On a regular basis, I have these weird headaches. Behind one or both eyes.
And there isn’t a painkiller that then helps.

Last year, I discovered that when I use my knuckles on my forehead, and rub (very) hard, my headache slowly dissolves after 30 minutes or so. Very painful in the moment, and resulting in many small bruises the next day.
So, maybe not the way to go in the long run …

I think it was 2 years ago when a colleague shared she had seen a physical therapist for her jaw. At the time I didn’t think anything of it.
Until last week. No idea exactly why, but I googled the place she went to. And saw the words jaw and headache in one sentence. And then it clicked. And I made an appointment. Fast.

Apparently, our lower jaw is supposed to relax when we’re not eating …
And I have my upper and lower molars ALWAYS touching each other.
It’s not like I’m clenching my jaw. There is just no space between them.

Which is equivalent to continuous tension.
Ever tried to hold one arm straight and at shoulder height for 8 hours?
Nope. That’s not what muscles are built for.

From our upper jaw muscles, there are connections to behind our ears, our skull.
Including to the fascial muscles behind your eyes …
See where I am getting at?

She massaged my cheek muscles. Yep, really. Simultaneously from the inside and outside. Heck, that was painful.
And by pushing one or more pressure points / ‘landmarks’ on the muscle, she could trigger my headache.

Stunning. Shocking. Or should I say jaw-dropping 😉

So, besides physical therapy, now what?
1  Relax my lower jaw (and tongue) so there is space between my molars. All. The. Time.
2  Massage my cheek, my temples and of course my jaw. Gently. I am not allowed to use my knuckles anymore (what I did, was cause so much pain, it ‘overruled’ the headache, and might even cause inflammation because of all the mini bruises. If I want to use that ‘technique’, I could better ‘kick myself’.)
3  When I eat, make sure I chew on both sides.
4  Take it easy with eating apples, nuts, crackers, granola, i.e. anything hard. Just to give my jaw muscles a bit of a break. And of course, NO chewing gum.

This specialization is called orofacial physical therapy.

In the Netherlands, there are only 6 people trained per year.
So, if like me, you’d never heard of it, that’s not strange.
AND, if you recognize this kind of ‘behind-the-eyes’ headache, or know someone who does, please share this post.

The post Brilliant solution for headache behind the eyes appeared first on Surgery Tips.

We not only have to take care of ourself, we also get to empower ourselves.
If we don’t do so, nobody might …

These are my favorite 5 ways to empower myself:

1.  THE POWER OF YOUR POSE

Changing your posture for 2 minutes has effects on your hormones.
Really?
Yes, in her TED talk Amy Cuddy explains the effects of a power pose.
Expanding, stretching, and making yourself bigger is called a high-power pose, and causes testosterone level to increase, and cortisol – the stress hormone – to decrease.
And the opposite, hunching over, also called a low-power pose, has the opposite effect …

Isn’t that amazing?
2 minutes of a different posture results in hormonal changes, which change your brain to be more confident and comfortable.

“Configure your brain to cope the best”.
I love how tiny tweaks can have big effects.

2.  TURN DOWN THE VOLUME OF YOUR INNER CRITIC

The thoughts in your head are your internal radio station. To which you listen to all day, every day.
And that ‘broadcast’ is often quite critical.
Telling us, or reminding us, of the things we forgot, should not forget, the things we did not do well, and should have done instead, etc etc.

Would you say these negative things – continuously – to a friend?
I guess you wouldn’t …
But apparently it is okay to be so negative towards yourself.
If you wouldn’t say it to a friend, there’s a chance you shouldn’t say it to yourself either.

In his book ‘Soundtracks’ Jon Acuff discusses he has been looking for a switch.
So he could turn off his (over)thinking completely.
He had been looking for THE switch, could not find it, or when found, learned it did not work (anymore), and kept looking for a different switch.

And then he discovered it’s not a switch. It’s a dial.
So when you hear your inner radio becoming loud again, you can turn the volume down.
I love this!

3.  SLOW DOWN

In the world right now, so many activities are being virtual, sometimes even on different time zones.
Which can be overwhelming.

