WELLNESS WEDNESDAY

Hey folks, Sally Riggs here, psychologist, fellow long hauler, and your Long COVID Coach, and welcome to another Wellness Wednesday. Today I wanted to talk to you about rushing. And for those in the US, I don't mean pledging for a sorority or a fraternity, I mean, doing things too fast or faster than we need to do them. I was traveling last week, somewhat for the holiday somewhat work-related. And I've really been trying to pay very close attention to my nervous system recently. And I noticed in the airport for my flight out that I was putting myself in situations where my nervous system was getting flared up unnecessarily. So for example, I had an early morning flight, I was at the airport around 5:30. And because it was a busy travel week here in the US, there was already a wait for a wheelchair, which was allegedly 30 minutes, I was hungry, I hadn't taken my huge stack of meds and supplements. And I really wanted to just get through security so that I could eat some breakfast and begin to feel a bit better.

So I made the executive decision because I have clear and I have TSA pre-check. So I don't need to stand in a queue and I don't need to take any things out of my bag, that I would just walk through security, which was just right there. And then I would arrange for the wheelchair to pick me up on the other side when I needed to get to the gate. And yet, I was walking towards the bathroom to empty out my liquids and go to the bathroom before I went through security. And I noticed that I was walking quite fast, and my heart rate was pretty high. And now that I'm doing a little bit better, I can walk at a regular pace again. And I remember that in my former life pre-COVID I used to walk incredibly fast, all the time, everywhere. And so there I was with my little suitcase walking as fast as I could to the bathroom. And I caught myself and I was like, "What's the rush? Plenty of time to get through here. No line, plenty of time for your flight, no line for the bathroom. Why are you rushing?", and I think what happens is that, and you've heard me talk about this before most of us pre-COVID have some kind of trauma history. And when we've been through adverse things in our life, we can get incredibly good at getting through more difficult things as fast as possible. So that we can get through, be on the other side, and recover.

And if I think about it, I am incredibly skilled at head down, push on through, through the middle out the other side, recover. And I'm sure that many of you can also relate to that. And we know when it comes to Long COVID And we're talking about pacing and all of those things. And we're in, we're in the thick of our symptoms and feeling very fatigued, we really can't do very much and so pacing is forced on us. And we have to slow down. There was a period in my apartment where I made up a rule for myself that if I was finished using something, I wouldn't walk back to where it was from and put it away. Because that was a waste of energy. I would literally just drop it where I was standing. And I made myself follow that rule for months and months and months and months. And it helped not waste energy. Now that I have a little bit more energy again, I've noticed that I'm forcing my body into these full situations where it's kicking off Fight or Flight. When I was at the airport, walking as fast as I can to the bathroom tells my nervous system that it needs to be in Fight or Flight that something important is about to happen. But it doesn't. There was no panic, there was no crisis, there was no reason to be hypervigilant or focused.

Even recording this video for you today, I want to get it done so that I can get it to my assistant. So she can do the backend setup. And it takes a little bit of time, I have to set up my kind of tech situation here, which I don't always keep set up this way during the week. And I noticed myself wanting to just rush on through and get it done. And the woman upstairs was vacuuming and I could hear it kind of going backwards and forwards. And as often happens in New York City that was a siren going by. And I noticed my nervous system tensing up and bracing itself. And being like, "We need to get this done". We don't need to get this done, there was no rush, I've got plenty of time to record this for my assistant. And there's no reason for that bracing yourself sensation. When we do that, we're forcing our nervous system into a state that is going to perpetuate this bouncing backwards and forwards between Fight or Flight and Shutdown.

And there's no crisis here, I've got plenty of time to record this video today, I had plenty of time to get through the airport When I picked up the rental car, had plenty of time to do that, when I got on the road, I had plenty of time to drive and yet constantly need to go faster need to get through this need to get it over and done with. And in the old days, our bodies probably did have the capacity to recover. And so getting through fast, so that we could get on the other side and recover was functional. But that's not how our nervous systems are working anymore. If I push on through for three, or four or five, or six hours, sitting down on the other side of that is not going to recover my nervous system, I'm gonna need to do a significant intervention to undo all that forcing and that bracing and that rushing, that put my body in Fight or Flight.

So the best thing we have is not putting our body in Fight or Flight unnecessarily. And as I've been paying attention to my body recently, and as I've been thinking, with all of this work much more about trauma and how trauma manifests in our bodies. I used to work on inpatient, acute psych wards where, yes, there's trauma. But it's also very common for people to work there who have been through trauma. Because our bodies very naturally respond to that environment of crisis and pressure and push on through and chaos. And I found myself as I was thinking about recording this video, thinking of what even would be a situation in which somebody would need to rush legitimately. If we are preparing ourselves sufficiently, well, I would never need to rush at an airport. So there is no reason for my body to be in Fight or Flight. And then I was thinking about well, "What about people who have jobs that are time sensitive, where maybe they do need to rush to get somewhere in a certain amount of time?" And I was thinking because I do sometimes watch Grey's Anatomy, I don't know if you guys also have that guilty pleasure. You watch them an ambulance comes into the ambulance bay with some type of a trauma in it, medical trauma, and they all run to the ambulance bay to meet the ambulance.

Now thinking about that, again, "What they're doing is putting their bodies in Fight or Flight. Now would they be able to perform if they weren't in Fight or Flight?" That's an interesting question. But would they get there still in sufficient time if they just walked in an efficient, relaxed, calm way? Yes, I think they would. And actually, by running, they're triggering panic. And is that really helpful to their bodies in that situation either? Now, most of you are not working in emergency medicine and are not running to ambulance base. But I think we all have situations in our lives, whether it be work-related, whether it be recovery related, whether it be just going about our day to I have been trying to say to myself, and it is definitely a work in progress, "What's the rush? What's the rush?". And sometimes I'm even then putting my hand on my heart because I've noticed that my Fight or Flight has gotten triggered. And this is one of the things that I can do to sue that and to bring my nervous system down. And sometimes I'll even talk to it and say, "You're okay, you're fine. There's no need to rush. There's no need to panic".

And I think it's something that we can all be thinking about, as you are beginning to recover as you are moving along your recovery journey, "Where's the rush?", even with the recovery process, "Where's the rush?" Let's take our time. Let's go slowly. Let's appreciate the things that are around us. And like I'm going to do with this video today. Take my time breaking down the tech, take my time sending it over to my assistant, because "Where's the rush?" I hope this has been a little bit helpful to you today. I hope you have a tolerable week. And I will see you again soon on another Wellness Wednesday.

And for those who didn't see last week's video, our Facebook group is now live. There will be a link at the bottom here if you want to join and these videos amongst other cool things are all now hosted inside the Facebook group as well. You will continue getting them each Wednesday on an email. But if there's some you want to catch up on from earlier weeks that you didn't see, you can join us in the Facebook group. Take care.