In my journey through CPTSD, I have taken a buteyko breathing course with Dermod from ButeykoPlus.
One thing that came up is the benefits of a watch like a fitbit. He recommended it and I looked at fitbit's options
I ended up buying the Fitbit sense. It probably unnecessary to buy their top watch, but I went ahead for a few reasons.
I was drawn by their advanced features that I thought would be great to track: Stress Management, Skin Temperature, SpO2 levels and Breathe per Minutes.
After 10 days into the breathing course, I am already much more relaxed.
I switched to a plant-based diet, and I walk 30 minutes every day.
Most of my stats improved: Heart beats per minute, my sleep score, SpO2 levels and weight.
Monitoring my heart rate to become conscious of my stress level.
In my journey, I became aware how stressed I was before.
As we grow up in constant stress, we often are not aware of how stress we are, because that's our normal.
How alcohol is a stressor (and up to 3 days after)
Alcohol has been my go-to medication for stress relief.
The Fitbit showed me how much of a stressor it is for up to 3 days after a night.
Heart rate variability goes down, heart rates goes up, and general stress is up.
Visually seeing the effect on the graphs provided by the Fitbit app made me realize how bad it is.
How I use the fitbit to monitor and reduce stress
When I am working on my computer, I keep my phone on with the Fitbit app opened.
I can at a glance see by bpm, my heart's beats per minute.
I can easily look at my phone and see in realtime see my heart beat, and it's a gentle reminder of staying calm.
I am not sure how the correlation between stress and heartbeat rate is, but for me it's a reminder of time.
The reason this site is named quiethamster.com is simple: I was attempting to find a solution to my chronic procrastination.
I now know that there is a strong connection between the stress from the PTSD (which hijacks my brain) and my procrastination.
But somehow I became aware of time as I see my heartbeat numbers on a screen. It makes time more real.
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