuing (recovery) experience. One of the most significant features has seen, at least for the time being, my normal (financial) anxieties ease considerably. However, there has been a price to pay - irony intended! These quite specific, and erstwhile crippling levels of anxiety have eased as, with the help of therapy and my own honest appraisals of my life I have 'peeled back the layers' and identified some deep seated and longstanding causes to my illness. Simply put, these 'causes' have been there for a long time. The financial anxieties, as my medical team have been predicting for many weeks, appear to have been significantly, if not entirely, symptomatic. I hope regular followers of this blog will forgive me for not going into any more detail at this stage - my thinking is still in its infancy and I am genuinely trying to keep an open mind.
However, as I am learning, an 'open mind' is almost as troubling as a disturbed one, but I was warned a full recovery would take a long time and recent developments have seen the veracity of that prophecy.
My experiences of returning to work, albeit, part-time have been very positive. Many people with whom I normally work have been quite clearly aware of my illness and yet I have not received one single word of criticism neither encountered even a modicum of hostility. Even better, and refreshingly so, I have not been treated with 'kid gloves' either. I am only working part-time and even this I find exhausting. However, the exhaustion is a satisfying one. Further, I am not afraid now to say 'that's enough' and stop when necessary.
My level of physical fitness continues to improve and has seen me raise this 'bar' to a very satisfying level running between four and five miles every week day. This is both satisfying and painful!
Despite all of this, there is something of the curate's egg about my continuing (recovery) experience. One of the most significant features has seen, at least for the time being, my normal (financial) anxieties ease considerably. However, there has been a price to pay - irony intended! These quite specific, and erstwhile crippling levels of anxiety have eased as, with the help of therapy and my own honest appraisals of my life I have 'peeled back the layers' and identified some deep seated and longstanding causes to my illness. Simply put, these 'causes' have been there for a long time. The financial anxieties, as my medical team have been predicting for many weeks, appear to have been significantly, if not entirely, symptomatic. I hope regular followers of this blog will forgive me for not going into any more detail at this stage - my thinking is still in its infancy and I am genuinely trying to keep an open mind.
However, as I am learning, an 'open mind' is almost as troubling as a disturbed one, but I was warned a full recovery would take a long time and recent developments have seen the veracity of that prophecy.
Thursday, 29 October 2009
Clarity of vision, personal happiness and easing through the pain barriers
I think this is the longest gap between entries since I began this blog - and I said initially that my intention was to add to it daily! Notwithstanding the gap I hope that my thoughts and reflections are still of some use to the faithful souls who are still following, despite my recent tardiness!
I am now back into a regular work pattern. Overall I am enjoying this greatly and the daily contact with friends and colleagues in a working environment has certain been conducive to accelerating my recovery. I am continuing to run 4 miles everyday. My most pertient observation about physical fitness is nothing new - as I have mentioned in previous blogs the effects on the mind are as positively dramatic as they are on the body. I have still managed to hold onto this despite a short enforced lay off due to a niggly injury.
As I have continued to improve so has my vision and my perspective. I find that I can 'see' so much more clearly, metaphorically speaking. If there is one inherent difficulty it is that such 'vision' has enabled me to see things I could not see before I went into hospital. Some of those things, I now 'see', were contributory factors in becoming ill. However, this is all essentially positive. Clear vision is the best groundframe for positive and constructive thinking and problem solving, even though it does mean that some pain barriers have to be gone through. Nevertheless, as politicians have been wont to remind us throughout history, 'no pain no gain'!
I no longer look at my finances every five minutes, that awful checking and re-checking, so characteristic of anankastic personailty types, but so utterly demoralising and counter-productive to a recovering mental health patient. In fact I am delighted to be able to disclose that today is the first time this week I have checked closely my current account and this only to check the remaining balance before pay day tomorrow! Happy days!
There may be pain barriers ahead but I am confident that I can tackle them 'head on' having recently found my way to better health, much more personal happiness and overall contentment as a result.
I am now back into a regular work pattern. Overall I am enjoying this greatly and the daily contact with friends and colleagues in a working environment has certain been conducive to accelerating my recovery. I am continuing to run 4 miles everyday. My most pertient observation about physical fitness is nothing new - as I have mentioned in previous blogs the effects on the mind are as positively dramatic as they are on the body. I have still managed to hold onto this despite a short enforced lay off due to a niggly injury.
As I have continued to improve so has my vision and my perspective. I find that I can 'see' so much more clearly, metaphorically speaking. If there is one inherent difficulty it is that such 'vision' has enabled me to see things I could not see before I went into hospital. Some of those things, I now 'see', were contributory factors in becoming ill. However, this is all essentially positive. Clear vision is the best groundframe for positive and constructive thinking and problem solving, even though it does mean that some pain barriers have to be gone through. Nevertheless, as politicians have been wont to remind us throughout history, 'no pain no gain'!
