Reduce Stress #myheartdayresolution

In my weight loss journey I have made a number of unpleasant discoveries about my health. For example, my cholesterol is sky high. I also have depression and anxiety. Though it may not seem like it at first glance, these two things are related and they're both related to my obesity. The uniting factor in all of these is cortisol, the stress hormone.

I am no stranger to cortisol or the "fight or flight" adrenalin rush that it triggers. I am an animal handler by trade, after all, and animals attack. When a dog tries to attack me, I feel that rush like a laser through my chest. The world slows down and my thoughts start to come in a whir. "Okay, step to the side, grab the scruff, where's his teeth, where's my hand, have I got a good grip? he's heavy but I'm strong, where's the owner, let's get him out of here, okay good she's got the leash on him I can let go now...". And then out loud "Wow, did you see what happened there? Let's discuss that and use it as a learning opportunity."

But sometimes, much more often, the laser through my chest happens when there is no emergency. Then my brain is whirring and there's no direction for it to go in. All it can say is "what if he thinks, what if she thinks, what if this doesn't work out, what if something's going on you don't know about".  And there's no where for it to go, so it just keeps whirring and spinning, and the lazer keeps shooting me in the chest and my chest gets tighter, and my brain spins faster and then I have an anxiety attack, or I simply shut down and go to bed or, as my son refers to it I STOP and sink into a depression and lay in bed with my brain spinning lazily about saying "There's nothing you can do anyway, might as well just let it happen, ride it out, who cares anyway, we're all going to die, might as well let it come, you can't help, can't even keep the house clean, if they cared about you they would know, you wouldn't have to tell them, why bother, they're all using you, why write, why talk, I don't have anything worthwhile to say, nothing's original, nothing's interesting, might as well stay in bed." and then my body starts cooperating with my brain and becomes achy and miserable so I really am sick in bed.

Meanwhile all that cortisol floating around in my system without an actual emergency to respond to is getting bored and entertaining itself in all sorts of ways. Excess cortisol causes insulin resistance, also known as pre-diabetes, which can cause you to lay down abdominal fat, which is linked to production of excess cholesterol  and increased risk of stroke, heart attack and metabolic syndrom. It impairs thyroid function, which can cause you to hang on to weight. Cortisol depresses the immune system. It reduces bone and muscle formation, causing osteoporosis over a long period of time. It interferes with memory retrieval and increases blood pressure.

Okay, so I think I have made my case for the stress-cortosol-obesity link. The question is, what to do about it. I can't stop stress from happening and I really only have limited control when it comes to my body's natural response to it

Well, I did some research and formulated a plan. Here is the practical part of this post.

Dawn's Plan for Reducing Stress

Exercise
There it is again, exercise. Exercise helps "burn off" cortisol and relieve stress. I try to do Yoga every morning. I found a Youtube page I like so I can practice with free videos. ( Do Yoga with Me) and I'm thinking of starting to do the Belly Dance workouts at (just trying to find time when nobody's around to mock me). My little Sunshine and I take walks every afternoon when we start to get on each others' nerves and then at night, after Sunshine is fed, bathed and in his jammies, my husband and I push him around the neighborhood in the stroller. This is a great wind down and gives my husband and I a chance to discuss the day.

Sleep
Stress interferes with sleep and when you don't get enough sleep you have a harder time dealing with stress. It's a vicious cycle. I am an insomniac. When I get involved with writing something, I don't like to stop to sleep. And when I do go to sleep I end up waking up in the middle of the night with my mind racing. Most of my anxiety attacks happen at night. Enter, The Honest Guys, another Youtube channel I just love. Their guided sleep meditations really do the trick. (And their Middle Earth themed meditations are alot of fun too). They take the edge off an anxiety attack and help me drift off to sleep. I still must be super strict about making myself go to sleep at 10pm every night so that I can get a solid 8 hours before I wake up at 6:30am if I want to do Yoga, have a shower and start on my daily chores before Mr. Sunshine wakes up.

