self care

Self care is hard. It's hard to shake the feeling that it's selfish somehow. But I know from learning how to manage my depression that it's vital, and it's one of the only circuit breakers that works when my mood is on the slide (and even then, it doesn't always stop the slide altogether).

My stress load at work has been large lately, and will remain at that level for more than a month. I was supposed to get up today and go to an event at work to take photos, but when I woke up at 6:30 I just couldn't. I thought my role in the day was probably not vital, so sent my apologies and went back to sleep. Briefly surfaced at 1pm, feeling groggy, and thought I probably shouldn't sleep the whole day, so decided to do some massage study. I fell back asleep for another few hours - but after the reading I did I didn't feel bad about it (but not because reading a textbook makes me sleepy, which it does).

The chapter I was reading was about illness, injury, risk factors for disease. The bit on stress said:

Research has shown that as stresses accumulate, especially if the stress is long term, the individual becomes increasingly susceptible to physical illness, mental and emotional problems, and accidental injuries. . .  

. . .the body mobilises different defence mechanisms when threatened by harmful stimuli (actual or perceived). The [general adaptation syndrome] has three stages: (1) alarm, or the fight-or-flight response, which is the body's initial reaction to the perceived stressor; (2) the resistance reaction, in which the secretion of regulating hormones allows the body to continue fighting or to endure a stressor long after the effects of the alarm reaction have dissipated; and (3) exhaustion, which occurs if the stress response continues without relief. 

In generalised stress conditions, the hypothalamus acts on the anterior pituitary gland to cause the release of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which stimulates the adrenal cortex to secrete glucocorticoid. In addition, the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system is stimulated by the adrenal medulla, resulting in the release of epinephrine and norepinephrine to assist the body in responding to the stressful stimulus. Unfortunately during periods of prolonged stress, glucocorticosteroids (cortisol) may have harmful side effects, including a diminished immune response, altered blood glucose levels, altered protein and fat metabolism, and decreased resistance to stress. 

Sandy Fritz, Mosby's Fundamentals of therapeutic massage, Elsevier, 2013, p 210

tl;dr: Basically, stress produces hormones to help you deal with a situation, but it's only supposed to be useful for short periods, and if you don't seek relief you can end up with health problems. I know all this but I keep forgetting when I'm in the midst of it.

So if you know you're going to be in a long term stress situation, and you can't get out of it, it's important to do all you can to relieve that, whenever you have the opportunity. So I decided that sleeping all day is not a bad thing. I need to go and get a massage for myself.

Learning stuff

So my massage study hasn't been that thorough over the last few months because of a lack of time, but when I do get a chance to do a bit of study I really enjoy it. I also realise how much information I retained from high school biology, because although a lot of the anatomy stuff is new, so much of it is familiar.

I really loved high school biology. My main memory of it is being in a prac class with a bunch of Chinese boys who were totally squeamish. We were looking at how lungs worked and had sheep lungs or something on the table that we were supposed to inflate by blowing through a tube. They were practically scaling the walls to get away, they were so repulsed, while I was in there having a grand old time. Blowing up sheep lungs. Yup.

I just downloaded an app called Essential Anatomy 4, which allows you to explore all the different systems in the body and is just a fascinating tool, regardless of whether you're studying or not. It makes you realise how much just happens in our bodies that we have absolutely no idea about.

Also the stomach is a lot higher up in the body than I thought it was. *blush*

I am really enjoying the practical massaging side of things too. Even after only nine prac hours, I've noticed how my body has gotten used to the positions it needs to be in. The first couple of times I was a bit achey after giving massages, but now I find it quite relaxing. Someone asked the other day whether it hurt my hands, but it honestly doesn't; we're taught correct hand positions and postures so that we're looking after our own bodies as much as the bodies of the people we're massaging.

George and mum both say they can feel how I'm improving, which is encouraging! And Sammi told me today she thinks I can give up my day job. :D

I have to say thank you to those friends who are acting as massage guinea pigs for me. It's a real privilege to be trusted to work on you! I know you're getting a free massage out of it, but really, I appreciate it so much.

I have to book in to do a first aid course too at some point - I've always meant to do one actually, so I'm kind of looking forward to that.

Travel diary Thursday: spa heaven

We had one more night in the Goodwood Park Hotel, then headed over to Sentosa. Sentosa is a little island off the bottom of the mainland that was used by the British as a military fort in WW2. When we lived in Singapore, you got there by cable car to see a museum and a monorail and not much else. Now it has had a bridge built out to it, and is home to a massive resort with a whole bunch of hotels, restaurants, Universal Studios (we went there last year), the SEA Aquarium and a casino.

We were booked in to the Hard Rock Hotel, which was very different to the colonial, restrained, neutral palette of the first hotel; it took me a while to get used to it because it was so over the top in comparison. The room was all purple and black and chrome and mirrored surfaces. They did have a much more comfortable bed though. And photos of Jimi Hendrix on the walls.

even the lifts are blingy

They didn't give us a twin room, so dad said I could have the bed and he took the couch. He went off to a business meeting in the city and I wandered down to ESPA for my booking. I had wanted to get a massage while I was on holidays and done some research - I guess I was looking at the places linked to hotels so they are always going to be more expensive, but whoa. Pampering is serious business in Singapore. Anyway, I found ESPA had a Mother's Day package, but they didn't say you actually had to be a mother to book it and although still expensive, it came with a meal, a free gift, and was cheaper than just booking a massage on its own.

