The dragons, formidable in their lizard-scaled armor, circled my head menacingly, diving, testing my defenses and seeking my weaknesses as I lay in bed, desperate for sleep that wouldn’t come.
The story begins before I leave the house for the office.
I’ve been really tired lately, drained by family worries, financial pressures and working too many hours. While bustling out the door with my morning therapeutic mug of hot cocoa (that’s a different story), the edge of it catches the door frame somehow, tumbling out of my hands. SMASH! Shards of ceramic and scalding brown liquid splash upward with tidal precision, and I’m suddenly dripping in brown sticky sweet instead of looking like the calm, cool, put-together doctor I’m supposed to be. Forced to shower and change, now I’m late for my first patient.
Arriving at the office late, the rushing intensifies.
The day continues at a breakneck pace. That’s normal for me. But when I’m overloaded, tired and filled with self-righteous indignation from the morning accident, now I’m carrying a self-imposed greater load.
My epic dragon fight can be diverted still, if I take a few minutes to relax and unwind after work. But I don’t. Instead, I don my superhero cape and cook dinner for ailing mom, return patient phone calls and review lab reports, and search for the cheapest flights for my brother’s visit to Jacksonville. Continuing my poor choices, I miss my dinnertime dosage of supplements, avoid my workout, and skip my evening yoga and meditation.
These are not the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Exhausted, I finally drop into bed and quickly fell into a dreamless sleep. For 20 minutes. And then the anxiety sets in. I wake up, sitting bolt upright, my heart pounding, struggling for air.
Some of this is my thyroid acting up. I have an uncommon form of Hashimoto’s Disease in which my body destroys the enzyme that helps me use the hormone the thyroid makes. Skipping my evening supplements can create these symptoms.
Avoiding my workout, yoga and meditation diminishes my calm. Missing my dosage of adaptogens, the natural herbs that help me cope with high levels of stress and keep me cool under pressure, makes me feel grumpy and overly stressed.
I could choose to take the necessary precautions to re-balance my brain, and calm myself down from a really tough day by spending 20 minutes listening to calming frequencies that transition me from intense problem solving to calming sleep.
Nope. I didn’t do any of these things.
The repercussions? I spent the entire night facing the dragons, Fear and Worry.
When my patients are surprised that I have problems, I gently remind them that its all part of living. If I have learned anything advising and counseling patients, I accept that no one is immune to stress. Everyone has issues. If you look into someone’s life and don’t see the struggles, you aren’t looking hard enough.
But it’s how you handle it that matters.
I use sound frequencies to re-balance my brain, I take supplements to replenish my brain chemistry. I revitalize my adrenals with nutriceuticals. I relieve stress with exercise and practice mindfulness with yoga and meditation. And I nourish my body with healthy food and sleep.
Because a night of fighting dragons, waking exhausted, forced to battle through another day as stressful as the previous one in which I refused to take care of myself, is simply not worth it.