Fibromyalgia Support Group
You're not alone in your pain. Fibromyalgia is a condition that can be difficult to diagnose and manage. If you're trying to cope with pain throughout your body, sleep problems, general fatigue, or other common fibromyalgia symptoms, you're in the right place. The community is here for you to talk about therapies and share your challenges.
So this keeps happening to me and it's frustrating. I'll explain by the example of today. Today was stressful, busy, and tiring. By 4:30pm, I was ready to curl up in a ball and suffer the consequences of a hard day. But, alas, I had to go to work for a few more hours at an evening job. Luckily, the evening job is front desk at a slow gym and I can pretty much go stretch (aka lay down and rest) whenever I need to and there usually isn't much social interaction. But today, there was a social situation that was perfectly good from the outside, but also a little anxiety proviking?. I was asked to help a nice attractive guy find some exercises and it was scary but also kind of fun. All of a sudden my body rose to the occasion and I had energy that lasted a couple hours. Sounds fine, even good, right? Problem is, a few hours later, I crash. Pain and fatigue are worse than at 4:30, and when this has happened in the past, the crash leads to multiple days that are worse than average (which is already lackluster). I have tried so many ways to "be chill" and not let myself get so anxious/hyped, to no avail. I have also tried just letting the roller coaster happen, which I guess works, but I'd sure rather find a way to avoid the multiple-day crash of a couple higher energy hours. Does anyone else experience anything like this?
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Welcome to the Perseid meteor showers, the "biggies" usually every year. (The Leonids beat 'em one year IMHO).AND today much of the northern hemisphere will see 5 to 99% solar eclipse. How cool is that? Your best bet is to be in the UK or norhtern Spain, where totality is excellent before sundown. Me, I'll get a super duper tiny itty bitty slice of it, so little that it won't be noticeable. New...
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... observed a solar eclipse.
I will note, adrenaline is not of itself "bad", and is part of normal endorphin/endocrine activity. But spikes in that? Especially paired to anxiety, which impairs our body's ability to calm down? (Limbic system = fight-flight-fright-freeze modes, like cats, only we have thumbs.)
Build up to your higher energy. Deliberately walk away and get calmed down (even if it means a PRN anti-anxiety med, in my case) after, say, ten-fifteen minutes.... ANd leave it at that for the day. It's like anything. You have to work up to it. Otherwise a "big shock" is.... well, a big crash.
Oh geez, that was such a lecture! I'm sorry! That's just what works out of my "toolbox". Eek!
I actually intensely dislike the "jazzed-up" feeling of adrenaline from anxiety. Also, I just got in the habit a few years ago, via PTSD therapy, of doing calming breathing once an hour, "needed" or not. Tedious at first, but now I just do that by habit, too.... ANd when I am out of "breathing sync", that's usually my sign I need to back away and find a restroom and hide and calm down. The problem is when you're around other people, and you start wondering what they think. (They don't, btw.) And force yourself to stay to not be "weird". Bad idea.
So maybe start by just doing a self-inventory self-check on breathing/heart rate every hour.... You'll be irked at first, then realize it takes literally one minute, and then you get used to doing it, and then you're aware and then... Well, it's not 100 percent, but that is what got me into the habit. Imperfectly, I stress. Way imperfectly. Certain situations, I still just revert to Big Hot Mess.
This will really help calm you down. I this for anxiety attacks, when I remember and it really seems to help.
Good luck in creating a calming routine.