It certainly has been a challenge for me to learn to say NO.
So many cool opportunities for seminars – that has not existed before – became available. And I wanted to do them. ALL. Which, of course, I couldn’t.
So, I had to slow down.

Take the time to breathe.
When we are stressed, we tend to shorten our breath, breathe high in our chest and tighten our shoulders. This happens without us even realizing …
Take a deep breath, in via your nose. Out via your mouth.
Both feet on the ground.
Relax your shoulders, relax your belly, inhale into your belly, exhale, relax your jaw, relax your tongue. Repeat 😉

Box-breathing is a wonderful and easy tool.
Inhale for 4 counts, hold your breath for 4 counts, exhale for 4 counts, and hold your breath for 4 counts.
You can see why they call it a box. Repeat 10 times.

This is a ‘recipe’ that gets me out of my head, and into my body, if that makes sense.
So I can connect to the here and now, to my gut feeling, to my intuition.

Deep breathing activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which helps you relax.
And the cool thing is that you also have this tool available. At all time! And it’s FREE!!

4.  CHEER YOURSELF ON

If you don’t cheer for yourself, who else will?

In ‘The high 5 habit’, Mel Robbins gives herself a high 5 in the mirror, and silently says to herself “Hey you! I see you! You got this.”
I love the book.
Again, a simple habit. To do first thing in the morning.
It’s backed up with science, which I also love.

By doing the high 5 in the mirror, I realize I often forget to ‘see’ me.
So busy with (taking care and looking out for) others, that I forget myself.

I actually love taking a bit of time, and looking myself in the eyes while doing the high 5.
I love seeing the kindness in my own eyes when I look in the mirror. It’s not always there immediately, but it will come at some point.
I am being gentle, and am learning to be more gentle with myself.

5.  BE KIND TO YOURSELF

Don’t just be good to others. Be good to yourself too.
You deserve that.
Not only for you ’now’, but also your ‘future self’.

Coming back to the soundtrack you are listening to, your inner radio station: listen to an empowering soundtrack.
Be kind to yourself, slow down when necessary and cheer yourself along.
You can even borrow good ‘songs’ from someone else’s playlist, and make your own ultimate playlist!

Wishing you plenty of fantastic songs 🎶 and many high fives 🖐 for 2022,
Much health,
Maaike

Share this article with your Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts and Twitter followers via the Share buttons below, so the people in your network can also benefit.

The post 5 Ways to empower yourself appeared first on Surgery Tips.

Last week I attended a virtual training by one of my mentors Dean Graziosi.
And he mentioned the ‘garage door’ tool: every project you are working on has a garage door.
Or every subtask within a project has a garage door.
And you only open one door at a time.
And work on that.

Shortly after this training I saw a very practical tip shared by someone in our Facebook group to use yellow sticky notes instead of imaginary garage doors.
Or, colored ones for different topics.
And then take one sticky note to your desk, and work on that.
On that only 😉

And then it hit me.
That is different than what I use(d) to do.
I’ve heard myself say ‘I feel like I’m stuck in the middle’ a thousand times.
If only I had listened to myself …
My language gave away where I was struggling, and how.
Yet, I did not see it, until last week.

It has to do with how I spatially represent the project I am working on.
In my mind, I arrange my work around me, and therefore I am in the middle.
And that is why I can feel torn between left and right, front and back.

Instead, with the garage doors/sticky notes, they all are in front of me.
It creates some distance.

WOW.
Such a small shift.
Such a big difference.

First, I can see them all.
Second, I have overview.

How does this work for you?
Does this help?
How could you use this next time when you start or work on one of your projects?

Much health,
Maaike

Share this article with your Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts and Twitter followers via the Share buttons below, so the people in your network can also benefit.

The post What to do when you’re ‘stuck in the middle’ appeared first on Surgery Tips.

How do you bake a cake?
You need a list of the ingredients.
And the required amounts.
And the sequence.
And the intensity and duration of the baking itself.
Because only if you do it all right, you will get a chocolate cake.

You just don’t throw everything in one bowl and tada magic happens.
You need flour. And all the other ingredients. In certain quantities.
And some things go together in a separate bowl.
Then there is a sequence that needs to be followed.
If the quantities are wrong, or the sequence is wrong, or the oven is too hot, and you put it in too short, you will not get the desired outcome. In this example a chocolate cake.

