Two tools that helped me get my sh*t together.

Have you ever heard of the expression, “Trauma lives in the body”? It means that well after a traumatic experience has passed, the traumatic energy is stored within the body & remains there until it can be released.

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I must admit that I have gotten caught up in the day to day grind, working for the weekend, feeling drained & you guessed it, stressed. I don’t necessarily know when or how it happened, but after realizing just what stress was physically doing to my body & the negative impacts on my health, I knew I had to make some changes. I started with the obvious & most common, exercise. I had a relatively consistent yoga routine, but my husband kept insisting I needed to do more. He recommended running because he found that it helped him manage his own stress & anxiety.

And so, I started running. I wish I could continue that last sentence with “and running and running” like Forest Gump did, but I can’t because I physically couldn’t. I was suffering from exertion headaches after my runs. Often, they turned into migraines which lasted for days, sometimes even up to a week. While the act of running helped me manage my stress at the moment, dealing with the medical repercussions felt like I was taking two steps back. The athlete mentality in me kept pushing myself to do more because I thought I was conditioning my body. I thought I was just in poor shape with poor endurance. By this point, I had been living with anxiety for over a year and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t break the cycle. So, what finally broke the cycle?

Well, I realized what my body was trying to tell me thanks to a small piece of technology, my Apple Watch. It was a spring day and I went for a run. My endurance didn’t seem like it was any better than the month prior when I started, which frustrated me. I decided I needed to kick it up a notch and I was going to try for a better time. I ran my little heart out, pun intended. For the next several days I couldn’t do anything more than walk up the hill to my office to work at my desk. The walk winded me. Sweeping the office winded me. I found myself dizzy, having to sit down, catch my breath & break after sweeping the floor! What the heck was happening?! The rest of the week I did the minimal physical activity. Basically, I rotated from the bed to the couch, to the desk, and back to my bed. Doing these activities was enough to increase my heart rate for the Apple Watch to pick up and award me exercise minutes. I even closed the ring once. Umm, red flag?

I took my findings to my PCP who ran an EKG & quickly prescribed a 48 Holter monitor study. An EKG is a quick test that measures the electrical activity of the heart. A Holter monitor is a portable device that measures & records heart activity over a specific time period. This one hooked to my pants & had 6 electrodes connected by wires that attached all around my chest & side. It was uncomfortable & annoying, but I got through it. The worst part was my skin reaction after they were removed. The result- a referral to see a cardiologist. At this point, I realized it was serious and scheduled an appointment at the Cleveland Clinic.

When I first met my cardiologist, he listened to my heart, reviewed my EKG & explained just what was happening. I was diagnosed with PAC (Premature Atrial Contraction). That means my heart was having premature heartbeats originating from the atria. It sounds scary (or at least it did for me) but it is not at all life-threatening. I found that it was significantly linked to my panic attacks & stressful situations. It was highly recommended by my Cardiologist to start making some changes, hence the title of this post. I was told to cut out caffeine, alcohol & stress. While I hope that none of my readers have to experience negative health consequences from stress, anxiety or traumatic experiences I know that is simply untrue. I hope this post helps you in some way. So, this is where I started:

1- My family pitched in to gift me an Apple Watch for my 29thbirthday.

My Apple Watch has literally changed my life. As you already know it was how I first realized there was something wrong with my heart. The Apple Watch allows you to track daily goals, compete with friends, earn awards & monitor your heart rate. These features are great for carrot chasers! AKA me. Newer versions of the watch have the capabilities of producing an ECG! This is a feature I am looking forward to having when I decide to upgrade my watch.

I currently have the Series 3 Apple Watch. I love the features it has & take full advantage of them. As previously mentioned, my sun sign is Virgo which means I am a perfectionist & a list checker. Closing my rings each day is a huge goal of mine... this may sound cheesy to some, but I know there are some of you saying “omg, me too”.

