Panic Attacks

Life Hack: Health Care on the Go

Posted on by Julie Pearson

It’s probably fine though.

As a successful lifestyle blogger, I’m obviously extremely healthy. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t be struck deathly ill at any moment! That’s why I google any little symptom I have (or imagine I have), just to make sure everything is probably okay. It’s impossible to know for sure whether the internet has all the answers, but I assume it probably does, and it’s cheaper than my copay.

Health care is a private matter, so I used to save up all my health concerns during the day, come home, and search them in an “incognito window.”(That way I don’t have to remember them later.) But then I learned this great new health care hack:

The iPhone’s Safari app has a private browsing mode.

That’s right, now I can take care of my health on the go. If I’m out with friends, I only have to sneak away to the bathroom or tilt my phone toward the wall, and I can find out if the five second headache I just had is normal, or if it’s a sign I’m definitely having a stroke. And then, I can close out of private browsing, and no one’s the wiser…including me! It’s like I never even knew it happened!

But it did. And I am so healthy. Probably.

A Quick, Breathless Workout

Posted on by Julie Pearson

As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I’m trying to exercise more. It can be really tough to carve out enough time for a solid workout. If you’re like me, living an active lifestyle needs to be efficient. TV doesn’t binge-watch itself, after all.

Yesterday, I biked to the neighborhood ice cream place with my roommates (I follow my own advice). It was a nice day, and a short ride of about a mile each way. Biking is great exercise, but I abandoned it when I was ten – it seemed too much like a sport and I didn’t like those. I’m just getting back into it, and this was my first ride in traffic. Ever. What a rush! Cars are so much larger and faster than bikes!

I just can’t wait to get back on this bike.

The hills in my neighborhood helped to keep the short ride challenging. And the more cars passed by me as I rode, the more my heart rate accelerated. Wrangling left turns made all my muscles tighten up so that using my legs was nearly impossible. While trying to get across a busy street on a short green light, my vision turned blurry and reality started to feel hazy. Before I knew it, my breath had quickened and I was having a panic attack, right in the middle of my workout! What a happenstance!

The more nervous I got around the cars, the more embarrassed I got at being nervous – which just made my breathing more shallow. Better still, the very last hill by my house was enormous. I thought my legs were going to fall off as I desperately tried to take in enough oxygen to keep pedaling. What an opportunity.

Afterwards, I wobbled inside and hyperventilated into the couch. My lungs felt like they were going to explode – the surest sign that I exercised effectively. I’ve never felt so physically and emotionally spent in such a short period of time. Plus, I now know what it’s like to be so shell-shocked you can’t taste ice cream. That sounds like a diet tip to me!

So if you need an efficient way to get that heart pumping really, really fast, be like me and be very anxious!😬 🚴

 

4 Things I Love (Even Though I Don’t Feel Like It)

Posted on by Julie Pearson

I’m having a terrible week! But that doesn’t absolve me from loving stuff. Because I am a lifestyle blogger, and thus, I am obligated to influence the masses.

  1. Cold Brew Coffee. I usually like my coffee like I don’t like my weather: hot. But my friend Will started a cold brew coffee company, and I’m pretty into this whole Cold Bruja Coffee thing. I normally think of iced coffee as a thing to drink in the sunshine on a patio, but I drank this one in bed on Saturday morning while trying to physically meld with my comforter. Is getting out of bed even worth it oops I mean necessary anymore? Also there’s a fun blurb about a witch on the bottle!
  2. Working Behind a Big Desk. My job requires so much sitting that most of my coworkers don’t even know I have legs. Usually this is frustrating and I know it dooms me to die an early death. But yesterday, I was eating the remains of a cold breakfast sandwich and I spilled some chipotle mayo on my sweater. The horror! But with a big desk hiding my whole body and personage, nobody could tell.
  3. Using a Machete. There’s a drought in California, which absolves us of all responsibility for taking care of our lawn we’ve decided. Eventually though, the grass gets too tall to walk through, and my roommate thought a machete was the best way to handle that. I took a turn at lawn macheteing this weekend, and it was a great way to exorcise some demons before I got too tired and collapsed into a crying puddle on the couch. Cathartic!
  4. Night French Toast. On Sunday night I felt so dissatisfied with everything around me and within me, that the only thing that could possibly fix it was to make French toast at 10pm. I don’t know why. I don’t make the rules, I just crack eggs for them. But something about watching maple syrup congeal on a spongey piece of bread really calmed me, and as the one piece of toast cooled too fast while the other one was still cooking, making it impossible to eat both pieces in a neat stack, the chaotic nature of life made sense in a new way. Yum 🙂

