Well gross. I’m out-of-town for the wedding of some dance students and woke up sick morning. Sinus crap. I’ve been fighting it all week. I thought I was on top of it, but it appears to be on top of me. I hate that. Anyway, it’s 11:30 in the morning, and despite the fact that I haven’t left the place where I’m staying or done anything today, I’m blogging now because–come hell or high water–I’m attending that wedding this evening and don’t want to force my body to stay up late in order to blog. This is what I’ve realized, that even though I can’t immediately solve my sinus infection problem, I can do little things to support my body and decrease how much we suffer from it.

Down with suffering.

I said I haven’t done anything today, but that’s not exactly true. That’s never exactly true. Even if you lie in bed and snore all day, that’s SOMETHING. Well, after I got up an hour and a half ago, I ate breakfast (a protein bar and fruit), then read about thirty pages in a book I recently started about headaches. Today I learned that tension headaches (which I have) can be triggered by stress, anxiety (defined as fear without an object), and depression, as well as certain foods (often nitrate-containing) or liquids (alcohol, caffeine, or the withdrawal of caffeine).

The book said that for those of us who experience tension headaches it’s important to remove triggers. Granted, if your job is stressful, you may not be able to remove your job (or punch your boss in the face), but you can work at how you respond to your job or boss. For example, you could go for a walk or try meditation. Serenity now! For Type A personalities, the book suggested scheduling in time to relax. Like, make yourself shut off your phone, lie down, and stare at the ceiling fan. Or listen to the birds chirping. Or pet your dog or cat.

Another suggestion was to tense your major muscle groups (biceps, calves, quads, butt, back, shoulders, and neck) one-by-one and then relax them. The idea being that–if you do this enough–they get the message that if and when they get tense, the next thing they should do is relax. This theory made sense to me, so I tried it. (I let go a little. It was nice.) Once I heard someone say that just like you speak English (or whatever), your muscles speak a language too, a language they’ve been taught. So if your body is constantly tensed and stressed and you want it to behave or feel differently, you have to teach it how. You have to teach it a new language. You have to take time to say, Sweetheart, there’s nothing to worry about. You can let your guard down now.

I’m working on all of this, although it’s often overwhelming to think about and do when I’m sick. That is, when I feel like crap from a sinus infection AND have a headache (or even just tight muscles), I want to throw in the towel. More than that, I want to yell and scream at my body, Get yourself together. I get so impatient with myself. And yet when I don’t feel well, this is exactly the time that patience for myself is needed–because my body is clearly communicating that it’s had enough of the push, push, pushing, and the go, go, going. It’s clearly saying, We could use a little help here. We could use a little understanding.