So, if you use other ingredients or if you mix up the sequence, you mess up the recipe.

Our experiences are also made up of ingredients.
Our 5 senses are the ingredients.
So experiences are built from what we see, hear, feel, smell and taste.
Also referred to as visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory and gustatory.

I found there are certain things I always do when I am in an unresourceful state, like stressed:
I look down. In my mind’s eye I see what goes wrong. Or can go wrong.
I don’t hear others a lot. Instead, I hear my inner critic talking to me: ohoh, what should I do now?
My chest is forward. My breath is high in my chest and shallow. My shoulders are up and forward. My head hangs down. My knees are locked. And my feet are pointing straight ahead.
Can you make the picture of what that looks like?

There are also certain things I do when I am in a resourceful state, like relaxed:
My shoulders are relaxed, low and back. My head is up. My eyes are open. My breath comes from my belly, and is sow. My knees are loose. My toes are pointing slightly outwards. I can wiggle. I am centered, flexible. It’s like a dance.
I hear myself saying: you got this, whatever happens, you know you will find a way.
In my mind’s eye I see options and possibilities.
Can you envision me doing that?

You will notice that both examples have the ingredients visual (V; see), auditory (A; hear) and kinesthetic (K; feel).
No smell and taste this time 😉
But the sequence is different: for stressed it is V-A-K, and for relaxed, it is K–A–V.

And the ‘trick’ to be able to go from stressed to relaxed, is to become aware what I am doing (because I recognize how it actually feels in my body).
And then to take a deep breath, which allows me to sort of automatically transition to relaxed.

Try it for yourself:
What are your ingredients for stress?
And what is then your recipe?
Same for relaxed: what are your ingredients? And what is the recipe?
And what one thing can you change to mess up the ‘stressed recipe’ and go to the ‘relaxed recipe’?

ps This is not only the case for when we are stressed, this works for all cases where we are ‘stuck’!

Much health,
Maaike

Share this article with your Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts and Twitter followers via the Share buttons below, so the people in your network can also benefit.

The post The five ingredients of our emotions appeared first on Surgery Tips.

Sometimes we have a great idea. Or a new habit we want to stick to.
And if we wait too long, our brain talks us out of it.
It’s risky. Or different.
Or too scary to do. Or too difficult.
Or the outcome is uncertain.

So, it is safer to not follow up.
Which is exactly what our brain is designed for, and has done for millions of years: to keep us safe.

When we wait too long, longer than 5 seconds that is, our brain takes over.
And starts analyzing, thinking, overthinking …
And then we hesitate and doubt our great idea.

The 5 seconds we are talking about, are precious, and give you back the power of control.

Mel Robbins created this amazing tool.
It was during a period of her life that everything was falling apart, and she had trouble getting out of bed.
Then one night she was watching a rocket launch on tv.
And the final countdown of 5-4-3-2-1-lift off sparked an idea.

Could it be that simple?
So the next morning, when the alarm clock went off, and it was cold and dark, and early, she counted backwards and out loud: 5-4-3-2-1 and launched herself out of bed.

Very simple. Easy to do.
And you might have guessed, it’s called the 5 second rule.

Very practical to implement. And to start, right now.

During these 5 seconds the prefrontal cortex is awakened, which creates sort of an activation energy.
To get you going. Or do your new habit.

5 seconds. That’s all it takes.
And there is no daily limit on how many times you can use it 😉

Let me know how you will use this to take action in the comments below!
5-4-3-2-1 GO!!

Much health,
Maaike

Share this article with your Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts and Twitter followers via the Share buttons below, so the people in your network can also benefit.

The post Change in 5 seconds appeared first on Surgery Tips.

These 10 things get me – and keep me – going:

1. Lemon water

First thing I drink when I wake up is a glass of lemon water.
It’s essential to rehydrate your body after a night of sleep. And it gets your bowels moving.
Even though a lemon had a low pH, inside our body it has alkalizing properties.

2. Time for myself

Before the day starts, I love to have some time for myself. To wake up my mind, to think, to visualize my day.