And oh my goodness. It was seriously the best spa and massage I have ever experienced (not that I've been to that many spas, and certainly not the top end ones). Just walking in, everything was calming and quiet. The staff were courteous and discreet. I sat down to fill out my client card, drank some cold lemongrass tea and then was given a tour of the facilities - well stocked showers and dressing rooms, a quiet tea room with a huge picture window, an onsen bath, a hot and cold outdoor bath surrounded by perfect tropical gardens, a wet sauna with crystals (!), a dry sauna with a beautiful view of the gardens. I happily wandered from bath to bath, sauna to sauna for about an hour, delighting in the sense of total relaxation and nowhere to be. Being the middle of the week, it was pretty quiet so I only had to share the facilities with two giggly Chinese women, and I managed to avoid them mostly.

This is from the ESPA website - I don't have a white bikini, but this was pretty much me

Selina the therapist came and got me from the tea room. She took me up to the treatment rooms, completely separate to the spa facilities but with the same dark wood floors and pale walls. Unlike most massage places I've been, where the therapist has hardly any room to move around the table, this room was spacious.

Selina asked me how I wanted to feel at the end of the massage, then gave me a choice of two oil blends based on my answer. She filled a bowl of steaming water and added the same oil blend to it, and placed it under my face as I lay on the table. The massage was just perfect; perfect pressure, she attended to the areas I had mentioned as being sore, I felt totally mentally and physically calm by the end of it.

If and when I ever open my own massage practice, I want it to echo this kind of idea, aesthetically (just on a smaller, ever so slightly less expensive scale).

Then it was time for my complimentary meal at the Tangerine restaurant, which prides itself on extremely healthy food to match with the whole wellness aesthetic of the spa. The restaurant was surrounded by Japanese style gardens, and I was the only one there (until a gay couple arrived and carried on between themselves because they hadn't realised it was a healthy restaurant...I caught them outside later having cigarettes). The food was sensational. Light and delicious and perfectly balanced.

Then back to the room to meet dad, and we went off to meet his colleagues and watch X Men: Days of Future Past together. Loved it! A study in brown leather jackets and gorgeous men.

Randomly

I keep thinking I need to marshall all my thoughts and write coherent blog posts before I post anything, so then weeks go by where I don't write because I either don't have the time or haven't worked out what I want to say. But as the always inspiring Pip Lincolne reminded me with her blog post this morning, sometimes you can just blog random things and that's fine. So I'll do that.

I used to blog random things a lot more, in the part of my blog that you can't read anymore because I kind of lost it. Well I have bits of it. But it's really not worth the time it would take to fix it up and re-import it.

I remember when people started saying 'random' a lot (yes kids, there was a time when they didn't). I teased my friend Bek, who was a uni tutor at the time, because she started saying it so much as a result of being around uni students who said it all the time. "That's so random." Even when it wasn't random at all.

Very much enjoying the weather cooling down. Soon it will be cool enough to wear my Bootmakers boots again!

The camellia hedge out the front of our house has exploded in pinky white blossom. It's such a generous plant; it demands hardly any care and gives in abundance.

I find the tyranny of routine frustrating, even though the things that I have to do are great. Every week mapped out like the one before it. Get up. Get ready for work. Drive 50-60 mins to work. Work. Drive 50-60 mins home. Go to thing in the evening. Come home, want to do other things but need to go to bed so I can get up and do it all again.

I think that's why I don't like committing to courses and classes and regular things because that's your Monday night taken, that's your Tuesday night taken, etc. I like having blank days/nights that I can fill with whatever I find, depending on energy levels and how I feel. I'm not Gen Y so I won't say it's Gen Y, and it's certainly not waiting to see if something better comes along...it's just I don't know how I'll feel on any given evening after work.

The two things I've committed to this year are growth group, which means I get to spend time with great people getting stuck into the Bible, and bellydancing, which is fun and exercise. I don't get enough exercise. I would love to box, but realistically it's not me. I'd love to be the sort of person who could just lace up her shoes and run, but that's not me. I'm not saying I can't do these things, because I can, it's just they don't hold my interest long term. But I keep coming back to bellydancing. It's gentle and fun and the women in my current class are great and I always leave with a big smile on my face. So it's worth it.

my jingly jangly bellydancing hip scarf

I will write more about why at some point but I've started studying relaxation massage with ACM, by correspondence. I've got a whole bunch of books and DVDs to work through, at my own pace, so I don't have the pressure of filling up more nights or weekends with classes, but I can just slot it in wherever. I have to do a certain number of logbook hours, practising massages, and the final task is to go in and be assessed. I gave my first two massages last week, to mum and Georgina. I'm finding the whole thing quite fascinating, and giving the massages is quite rewarding; it puts me in a peaceful, calm state of mind to focus on someone else and their wellbeing. It's also good exercise, incidentally.

she was a daytripper

My weekends have been so busy lately, and this past weekend I completely cleared so that I could have some time to rest and repair. And I ended up photographing (a whole bunch of TalulaMei stock I had made but hadn't gotten round to Etsying yet) and sewing (but not for TalulaMei, for myself). I watched lots of Freaks and Geeks and finished The Newsroom and made myself a Daytripper bag (from a Dog Under My Desk pattern). It took me a long time but I absolutely love it. I wasn't planning to add it to my regular TalulaMei repertoire, as it does take so long. But it got a very positive reaction. So maybe I will make a couple and see whether they sell.

Wow this got quite long once I got started. I really need to write more.

creative inspiration and...massage?

I spent this afternoon with Sammi and Karen, and we watched some talks from last year's Big Hearted Business conference. Oh there was gold in them thar hills.

I need to think and process more about what we watched before I write about it, but suffice it to say I'm inspired to grab onto the creative entrepreneurial ideas that have been percolating in my head lately and try to make a go of it.

It may not seem related, but it is: I have just enrolled in an Introductory Massage course at the Australian College of Massage to see whether I'd like it enough to do a Certificate IV. You may wonder what that has to do with anything, but it's all part of my plan. My serene, relaxing plan. Bwa ha ahhh.

I'll explain later.