Mind-Body Connection

This week started with one of those Mondays again: I was pissed, depressed, fucked, and [add the adjective of your choice]. Nothing usual amongst the lives of the majority of people then, as most of us aren't happy with our jobs. I'm not either (for various reasons that I've explained way too many times to cover them again on this particular text), but fortunately it's only two months more.

Luckily I took the this day, Thursday, and Friday off – my mood got exponentially better!

Feeling depressed, anxious and so forth I was trying to call to health center because I thought I should finally figure out my prolonged minor wrist problem. For some reason when I was just about the first in the waiting line, the call just ended – 30 minutes of waiting and listening the "you have call to health center, there are x amount of people in the line before you, please wait by not closing the phone" just to hear a beeb ending the call when I was the first on line.

Well, I just went to the center myself and got the appointment so that's done now.

Anyway, while I was bored waiting the call I did squats and lunges and surprisingly doing few dozens of them relieved my stress. I think this has to do with the fact that the stress response – increased oxygenation and blood pressure – has evolved to prepare us for some physical act like running away. But as it happens, our (or my) reptilian brain doesn't always know the difference between a bear and a phone call (stupid brain). Luckily there are things like meditation that can help with reducing the stress response and the size of amygdala which is largely linked to anxiety, stress and fear.

But for short term I found the quick fix to be:

Exercise

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So, my theory is that if there's a highly stressful situation, the stress might prolong without any physical "trigger" because the body is left with the anticipation of facing the threat.

So, if you have something stressful coming up, you could try doing few squats, push-ups, jumping or whatever – something that gets your hearth racing. For me at least it seems to relieve some of my mental "tension" – and physical. They both intertwine with each other after all.

^{The last sentence reminded me of this yin-yang sign I drew on a sand bunker on the golf field next to my home where I was strolling one night late with a friend. Seemed fitting. It ain't completely balanced but hey, I wasn't a sand artist back then, or today either for that matter.}