3. Light exercises

Last year, with being home a lot, I learned I need to wake up my body. To gently stretch, and do neck exercises. The latter helps a lot in preventing headaches, or at least keeps them to a minimum.

4. Breathe

Last year I rediscovered breathing.
Okay, that sounds silly. I mean deep breathing: belly breathing or box breathing. It calms down your nervous system.

5. Celery juice

Yep, the green stuff.
I love the freshness. And it cleanses the intestines and provides a load of electrolytes.

6. Focus

Especially last year, with so much negativity going on, I found it hard to keep my focus.
So, I am reminding myself (throughout the day) to be aware where my focus is:
On what I can control? Or is it dependent on others?
On the here and now? Or am I chewing over the past or worrying about the future?
What always helps me to come back to the present is to breathe (see #4).
And then I ask myself: what is one thing I can do right now?

7. Read (or listen to) a book

I love to learn. I love expanding my horizon. I love to grow. I love getting new ideas.

8. Eat healthy

Greens, fresh fruits, good fats like avocados, almonds (also alkalizing, see #1), sweet potatoes. And those are just a few favorites.
And of course, drink plenty of water.

9. Take a walk

Move your body. Every day. For at least 30 minutes.
And while doing so, I chat with my husband, or listen to a book (see #7). Either way, I look around and capture amazing views of nature on my phone.
Especially if there are ‘lines’ involved 😉

10. Cheer yourself on

You gotta celebrate. Especially the small stuff.
Who is going to cheer for you if you don’t do so you yourself?
Do a happy dance or high-five yourself in the mirror!
YOU rock 💎❤️

What is one habit that you do every day, that energizes you?
Let me know in the comment!
As you know by now, I love to learn 🙂

Much health,
Maaike

Ps for the ‘lines’ I was talking about (see #9), check out my Instagram!

Share this article with your Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts and Twitter followers via the Share buttons below, so the people in your network can also benefit.

The post 10 Daily habits that energize me appeared first on Surgery Tips.

Sometimes the dull and throbbing feeling is behind both eyes. This time it was just one eye. Nevertheless, very painful and debilitating.
After a long night, I was shocked to see my face in the mirror. My forehead had many purple mini bruises from the forceful massage …
And this triggered me to see if I could find alternate solutions to relieve the pain.

I learned that this type of headache is called a cluster headache. And that it is relatively rare.
I reached out to my network and wanted to share the various ways which are used to alleviate this type of headache. Especially, as – for me – paracetamol and/or ibuprofen do not work in this case.
And, many – if not all – may also work for ‘normal’ headaches.
Please use these tips to your advantage!

💦 Drink water, lots of water. Not only when you have a headache, or feel one beginning. Always. We are 70% water, so our body needs water!

🧊 Cool your head. Use an icepack. Tip: place an one on your forehead for 20 minutes and then one at the base of your neck for 20 minutes. Bonus tip: placing an icepack on your liver has been mentioned to accelerate recovery.
🧊 Peppermint essential oil has cooling properties. Please always use a carrier oil. DoTERRA has a specific oil blend for headaches: PastTense. The RC oil blend from Young Living has also been recommended.

🤚 Massage your forehead, scalp and/or base of your neck. I sometimes use my fingertips, but often use my knuckles. Painful, but worthwhile in the end.
🤚 Place your legs & bum against the wall for 20 minutes. It relieves (physical and mental) stress and tension. Listen to a relaxing music if you can. Google legs up wall pose.
🤚 Ground yourself to the earth: take your shoes off. Walk barefoot. Outside if possible.
🤚 Exercise. Or at least move your body. To get blood flowing and for oxygen supply.
🤚 Foot massage: either do it yourself, or better, have someone do it for you. Bonus tip: use a relaxing (essential) oil.
🤚 Do neck exercises to relieve any tension in the shoulder and neck area. Google neck drill.
🤚 Breathing exercises. It reduces stress levels and rebalances the nervous system. Google Wim Hof method.
🤚 Chiropractic care to – mainly – have your spine realigned.

🧘 Meditate for stress relief by redirecting your thoughts.
🧘 Visualize. Use mental images to relax body and mind.
🧘 Reiki. Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing.

