I Started Thinking About Stress, and Realized I Just Need to Punch Someone

There is always something to worry about.

Will we make it through this semester of grad school. Will the dissertation get completed. Will Matt get a job. Where will we move. Will the next interview go well. Is this the right place for us to be. Is this job the right opportunity. Will we be okay staying in one place for the long haul. Will this be good enough. Will we be happy.

I've always been a worrier. I am an expert at it. I should teach a class.

But I've been getting stress headaches on and off for weeks now. And I'm spending so much time worrying, that I'm concerned I'm developing squinting lines between my eyes, and that if my hair could grow really fast, it'd be like Tim Allen's in The Santa Clause, where his beard grows white and long before his eyes.

I was at my women's group the other day, and the speaker talked about how we come home to unwind at the end of the day and crash on the couch in front of the TV, but how that's not really relaxing, because we still get up and feel just as tired and just as stressed afterward as we did when we sat down. And how we have a hard time actually relaxing, and how we don't even know what it means to relax anymore. And it's true. I get a decent amount of sleep and most of the time my work doesn't feel all that strenuous, but these headaches! And the ever-present exhaustion! And my inability to remember simple things like what I'm supposed to be doing today, or that important thing I wanted to say two seconds ago before the conversation inadvertently took a different turn.

I need to be taking better care of myself.

I desperately want/need to get a massage, and am trying to save up my "fun" money to get one. I need to start doing my Pilates videos again, because it feels good to stretch and move and breathe. I need to spend less time in the evening in front of my computer and more time behind a book, because then my eyes don't hurt so much and my soul feels better. I need to spend more time outside, because Texas' four perfect weather days are coming and I don't want to miss them, and also apparently I could use some sun because my doctor tells me I'm slightly vitamin D deficient (which I am not worried about; mostly I just want to punch her for making a big deal out of nothing every time I visit).

What things do you consider vital to your own self-care? If you could punch someone/something, figuratively, who/what would it be? (Now I'm onto thinking about things I'd like to punch, and I'm really into this topic right this second.)