Tag: coping strategies

ADHD · fitness · self care

How Much Productivity is Too Much?

Diane Harper1 Comment

I live with nagging anxiety that tells me I should be productive, because I tend to connect my self-worth to my productivity.

This can be great when I’m planning a huge family meal, or volunteering with a local organization. It’s not so great when I’m also trying to cook everything from scratch (at least some of which I grew myself), get in all the exercise I think I need, volunteer with too many organizations, sew and do other crafts, hold a part-time job, manage elder care, and maintain a house to the standards of a 1950s TV mom. Oh, and sleep!

I have always needed to keep busy, so this isn’t a totally new problem. However, it seems to have gotten worse since I retired. Is it because everyone (including me) assumes I have more time to volunteer because I no longer work full time? Is it because I am slowing down and more easily tired? Is it because I’m a bit of an idiot and don’t know enough to say no? I’m betting on the last one, though the first to are contributing factors.

Meme taken from a TikTok video. It appears to be an older woman moving around her living room.

I wonder how much pain contributes to lack of sleep, which means I spend way too much time at night thinking of things I haven’t finished, or adding to the list. Then trying to do those things, so I don’t do the stretching/strength training/sleeping I need to get better.

I also wonder how common this is. My social media is full of women who have been diagnosed with things like ADHD later in life. Or who are overwhelmed with family and other responsibilities.

A quick Google search of “older women responsibilities” turned up some really interesting research on the responsibilities part. Not so much on the ADHD side. That turns up mostly YouTube videos and sites I wouldn’t trust for solid peer-reviewed evidence.

Another meme, that appears to be from the same TikTok video. It shows a middle-aged woman in a white top and blue and white skirt or shorts in an immaculate living room.

A friend uses the “five things” technique to clean house when she is managing depression or feeling overwhelmed. She cleans or throws out five things, no matter how small. Some days, tossing a pencil stub counts as a thing. Other days deep cleaning an entire room is a thing. When you have done five things, you are under no obligation to do more.

I love this and occasionally use it to motivate myself for cleaning. More often, I use it as a way to limit what I take on for the day. Five things is enough. And I try to remember that if I stop at five things, I am enough.

How Cold Water Helps Me Cope
fitness

How Cold Water Helps Me Cope

Mina2 Comments

At summer camp, I was notorious for taking the longest to get into the frigid lake for swimming lessons. Once the camp director had to yell at me to get me in the water for a swim test (I did pass and get my red cross badge). Over the years … nothing has changed. I have honed the art of slow immersion—one toe at a time, one ankle at a time, light splashes on my arms and face—often only to retreat out of the water before fully plunging in. No matter how many people said to me, “You’ll feel great once you’ve plunged,” I never found this encouragement a motivation. I know how great I can feel after a cold plunge. I just can’t bring myself to do it. You don’t need to tell me that doesn’t make sense. I know.

Until a few days ago.

I went to a spa for the afternoon with a friend. We followed the guidelines to the letter. 15 minutes in the sauna (or steam room, or hot pool), followed by a brief cold plunge, then a period of rest (in my case, with Marilynne Robinson’s novel Jack, which I’m loving). Repeat. And again. And again. For the first time. Ever. In my life. I walked right into the cold plunge. Not one moment of hesitation. Full immersion. Pause for a few breaths underwater and then climb out an unhurried pace.

I know that there are many stalwart winter swimmers and WimHoffers who read and write for this blog, so I feel some trepidation sharing this as a personal transformation. Yet, for me it is the kind of change that makes me pause and look around, wondering, “What happened? Am I me?” The seasoned cold wateristas may be wondering what rock I’ve been hiding under to not already be where I’m barely arriving. All I can say is, I’m late to the party and why I’ve arrived at this particular time is still a bit of a mystery.  

Here are three personal theories:

  1. In the last two months, I’ve been ending most of my showers with 100% cold water. At first, I could feel my body curling up like a hedgehog against the cold. Over time, I’ve become bolder. Face. Head. Heart. Back. Making sure to attend to each body part. I’m such a pro now that in NYC, the cold doesn’t get as cold as I’d like. When I was in Canmore or when I’m visiting friends in VT, the water is glacial. Such invigoration. And preparation (increasing resistance) for those cold plunges I did a few days ago, which are next level (for me).
  2. Another possible reason: I’ve been in the process of changing a host of other things in my life. In particular, for example, my diet. As I search out low potassium foods, and replace my favourite foods (Avocados. Dark chocolate. Broccoli. So Many Leafy Greens. Sweet Potatoes. Salmon. Mackerel. To name a very few.) with less favoured foods. I am teaching myself to enjoy flavours that I’d lost the taste for, or never had—Asparagus, Parsnip, Green Beans, Shrimp, Clams. I am teaching myself to be different. Maybe my body is responding with being different about cold water?   
  3. A final reason (and you’ll notice my reasons are getting increasingly distant from the practical & physical conditioning I’ve mentioned above) is that my body knows it needs the shock to reset in this period of greater stress than I’ve ever before experienced in my life. Sometimes, as the cold water pours over me and I feel the edge of an ice cream headache (which does not come, interestingly), I can almost hear my adrenal glands stirring, flexing, considering whether they will begin producing aldosterone again (the hormone lacking with Addison’s Disease, which enables the body to process and get rid of potassium—I wrote about my diagnosis here). Other time, the awareness is more around the general need for a reset in my nervous system. I may have woken in the morning from some complicated and unsettling dream that mirrors the extreme distress of my divorce-in-process and which I have not quite succeeded in flushing out of my system during my workout. The icy flow over my body startles me into the here and now, offering perspective and, dare I say, hope. In other words, my body knows what it needs (cold water!) and my slow immersions and arms crossed firmly across my chest with shoulders hunched against the cold no longer suits my body. The cold has been transformed into a coping strategy. I’ll take it.

Of course, all this theorizing could fall overboard, if I tried winter swimming. For now, I’m not going to. I don’t need more tests of will and toughness. I have enough of those already. What I need above all right now is any reassurance that I will make it through this moment. So, I’m giving myself a high five for my new tolerance to cold water and adding it to my resources.