👉 Tip from a dental hygienist: behind-the-eye headaches tend to be related to bruxism: teeth grinding and jaw clenching. A nightguard might help out.

💚 A daily glass of celery juice is nutrient packed and improves digestion and liver function. Google Anthony William.
💚 Magnesium. It is said to help the blood flow in the brain. There are many forms available. For me magnesium glycinate works well.

👩‍⚕️ See an optometrist to have your eye pressure checked.
👩‍⚕️ See your doctor. Tip: before making an appointment, start keeping a ‘headache diary’ for a few weeks: when do you get them (time, day/night), duration, location (and does it stay in one place or does it move around); how much they hurt on a scale of 1 to 10. Also record any other symptoms (nausea, dizziness), and if anything helps to relieve the pain (like paracetamol or sitting in a dark room). This information will make it so much easier for doctor to be able to give advice when you have a record of what’s been happening. 

I hope you don’t have a headache often.
But if this is the case, what do you then do?
I would love to read it!

Wishing you a fantabulous New Year’s Eve,
Much health,
Maaike

Share this article with your Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts and Twitter followers via the Share buttons below, so the people in your network can also benefit.

The post Alternate options for headache relief appeared first on Surgery Tips.

Balance to me means that things – all things – need to be in equilibrium. We tend to be busy. All the time. And in order to get everything done we need to divide the time we’ve got. Not just between work and private life; no, we need to divide it between all areas of our life: work, intimate relationship, health, friends, hobbies, family, finance, adventure and spirituality.

Often our mind messes us up. At least, my mind does. The idea that we have to balance everything out, all the time, messes with our mind. Of course, one particular area of our life can be more intense, or more important, or more time-consuming than another such area. One of the most important things in order to feel happy and content is not in the amount of time we put into a certain area – or category, if you will. It’s more about the quality of the time we put into it, or the progress we make
It helps to do whatever you do with full and complete attention; to give it your all. For example, to not think about stuff back home when you’re at work, and vice versa. Be right there where you are: be 100% present!

Let’s get back to the word ‘balance’.
I found it very interesting to translate the word into a feeling. How does balance feel?
For me, balance feels like a gentle and equal pulling at both my arms. My body and my head both trying to keep in the middle of it all. How? By constantly making (small) movements or corrections, which keep my body and especially my mind busy; seeking that much sought-after equilibrium, and a middle ground in all I do.

Besides balance, there’s also centeredness. And for me that feels different – totally different. It feels more grounded. Having two feet on the ground. Steady, and constant. A sort of tranquility, coming from the belly/abdomen. On the one hand more solid, on the other hand more flexible. It feels less hectic. Calmer. More present.

So, how do we achieve balance, or centeredness?
Is trying to achieve balance – or centeredness – something we deliberately do? And do we need to make a plan to do it? Does our mind do that? And if it does, how does that work? How does the mind navigate to finding balance?
It’s important to be aware of and to listen to your body signals; are you feeling energetic, engaged or content? Or is the whole thing wearing you out?
Listen to your own gut feeling! It’ll tell you!
You can put whatever energizes you to use as your compass – your gauge!
And remember: it’s not about the amount of time you put into something, it’s about the fire you put into it!

Say you want to work on a project, and you realize there’s only five minutes left; you can either decide not to work on it at all, or you make those five minutes count! The fact that you made progress towards your goal will make you feel great, and the momentum you have will keep (even if you continue the next day, or week).

One other thing that crossed my path multiple times the last weeks, is Parkinson’s law: work, or any task, expands to fill the time available for its completion.
When you have 4 hours, you need 4 hours. When you have one hour, you need one hour. Isn’t that interesting?
I certainly recognize that – often – I can get more done when I actually ‘don’t have time’.
Does this translate to setting deadlines for yourself? I sure think so.
At least set yourself a time to quit whatever you’re doing. And stop when that time is up. A rest, and some downtime is also very important. Setting a quitting time; I now realize I didn’t do that during the early days of Corona. With the consequence that working from home really threw off my work-life balance.