Make a List
I find making lists of everything I need to do and keeping track of everything on a family calendar to be very helpful in reducing my stress throughout the day. One tool I use for this can be found at Cozi.com I use this calendar, to-do list, grocery shopping list and menu planner tool to keep myself on track. I even record my dog training appointments on it as I can take it with me on my Kindle and update my calendar right from my clients' homes. My husband has access to the same calendar and carries his Kindle with him too so when he gets a gig, he just puts it on the calendar and the next time I look at it, there it is. No more double booking. And since I keep my Kindle in my purse, I never forget a shopping list anymore either.

Meditation
Meditation is key to reducing stress, but it's not easy for everyone and it can be hard to find time for it. I used to take a nap when my Sunshine napped, now I do a one hour meditation and spend the other hour and a half checking things off my to do list. Since I am sleeping better, the nap isn't necessary and I feel like the meditation refreshes me better without leaving me groggy and fuzzy. If I have trouble meditating on my own, I do one of the great guided meditations from The Honest Guys or LilianEden.

Play
Play is a great stress reliever and it releases good healthy hormones that make you stronger instead of those bad stress hormones that mess you all up. So I try to take some time to play every day. Several times a day I spend some time roughhousing with the baby, building with blocks or looking at a book together. This is my job at that time. Not cleaning or cooking or writing, playing with the baby. I also try to take some time to play with the older kids. Mabinogi is an online game we all enjoy together (look me up, I'm Mourningbird). Sometimes I have to play by myself and for that I have found Superbetter.com. What is it? It's a game, and a self-healing and productivity tool. It makes doing what you gotta do fun. It was created by a video game designer and... well, you have to check it out for yourself. And if you do, please be my ally! It's more fun to play with others.

Craft
Creating crafts also releases good hormones. I like knitting but I haven't the time lately. I am seriously going to get back into it. Soon. I also want to set up a sewing room and a craft workshop in my new house, whenever I get my new house. Crafting isn't something I've been doing enough to relieve my stress, but it does relieve stress when I do it.


I am interested to hear what other people do to relieve stress and if they have tips and viewpoints about using the methods I described here.

A New Resolution

So paying off all of my debt in the next year is not realistic. Maybe next year. This year I have to buy appliances, do radon mitigation, fix the oil tank and heater, fix the sump pump, redo the deck, take down the really scary and dangerous looking fence around my yard and replace it with a fence that will actually keep things in instead of just punishing anyone who walks over it with tetanus... That is assuming this deal ever goes through, and I did say I was going to blog about that, didn't I? I am planning on doing that without using anymore credit, but paying off what I already have just isn't likely.

BUT, paying down (or off) my credit card can be a part of the NEW, much more practical Hearth resolution I have chosen.  (Drumroll please)

Be Prepared

Yes, I am going to start prepping. As I look at all these websites and TV shows about prepping I think "Those people are nuts" Why would you spend a whole bunch of money on all sorts of stuff to survive a nuclear attack or a zombie apocalypse? I just want to survive the next major black out.

So I got to thinking. What is practical to prep for? What emergencies are my family most likely to face?

So here's my brainstorm:
(In no particular order)

• Power outage due to storms, whatever that was last time the whole Eastern seaboard went out and equipment failure
• Loss of heat due to equipment failure or power outage
• Loss of water due to a main break, plumbing issues, etc.
• Illness or injury
• Loss of income due to unemployment, illness or injury
• Fire. Gods forbid.
• Extreme weather, confining us to the home and limiting our ability to get to resources. 
• Extreme weather or other condition requiring us to evacuate, limiting our access to the home for some time.
• Extreme weather or other condition causing serious damage to the house requiring immediate repair for the safety of the family and to prevent further damage to the house. Broken windows, leaks, torn off siding or roof shingles.
• Loss of transportation due to vehicle damage or malfunction.
• Being the target of criminal activity in the home, in the car, or out and about in the world
• Being charged with criminal activity or faced with a lawsuit

There we have 12 items I can review over the next 12 months. Assuming I keep on task here. The way the summer's been going... Well, I need to get back to some sort of normalcy around here.

