Stress

Over the weekend I was feeling pretty stressed out. Not so much mentally as physically. For me, being a uni student is more stressful than working because the work never ends, it just seems to keep piling up. When I was working I rarely took any work home, maybe just once every couple of months to mark essays or something but other than that I did all my work at work and home was for relaxing and non-work activities. Also, not having much money is a little bit stressful but it's mainly the amount of learning there is to do.

Stress is really bad for your health, both physical and mental, but it affects different people in different ways. Some people get headaches, some get bad skin - like breakouts or exzema. For me, I get a hard lumps in my back that hurt and feel really tight and it's really hard to get rid of them once they're there. The best way I've found is by massage. Before I started getting regular massages I just carried these things around with me everywhere I went and it felt like crap. My massage therapist couldn't believe how bad my back was when I first came in to see her. Anyway, I had a massage on Saturday and there was one particular 'mound' in my upper back that was especially bad and she basically spent the entire appointment working on this one spot because it was so hard to break down. Besides massage she also used some needles and cupping. Afterwards I was SO SORE. I put heat pads on the spot and took pain killers it was that bad.

I had planned to do a lot of uni work this weekend, but because of that I didn't end up doing much at all, I tried but it was too hard to concentrate. So I ended up doing the usual things I do every weekend which is watch some DVDs (I watched an Indonesian movie called Rahasia Bintang which had very bad acting and lots of blood that looked too much like tomato sauce to be believable, and Ramen Girl - a Japanese movie starring the late Brittany Murphy which was also really terrible - when I lived in Tokyo one of my friends who worked occasionally as a model was an extra in this movie which is why I was interested in watching it), planned my meals for the week and did a grocery shop, cleaned the whole house - vacuum, clean kitchen, bathroom, change and wash sheets, all laundry and ironing - caught up with a couple of friends, but nothing special, just for a chat and a cuppa.

On Sunday I felt fantastic! All the pain and tension was gone! I did all my internet research for my assignment and presentation that is due this week and I went to yoga. Even though I only do Bikram once a week I've noticed that I keep getting better at it and more flexible. That really motivates me, otherwise I'd probably get bored because it's exactly the same series of postures in the same order every time. I'm also addicted to the sweat factor. I feel really clean after about sweating about 2 litres (literally). I also went to the gym twice last week to do an hour of cardio each time. I think a minimum three times a week for exercise is a good idea.

The homework I've been working on is:
• Looking up lots of different drugs for my medications workshop – the drug use, form, action, adverse effects and nursing considerations for each one
• A plan for teaching a patient post operative wound care for colorectal cancer surgery
• A report on informed consent for medical procedures (and I also have to do a 5 minute oral presentation for this on Thursday which is worth 15% of my mark for my Acute Care subject)

In Clinical Assessment Lab last week we did Neurological Assessment which was a lot of fun because as patients we could pretend we had amnesia or drifting in and out of consciousness.