4 Things I Love This Week

Posted on by Julie Pearson

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I’ll be very ill if I don’t have this!

It’s important to me that you care what I, a successful lifestyle blogger, am into every week. Well, since you asked…

  1. Afternoon Coffee. I’ve been desperately addicted to my morning cup of coffee for a while now. I love the ritual of racing the clock to get to that sweet caffeine before the headache kicks in. But it’s become routine and stale. Yesterday, though, I made myself an afternoon cup of coffee. It felt as joyful as that morning cup used to feel, and might even be opening a door to a brand new addiction!
  2. Ignoring Sports. In LA, the seasons don’t change, and time exists only as a weird amorphous blob where months pass like weeks and suddenly it is the middle of March. This gives me even less awareness of important sport times that other people are paying attention to, and because I don’t live mere blocks away from a baseball hellscape anymore, it’s not being shoved in my face. It all washes right over me, along with what holidays are coming up, which day rent is due, and how old I am.
  3. Small, Nervous Dogs. I was terrified of dogs as a child, and while I got over the fear, I never really became a dog person. But lately I’ve been hanging out with a couple of tiny dogs with tiny anxiety disorders, and their stress makes sense to me. I, too, sometimes shake for no reason and need to be constantly comforted. Often I have heart palpitations and I don’t know why. And my legs are much shorter than they should be.

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    Panic attack in progress.

  4. Staying Hydrated. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been getting a lot of headaches lately. If I go to the doctor, I’m pretty sure they’ll ask me questions like, “Are you getting enough sleep?” Are you drinking enough water?” “Do you exercise?” Obviously: no, no, no. This one seems easiest to address. For the last week, I’ve been drinking a lot of water. Like, actively drinking water. All day. For some reason, I feel a lot better! Also I can’t stop peeing.

Tax Tips for People Like You

Posted on by Julie Pearson

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Fiscal responsibility.

My favorite thing about taxes is how much work it is to account for the tiny amounts of money I make. It really gives me a chance to examine my life and feel terrible about it. This year I got a 1099 from the State of Illinois for $11! And while some might find this annoying, I see it as an opportunity. Here are my tips to make sure you’re not just doing your taxes, but really experiencing them:

  1. Put it off as long as possible. Theoretically this should mean until April 14, and in a perfect world it would. But at a certain point, the taxes’ looming existence will become paralyzing. This is the point where you need to begin working on it.
  2. Start small and work your way up. Make a TurboTax account, but don’t use it yet. Glance at one of your W2’s for a few minutes before bed every night, just to get familiar. Not too close to bedtime or you’ll have nightmares. Maybe around dinnertime?
  3. Imagine worst case scenarios. Like getting audited over forgetting to report $50 and somehow setting off a chain of events that leads to going to prison. Or forgetting to report $75 and somehow setting off a chain of events that leads to going to prison (all my scenarios end in going to prison).
  4. Drink. This is one of the best-kept productivity secrets, and it works in most situations. It’s hard to panic over those taxes when the edges of the forms have gotten softly blurry. (Disclaimer: If you do your taxes while drunk, refer back to #3 for further panic.)
  5. Cry. It never fails. Also, it’s inevitable so you might as well do it now.
  6. Hyperventilate. The crying might be enough, but if not, breathing too fast is a great way to get worked up into a full panic attack.

I still have not finished my taxes, but my using these simple tricks, I did keep myself from even starting them today! Time to cry in bed.