My Hearth Day Resolution #hearthdayresolution

My hearth is so hectic right now that I am having a very hard time deciding what my Hearth goal will be for this year. On one hand, moving into a new house, I can think of a million possibilities. However, we don't actually have that house yet and it seems like making major plans associated with it might invite even more bad luck, so my goal is going to have to be something I can do wherever my hearth happens to be.

After much thought, I've decided to reduce my debt. This seems rather daunting as I take on the biggest debt I will ever take on in my life, and as I take on the rather expensive responsibilities of homeownership, but I feel that this is a long-term action that will benefit my family immensely.

Specifically, I have identified 3 debts to eliminate entirely in the next year.

$2,000 to the hospital for an emergency room visit
$3,500 credit card debt
$4,200 car loan

These are actually not a big deal. If I continue to make the minimum payments on these, I can be done with them in a few years. However, if I pay them off this year, I will save money in interest, and have an extra $315 per month to put toward my mortgage and student loan debt, or to spend on things like gardening supplies, lumber, and livestock to increase our self-sufficiency, which is my ultimate goal.

According to my math, in order to pay off all of these debts in 1 year, I am going to have to come up with about $800 per month.

Can I do it?

Well yea, sure I can. I just have to figure out how.

Fighting My Demons

For the past several months I have been submerged in a whirlwind of anxiety, depression and OCD.  I have been trying to buy a house. Not just any house. THE HOUSE. The only house I want. I want to live, and raise babies, and love on grandbabies and die in this house. But enough about the house. I will post about that another time.

I do not handle stress well. I never have and I sure haven't started recently. Stress makes me physically ill in so many ways. Gastrointestinal distress, flu-like body aches, migraines and it lowers my immune system so catch whatever bug's going around. The thing is, while I have gone to many doctors for these symptoms, nobody has once suggested to me that they are stress-related. Which is somewhat weird.

But as you may know if you've been reading along, I have been trying to lose weight. So every time I go to the doctor for some ache or pain I am mentioning, "Oh and I've been really trying to lose weight and I haven't been having any luck." and they say "What are you doing?" and I say "I cut out all fast food and simple carbs including all sweets, bread and white rice and I started walking daily." and they say "Well I think it's possible you're taking in more calories than you think, are you keeping a journal?" and I say "Well yea, but I don't have it with me..." And that is where it ends.

And then one day my doctor wasn't available and I was sent to another doctor and she looked at my record and she said "You have been coming in with the same complaints for years." and I said "Yes I have. And don't forget that I haven't lost a pound despite making major lifestyle changes over the course of several months." So she sent me to an endocrinologist. Finally, something. But no. Nothing.

She sat me down and gave me a stern talking to. She told me that she thinks I have mental illness, Depression and Anxiety are real illnesses and nothing to be ashamed of and highly treatable if I'll let her try. She said that all of my symptoms may be related to depression and anxiety and if I get them under control I may lose the aches and pains and stomach aches, my immunity may improve and I may lose the weight.

So I said okay. And she gave me Celexa. It wasn't her first choice, but my insurance does not cover such things.

First week on Celexa every symptom I have ever had hit me all at once. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I was so miserable. I could barely move. Aches, pains, anxiety attacks, heart burn, nausea, it was all there, piled on all at once. And all the time I felt, this is my journey. I am fighting the demon. I KNEW it was right. I was going underground, submerging myself in my pain so that I could emerge clean on the other side. It was like a mighty purge. Like some Shamanic journey. She said if I could just hold on two weeks I would feel so much better, and something inside me tells me she is absolutely right. This goes against everything I have ever believed about drug therapy for mental health issues. But I believe this is my answer.