I no longer look at my finances every five minutes, that awful checking and re-checking, so characteristic of anankastic personailty types, but so utterly demoralising and counter-productive to a recovering mental health patient. In fact I am delighted to be able to disclose that today is the first time this week I have checked closely my current account and this only to check the remaining balance before pay day tomorrow! Happy days!
There may be pain barriers ahead but I am confident that I can tackle them 'head on' having recently found my way to better health, much more personal happiness and overall contentment as a result.
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Lagging indicators & the Law of Averages
A good deal has changed over the last few days. Inevitably, just like life in general, some has been good and some less good; some enjoyable and some more of a battle; some successful and some less successful.
I returned to work, part-time, last week. My consultant agreed to this, providing I adhered to a number of caveats which he, not unreasonably, imposed. Those restrictions are in place entirely for my own protection, a principle I understand and accept. He said I would be tired, and I was! But I want to say that the two things which will remain in my mind most clearly about my first couple of days back in my 'normal' environment were both entirely positive. First, although it was a challenge, I enjoyed it and second, people were very welcoming and accepting; no judgements, no whispers, no strange knowing glances!
The level of tiredness engendered by returning to work has taken me by surprise. This has, inevitably, raised my levels of anxiety but this in itself, I acknowledge is not the sole domain of the recovering mental health patient. Anyone who is tired finds the difficult things more difficult, the easy things less easy.
I have taken to 'scoring' each day, my preferred method being percentages. A perfect day would be 100% (is there such a thing?) a reasonable, half-decent day around 50%. But this is only a relative measure and it is important to remain positive and say, for example, 'OK, today was only 50% but yesterday was 40% - that represents an improvement of 25%!'
But don't allow me to get bogged down in numbers again for followers of this blog know where my main symptomatic anxieties lie!
Nevertheless, using a relative measure (such as the percentage model) for looking at life is a valuable tool as long as one uses it to show improvement over time and identify weaknesses to work on. It should not become an obsessive tool to which one becomes enslaved; if you check the FTSE (returning to a familiar theme) every five minutes you are digging a hole for yourself - check it less often and more accurate trends will be revealed.
So what accurate trends have I revealed using this relativist model of self-analysis? That I am moving in the right direction, sometimes only limping but the right direction nevertheless; that I am feeling more positive about myself and hope that in time my self-esteem will improve - the trouble with self-esteem, to use a current economic 'buzz phrase', is that it is a 'lagging indicator'!
Despite the occasional 'limp and lag' the law of averages tells me that my percentages are rising over time and the hard work and investment appear to be bringing in a small dividend! Long may it continue.
I returned to work, part-time, last week. My consultant agreed to this, providing I adhered to a number of caveats which he, not unreasonably, imposed. Those restrictions are in place entirely for my own protection, a principle I understand and accept. He said I would be tired, and I was! But I want to say that the two things which will remain in my mind most clearly about my first couple of days back in my 'normal' environment were both entirely positive. First, although it was a challenge, I enjoyed it and second, people were very welcoming and accepting; no judgements, no whispers, no strange knowing glances!
The level of tiredness engendered by returning to work has taken me by surprise. This has, inevitably, raised my levels of anxiety but this in itself, I acknowledge is not the sole domain of the recovering mental health patient. Anyone who is tired finds the difficult things more difficult, the easy things less easy.
I have taken to 'scoring' each day, my preferred method being percentages. A perfect day would be 100% (is there such a thing?) a reasonable, half-decent day around 50%. But this is only a relative measure and it is important to remain positive and say, for example, 'OK, today was only 50% but yesterday was 40% - that represents an improvement of 25%!'
But don't allow me to get bogged down in numbers again for followers of this blog know where my main symptomatic anxieties lie!
Nevertheless, using a relative measure (such as the percentage model) for looking at life is a valuable tool as long as one uses it to show improvement over time and identify weaknesses to work on. It should not become an obsessive tool to which one becomes enslaved; if you check the FTSE (returning to a familiar theme) every five minutes you are digging a hole for yourself - check it less often and more accurate trends will be revealed.
So what accurate trends have I revealed using this relativist model of self-analysis? That I am moving in the right direction, sometimes only limping but the right direction nevertheless; that I am feeling more positive about myself and hope that in time my self-esteem will improve - the trouble with self-esteem, to use a current economic 'buzz phrase', is that it is a 'lagging indicator'!
Despite the occasional 'limp and lag' the law of averages tells me that my percentages are rising over time and the hard work and investment appear to be bringing in a small dividend! Long may it continue.
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