My husband & I start a new competition each week & it’s quite funny to watch our progress each day. I’m the slow & steady tortoise, having a consistent morning workout routine & he is the speedy hare, but not by choice. His career requires flexible work hours which can fluctuate daily. Consequently, he doesn’t have the luxury to workout consistently, but when he has the time & energy, look out! He’s received the daily cap of 600 points numerous times. The competition is fun, friendly & keeps us both motivated to continuously improve ourselves.

2-I read a book called The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod.

This book crossed my path about 6 years ago. I still recommend & gift it to this day because it had such a positive impact on my life. While I highly recommend you pick it up, you can search on Pinterest for the key takeaways or just keep reading this post. These keys are what I use every single morning, starting at 5 am... yes, 5 am. Some nights I’m so excited to get started with my morning routine I can’t fall asleep, as crazy as that sounds! It must be the Virgo side of me.

In the book, he uses the acronym, SAVERS. For my list makers, this is your good morning checklist. I write it in my planner each day & you can bet that I “check” them off once completed. This acronym is a minor change. I say that it is a “minor” change because you can designate as little as one minute to each of these categories. While you can designate more time, in the book he brings up the concept of the “power hour”. The power hour is my preference in a time-sensitive situation. By designating 10 minutes to each category I achieve the balance that leaves me feeling accomplished every morning before I start my day.

Silence – I used to wake up in the morning and the first thing I did was open Instagram & start scrolling. I would spend 10-30 minutes every morning just scrolling away. This was probably one of my worst habits and most of us are guilty of this. After this book, I now begin my morning in silence and it is amazing. I avoid news, music, tv and social media & replace it with meditation/prayer. Never meditated? That's okay. I recommend receiving guidance from an app. I have used the Headspace app over the last few years to help kickstart my meditation practice. My husband prefers the Calm app. Meditation doesn't sound like it would be hard but it's called a practice for a reason. Don't forget that.

If meditation or prayer doesn’t sound appealing to you, consider sitting at your kitchen table with a cup of coffee or tea in silence for ten minutes.

Affirmations – Whether or not you believe affirmations work, I highly recommend you give them a try. I promise it won’t hurt anything. Here are a few I use:

I am enough.

I am doing my best.

There is no wrong way.

Money flows easily to me.

Visualization – I use my planner as my vision board. I keep track of everything going on in my life in this book. My schedule, to-do list, grocery list, meal planning, and budget information. I also take it with me everywhere. To make this a little more fun & appealing I like to add magazine clippings & stickers. This is something I enjoy doing at the end of each month in preparation for goal setting for the next month.

Exercise – For some of us, we dread the word “exercise”. This next sentence might change your life. Length isn’t important, just move. Remember, you can spend as little as just one minute on each of these! Dance like no is watching!

Read – I recommend reading something educational or self-help related. I have also used this time slot to learn a new language or learn something I’ve always wanted to learn. Self-improvement is key here.

Scribe – If you like to set daily goals, journal or keep a gratitude journal this is the perfect time slot to perform these habits. A few months back I started a practice called morning minutes. Basically, I set a timer & I write word for word my thoughts not worrying about spelling or punctuation. It seems hard at first, but it’s therapeutic & helps clear my mind before I start my day. For instance, my journal might read something like this:

It’s in the morning and I cant decide what I want to right about I didn’t sleep well last night and was up multiple times because of my cats I swear they take turns waking me up they truly are evil I don’t know what else I want to say but I am still writing in my journal….etc.

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One more tip the author shares is that this mini-list needs to be completed before 8 am otherwise, it won’t get done. Life happens, things come up, exhaustion sets in and excuses start surfacing. By completing everything before you start your day you become more productive and energetic. If you have children, this might sound crazy or impossible, but this is literally your only chance at “me-time”. Take advantage of it, because you’re going to be tired even if you sleep that extra hour. You will have achieved so much before 8 am & it will feel amazing.

These are two simple things that have helped me get my sh*t together. It works for me. It might work for you, it might not. I encourage you to give it a try and let me know what you think. Do you have certain practices that work for you? If so, please feel free to share them with me. I hope you found something to keep with you from this post. If you want to hear more about my condition and my heart surgery keep an eye out for future posts & don’t forget to subscribe!

Always,

Erikka