So, protect and guard your time.
Set your boundaries, and learn to communicate what your boundaries are.
Be(come) aware of what you need, and of what you need to do to keep your energy up.

What does balance mean for you?
How does it feel?
Is it balance that you need?
Or is another word (and with it, another feeling) more suitable for you? 

To you, it may not make any difference at all.
But if it turns out that it does make a difference, isn’t it cool that you are now aware of it, and that you can go tryout how you can use this to your advantage! 

Please share and let me know!
I am really curious and interested in finding out what distinctions you were able to make!

Much health,
Maaike

Thank you Brendon Burchard, Mel Robbins Dean Graziosi, Dave Hollis and Tony Robbins for your inspiration, your amazing books and trainings.

Share this article with your Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts and Twitter followers via the Share buttons below, so the people in your network can also benefit.

The post There is no such thing as balance appeared first on Surgery Tips.

The beginning was stressful, I have to be honest. Especially because of the overload of information, in combination with the uncertainty.
And that resulted that I fell back into an old – unhealthy – lifestyle.
I then realized I needed to decide what kind of information I needed – and how frequent – in order to cope. In addition, I needed to start to take more care of my mind and body.

I also experienced the importance of language again.
How do you feel when you use words as: locked in, nowhere to go, desperate, dramatic, powerless, frustrated, exhausted, terrified and hopeless.
Or: temporary, safe at home, catching your breath, worried or inconvenient.

Every word, and certainly the combination of words that we use, has effect on how we feel. And we don’t only talk to others, but also to ourselves. In our mind admittedly, but we do so all day long.
And what we feel, how we feel, has effect on what we think again.
Can you imagine that in the first example, you can think yourself ’down in the dumps’?
And, that even as the situation is the same, you see things differently in the second situation?

Using different language, thinking different thoughts, makes your body feel different. Which then makes you think differently: do I want to survive? or do I want to thrive?
So, I decided to focus on what would now be possible. Which things I would now – finally – have time for.

I need to look at the future

A friend asked me ‘How do you want to come out of this quarantine time?’
That got me thinking and it shifted everything for me: instead of looking at the past – and questioning whether and when it will ever be ’normal’ again. Or looking at the present – with all the things we currently can’t do.
I realized it helps me a lot to look at the future. Even if I don’t exactly know how that – new – future will look like.

I wanted to keep learning – especially as live events were also on hold.
So I searched online, and signed up for a couple of (free) webinars from my favorite authors, mentors and trainers.
Some of them were at crazy times, given the time difference with Europe, but heck. I was working from home, and was therefore able to be a bit more flexible than normal. Still making my hours –  don’t get me wrong – but starting a bit earlier to finish on time, or starting a bit later, because of the late previous night.

I also discovered audiobooks. I love reading. I always have. And yet, I did not read as much as I used to. As I live closer to work, or work from home, I have no commuting time by train, which was a guarantee for two books per month.
With audiobooks, you don’t have to ‘sit on the couch’. You can, of course. But I now ‘read’ while working out or cooking. Or even driving. How convenient: killing two birds with one stone!
I love how reading and learning can take me on an adventure, spark ideas in me and give me energy.
Did you know even YouTube has (free) spoken books?

When I feel stuck, I need to move

And by this I don’t mean ‘stuck in the house’.
My body can feel stuck, stiff, tense. And – more often – my mind can be stuck. Analyzing, Overanalyzing. Going around in circles. Over and over again.
The best thing for me to do then is to go for a walk. Or step on the cross-trainer. Anyway, I need to start moving.

The big advantage of going for a walk of course is that you can do it together with someone. And it’s outside.
And there are two more bonuses, which both have to do with the fact that you will have a different kind of conversation.
The first has to do with the fact that your body is moving and your energy will be more ‘centered’: more in your belly (and less in your head).

The second is that instead of sitting opposite of each other at the dinner table, you are now walking next to each other. There is nothing ‘in between you’. You both have the ‘same perspective’. You are both looking at it ‘the same way’.
You will experience that only that will result in a different kind of conversation.

Looking back, these past months were tough and relaxing at the same time.
There was a lot not to do, and yet a lot of (new) things to be explored.
One thing I am absolutely grateful for is the weekly video date with my nephew and niece to read a story to them.

