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Walking Gently -- Austin Frakt
https://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/walking-gently/I've enjoyed Austin Frakt's columns over the years as he's documented his journey through life. This one has some good lessons for me.
I walk more gently now. It's not because my knee aches or my hip hurts, though they do sometimes.
It began over six years ago. Shaken awake by my nervous system, all night and every night, I fell into a deep hole of exhaustion.
Two years seeing five neurologists and trying a dozen medications taught me that regaining my life wasn't a pill away.
"My heart still pounds at night," I told my doctor. He recommended breathwork. Not a little breathwork. A lot. I breathed in for 4 seconds and out for 6. I did this for 20 minutes, twice per day, for months.
Then I saw it.
I saw that I did everything from a place of stress. I was intense all the time. Work wasn't just getting the job done, it was pounding the keyboard as fast and hard as possible, demanding the highest standards in the least time. Recreation was just another box to check on the to-do list. My nervous system was telling me it couldn't take it anymore, not if I wanted to sleep anyway.
. . .
It began over six years ago. Shaken awake by my nervous system, all night and every night, I fell into a deep hole of exhaustion.
Two years seeing five neurologists and trying a dozen medications taught me that regaining my life wasn't a pill away.
"My heart still pounds at night," I told my doctor. He recommended breathwork. Not a little breathwork. A lot. I breathed in for 4 seconds and out for 6. I did this for 20 minutes, twice per day, for months.
Then I saw it.
I saw that I did everything from a place of stress. I was intense all the time. Work wasn't just getting the job done, it was pounding the keyboard as fast and hard as possible, demanding the highest standards in the least time. Recreation was just another box to check on the to-do list. My nervous system was telling me it couldn't take it anymore, not if I wanted to sleep anyway.
. . .
Austin Frakt, PhD, is co-Editor-in-Chief of The Incidental Economist. His day job is Vice President and Chief Research Officer at Joint Commission. He is also Associate Director of the Partnered Evidence-based Policy Resource Center at the Boston VA Healthcare System, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; Principal Research Scientist with the Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; and Editor in Chief of the journal Health Services Research.