Clutterbusting Tension: An Ongoing Process

This morning I rolled out of bed at 6 am, confident I had the energy to tackle laundry day, and the kitchen, as well as the rest of the dozen or so tasks I wrote on my to-do list last night. As I look back, I just laugh.

By 11 am, I had straightened up the bathroom, clean up about half of the kitchen, picked up all the laundry clutter, and was on maybe my second or third load of clothes. And I was so tired. Sleepy tired, rather than physically exhausted.

I decided a 20 minute power nap just might give me the energy boost I needed to finish the laundry today. To help myself get to sleep, I did a relaxation meditation to help me keep my brain from running off on a tangent. Just a simple releasing of tension in the muscles, one body part at a time. Shouldn't take more than 5 minutes for me to get bored and nod off.

I imagined a black hole sucking out all the stress from my feet to my head, then back again. And again. And again.

I noticed that every time I had something relaxed, and moved on, the tension would creep back in to the area I just finished with. By the time I started hearing dream voices (the sign I'm starting to fall asleep), my timer went off.

I hadn't realized just how tense I was. My shoulders were stiff all last week. And I still didn't realize.

I woke up Monday morning unable to turn my head without muscle pain. And I still. Didn't. Realize.

This probably explains why I haven't been sleeping well at night. I wake up at such random hours. If I wake up at 3 or 4 am, I'm lucky to get back to sleep, and then I'm so tired after I drop the kid off at school that I spend most of the day laying in bed. Trying to sleep. Usually failing.

Other times I don't drag my butt out of bed until I've got 20 minutes to get the kid to school.

When I finally did get to sleep, I was lucid (as usual with naps), and everyone I encountered kept poking me with stuff (Nerf arrows, pens, their fingers). This is why I hate to take naps. I realize I'm dreaming, but I get paranoid, and don't have the confidence anymore to control the dream. I just try to pull out of it (usually with multiple false wakings).

I slept 10 minutes before I gave up. It did help, though. For a little while.

My neck and shoulders still hurt when I move them. I'll keep doing the relaxation meditation each night when I go to bed. I think it will help eventually.

New Project: Brain Clutter

I have the attention span of a gnat. While there are good days and bad ones, the last week or two I have found it increasingly difficult to focus or get much of anything done. My brain is like a TV that someone keeps changing the channel on.

The whole point of this blog was to help me focus, but my brain is just so overloaded with unnecessary thoughts. It's affecting my sleep. I'm just too tired to do much of anything. Since last week, I've spent most of my day laying in bed, watching TV just to get a break from the constant chatter bouncing around my head.

I was reading Real Mind Control: The 21-Day No-Complaint Experiment, where he describes acomplaintfreeworld.org's method of moving one of those elastic bracelets from one wrist to the other every time you criticize or complain about something to someone. Apparently this can help you break the habit of bitching and moaning.

Well, that article lead me to Can You Rewire Your Brain in Two Weeks? One Man's Attempt. That one described (in great detail) an experiment with Muse, a headband with electrodes that pick up frequency waves from the brain; and it's companion app, Calm, which shows your brain activity and provides meditation instructions in a phone app. The intention being to train you to relax for at least a few minutes a day, which, over time, would rewire your brain into a calmer state.

Of course, I immediately checked it out. I haven't had much luck with meditation. I even have an app on my phone to remind me to do it. When I hear it, I groan and go back to whatever I was doing. But a Muse device costs $299. I can't even justify buying an over-the-door pantry organizer right now. Maybe I'll try just 3 minutes of meditation at a time, instead of shooting for 15.

So, anyway, it occurred to me that my inability to focus is a way bigger problem at the moment than me complaining about my mother-in-law cleaning out her stuffed-to-the-gills car, and dumping it all right next to the front door. There's even a VCR. A VCR! Who the hell gave her a VCR? Everyone knows she won't turn anything down.

Ahem... sorry, as I was saying. I decided to experiment with using the bracelet technique every time I find myself dwelling on past conversations with other people, or running hypothetical conversations that will never happen through my mind. THE most useless information wasting valuable neural real estate.

Of course, I'm counting minutes rather than days of success. I'll report back with my findings.