It's only been 10 days. I feel better. I still feel a bit like crap, but so much better than say three days ago. Last night the anxiety that kept me from sleeping lasted only a few hours instead of all night. As soon as my husband got home from his gig and took my hand, I drifted right off. I am taking my pill in the morning instead of the evening now, so we'll see how that changes things.

I think this whole process would be easier if I didn't have the added stress of buying the house right now. If I had someone to help me out around the house, with the baby and everything. If my husband came home at night instead of going to rehearsals and gigs, but it's summer, wedding and festival season, and I did marry a musician. This is probably the worst possible time for me to do something like this. But when is it a good time to fight your demons?

Yes, I am fighting. I feel like I am fighting to come out of a cocoon. To shed all the crap so I can finally be the person I know I am instead of the person I'm afraid I'm not.

So, if you've been wondering where I am and why I've been a total blogging slacker, now you know. Am I back? Well, I hope so. But I think I am going to go out on a limb and allow myself to write more personally. Like this.

Sunday Mornings

I love Sunday mornings. I don't know why exactly, but I do.

Usually I wake up to the sound of my husband making coffee (it can be quite loud) and, if school is in session, my teenager slamming the door and pounding down the porch steps to go meet the bus (he's not angry, he's just like that). As I stagger into the kitchen, my darling husband presents me with coffee, made just the way he likes it (milk with lots of sugar). And I drink it, gratefully as I start breakfast. Then he gets the little one changed and dressed and plops him in the high chair and we all have breakfast together before he goes to work. And I wish he didn't have to go. Then it's just me and my Sunshine till Jet gets home from school. Mr Rabbit gets home from work just in time to give Sunshine a bath and read him a bedtime story. That is, assuming he doesn't have a gig or a rehearsal.

Sundays are completely different and I like them so much better. On Sunday mornings my teenage son and husband go to work at 6am and return at noon. So my very small son and I wake up at our usual time to a silent, empty house. We lay in our respective beds for a few minutes calling out to each other. He says "Mumine!" I say "Sunshine!" he says "Hi" I say "Good morning!" he says "A baga ble nama mumum da ba goo fa bade bum" I say "Oh really?" and then sometime he says "NiNi" and goes back to sleep for a half hour or so, and so do I. Or he says "Down?" and I come get him.

Eventually we get out of bed, I change him and we head to the kitchen. The coffee is made, it just needs to be reheated. I plop him in his high chair with an appetizer of Cheerios and a cup of milk and then I prepare my coffee just the way I like it (Soy milk, no sugar) and proceed to scramble us some eggs which we eat together. After this, I shove all the kitchen furniture into one corner so he has a big wooden floor to roll his balls on while I undergo the Sunday morning cleaning ritual. I strip his high chair of its cover, collect all the hand towels and stray dish cloths I can find and wash them, take all the small appliances off the counters and wash them and clean out the fridge. This inspires me to cook something.

When Jet and Mr Rabbit come home a little after noon, I have some lunch started and some sort of meat ready for the old man to grill (or he picks some up on the way home).  I hate it when he grills. He disappears from the house and spends hours out back communing with his grill and his beer and returns with some poor charred animal that would have tasted so much better broiled, baked, roasted, stir fried or even steamed. Meanwhile, the rest of us have already eaten all the sides and salads I've prepared to go with it because we were hungry and couldn't wait the requisite 3 or more hours.Grilling is my husband's Sunday entertainment. It has nothing to do with feeding us. But I don't complain because it could be worse and he cleans up after himself and he always eats my baking disasters with a smile.

Sunday morning bliss, has come to an end.

After lunch, I'm off to work. I will be home in time for dinner and to get my Sunshine ready for his daddy to put him to bed.