Which things were essential for you during this ‘great pause’?
What would you do – or do different – if this were to happen again?

Much health,
Maaike

Share this article with your Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts and Twitter followers via the Share buttons below, so the people in your network can also benefit.

The post Two things that got me through quarantine appeared first on Surgery Tips.

If you are uncertain about symptoms you are having or have symptoms that you don’t trust, and you are afraid to go out because of the Corona virus, what can you do?
Please know that NOT going to the doctor might be the worst thing you can do.
What do I mean by that?
Symptoms and underlying conditions might get even worse if you wait. And this could possibly make treatment more difficult.

So how can you take care of yourself in the best possible way?
Ask yourself:

• It is urgent?
• Do I have chest pain, severe shortness of breath or severe pain?
• Has my symptom increased in a short period of time?
• Could my symptom become life threatening in a short period of time?
• Has my symptom gradually increased over a long(er) time and is it becoming more severe?

Are you worried and not sure about your symptom?
Do you have abdominal pain, skin spots that you don’t trust or persistent headache?
Then call your doctor’s office!

Thanks to nowadays’ technology we can not only hear each other on the phone, but can also see each other. And with an e-consult, you can attach or upload a picture as well.
This might be the way that the doctor can help you from ‘a distance’.
If needed, the doctor might want to see you in person and set up an appointment.

And then you all know what to do:

• Wash your hands thoroughly and regularly.
• Keep 6 feet distance.
• Follow the directions of your (local) health authority.

Please keep in mind that the Corona virus is not a ‘death sentence’. And not everyone is affected in the same way.
Taking care of you right now might be more important for your overall health and perspective than worrying about Corona.

PS did you know that worrying puts our body in a fight-or-flight mode?
This is a completely normal reaction. In fact, that is how our brain works, at least the part that has been around for millions of years and has made us survive for so long: this reptilian brain wants to protect us. It will do so at all costs. And therefore puts us in a state of fight-or-flight.
The downside, however, is that this causes our stress levels to increase (even more). And that has a detrimental effect on our immune system … And right now, in Corona time, we need our immune system in the best possible condition.

So, what can you do?

• Evaluate your symptoms yourself.
• In case of doubt or worry, get a consult by phone or email.
• And, if needed, see a doctor and take the necessary precautions.

Meanwhile, be aware of your mindset: focus on what you can do, on the things that are possible. We will have better outcomes when we focus on what goes well than on what does not.

And … breathe every now and then!
Uhm, what?
When we are stressed, we tend to shorten our breath, breathe high in our chest and tighten our shoulders. This happens without us even realizing …
So, take a deep breath, in via your nose. And exhale, out via your mouth. Put both feet on the ground. You can do so when you stand as well as when you sit. Relax your shoulders, relax your belly, inhale into your belly, exhale, relax your jaw, relax your tongue. Repeat 😉
Did you notice what a big difference it makes when you relax your jaw?
When you have breathed into your belly a couple of times, there a two different follow up techniques you can do:

• Inhale for 4 counts, exhale for 6 counts. Or in for 6 in and out for 8. Important is that you take more time breathing out than beathing in. This may feel strange in the beginning, and it may require your full attention. Yet, it is such an easy way to relax immediately. Discover for yourself which rhythm feels most comfortable for you. And then do this for a couple of minutes. Do it several times a day. And whenever you feel stressed of course!
• This one is called box-breathing. It goes as follows: inhale for 4 counts, hold your breath for 4 counts, exhale for 4 counts, and hold your breath for 4 counts. You can see why they call it a box. You can do 4-4-4-4, or 5-5-5-5, or even 10-10-10-10 after some practice. Repeat 10 times.

Both of these techniques result in an activation of our parasympathetic nervous system, which helps us relax. And by focusing on our breathing, we give our mind the opportunity to rest a bit, and relax as well.

Take care,
And contact your doctor NOW if you need to.

A virtual big hug,
Maaike

Share this article with your Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts and Twitter followers via the Share buttons below, so the people in your network can also benefit.

The post What can you do when you need a doctor in Corona-time appeared first on Surgery Tips.