The caveat is that sometimes, it's not just stress. You shouldn't neglect your symptoms, if they persist.
The first 2/3 of the book is very illuminating the last 1/3 a little polemic on healthcare policy and funding.
Enlightening book all in all.
Did you do something specific when you took your time off and saw your symptoms disappear? Curious what helped you the most.
- Anxiety medication (I feel hesitant taking this and question if it helps or not. Hard to know.)
- Talked to a therapist weekly (now doing monthly)
- Yoga weekly
- Forced myself back into a regular exercise routine. I love exercising, but I had fallen out of my routine.
- Modified my diet and eating habits. I track everything I eat now. Still experimenting with this.
- Focused, deep breathing for 5 to 10 minutes three times a day.
- I think time in general helped me heal.
Anxiety/stress/panic attacks are no joke. I think a lot of us in technical fields discount the "mind" - "it's a brain, it's just a meat computer" - and while I don't ascribe any supernatural aspect to it, the brain/mind can have really powerful impacts on the body.
Personally, I have used it twice successfully to come out of sudden mental anxiety I found brewing in myself.
Thoughts are also a form of energy – if they don't get channelized or remain unspent in your subconscious/unconscious, they can create mental problems. Meditation and related activities, prescribed as part of the RARE framework of this app, help in cleaning these otherwise overlooked corners of our mind.
Starting shortly after the time of hearing this news, I started to feel subtle, hard-to-pinpoint discomfort near my tailbone & perineum (sorry, TMI). I went to the doctor multiple times, had all types of exams and scans, but everything was coming back as "normal". My symptoms got worse as weeks went on, and I became incredibly anxious, though I was not able to recognize it as "anxiety".
At the peak of all this I found myself having what I would assume was an anxiety or panic attack. I could not control my breathing, started sweating, feeling like I was about to pass out. My wife was able to calm me down by helping me breath. I would break down crying on the phone trying to schedule doctors appointments (I'm 30 years old). I was unable to sleep at all for several days in a row even though I felt completely exhausted. Had to take time off (Incredibly thankful for coworkers/managers who were understanding) Chest pain, digestive issues, etc.
It's been a weird few months, but I finally think (hopefully) I am starting to get back to my "normal" self. The experience has taught me at least a couple things:
- Mental / emotional heath is something that is taken for granted. Now I have a new perspective on the importance of trying to maintain it and want to be understanding toward others.
- I think some (all?) of my symptoms were definitely related to what was going on in my life, and how things played out as I tried to fix them. This is hard for me to wrap my head around, but really I have found no other logical explanation.