Lay off the Fast Food #earthdayresolution

Don't you love it when you can kill two birds with one stone? Here I've identified my fast food addiction as a giant source of garbage in my life and what do you know, it's probably a huge source of my hugeness as well. So while I kick my fast food habit for my Earth Day resolution project, it'll be serving the Heart Day resolution as well. Go me!

Seriously, I am disgusted with myself. My car is full of cups, bags and wrappers. Every time I take on a passenger, I have to spend 10 minutes rummaging through my car with a garbage bag to make room for them. It's disgusting and embarrassing. While at least 80% of the garbage in my car is fast food garbage, an article from the Triple Pundit says that Fast Food Garbage Makes up 50% of Street (and Pacific Gyre) Litter. Now that's alarming.

In my defense, I spend an awful lot of time in my car. I am driving to and from clients houses, dropping off kids at daycare, theatre and friends houses on the way there and back, doctors appointments, bank, pharmacy, you name it. It is not unusual for me to put 600 miles on my car in a week. Which means that quite often when I'm in my car hunger strikes and when it does it's the easiest thing in the world to swing into a drive through and grab something. And I know where all of them are. Yes, I will plan my route to make sure I pass a Wendy's or MacDonald's. (Burger King has nothing I want to drink, so I don't go there.) I hate going South because there's a big fast food dry zone there for a few miles and I have to do a big loop to get my fix. Sometimes I'm just thirsty and go for an iced tea and pick up a snack while I'm at it. Yes. It's bad. And my car and my body are both full of garbage because of it.

What to do about this mess? Well, there are a few aspects to it. Part of it is just habit. I often found myself thinking "Oh I'll just pick up something on the way". That habit needed to go away. I needed to start eating something before I left or taking something with me and that required planning.  Meal planning and lunch packing from my Heart Day resolution (lose weight) project help with this. Also, bringing a water bottle with me at all times and keeping snacks in my bag are helpful. I am carrying a larger purse these days.

The other aspect of my fast food habit was addiction. Yes, it's an addiction. I would feel tired and headachey and then swing by Wendy's and be all sorted out. To really break through the cravings, I decided to gross myself out by reading some books and watching some documentaries on the evils of fast food. Also, I told everyone I know that I am quitting fast food so that they would harass me if I screwed up. When I quite smoking years ago, this helped quite a bit.

I've decided to reward myself by getting my car detailed after I've been fast food free for one month.

Review: Composing Magic: How to Create Magical Spells, Rituals, Blessings, Chants, and Prayers

I'm reviewing Composing Magic for April's Read-a-Long at the Witchipedia.

Honestly, I approached this book with a bit of skepticism. I am a writer after all and I don't remember ever being taught to write. That's not to say I'm any good at it. I wouldn't know, not having earned. So, in my mind, writing is something you either can do or you can't, not something you can learn. Of course you have to practice, but practice is something you have to enjoy doing or that doesn't work either. Despite the fact that my husband insists this isn't true, I feel the same way about music; Something I have never been good at and never enjoyed trying to learn.

And after all of that prologue I don't have much to say about this book except that it is very good. I enjoyed it. It explained the more technical aspects of artistic writing without getting too, well, technical. As someone with some experience writing, I don't like being talked down to and this book didn't talk down at all. The writing style is conversational, but not too casual and very easy to follow. The exercises following each section are very interesting. I read through the book without doing the exercises as time is not on my side these days, but I do plan to go through and do the exercises later, and that's saying a lot.

I particularly enjoyed the section about storytelling in ritual which is such a beautiful addition and the explanation of invocations, evocations and devocations which are so often misused. There is a section about correspondences that I really wish she had just left out. She over simplified them while over complicating the entire subject by adding them. Ick.

That being said, this good book and I highly recommend this book for anyone who ever performs rituals, even if you only perform those written by someone else. It will help you polish your performance, clarify your intent and understand what all the bits are about and when something doesn't work, when the words and rhythm aren't stirring your cauldron, so to speak, how to fix it.