Last week we pumped up; today let’s settle down. For all in acute and/or paralyzing anxiety at the state of the state, here are my particular tips and tricks for peace. Just a little, from morning to night.
- Establish a wakeup routine you look forward to. Mine is puer’h tea from Murchie’s in Canada and toasted walnut levain with organic almond butter. 2% grass-fed cow milk in the tea. Could I be any more of a SF Bay Area white liberal? Probably not. But it makes going to sleep more fun, and rising from my bed less work. We work with who we are.
- Make your to-do list only on the morning of, or at most a couple of days in advance. That way you can attempt no more than that which you have the capacity to accomplish.
- Wear extra-comfortable shoes. I have recently graduated from Hokas to SAS. (For those who are younger, or simply of more robust foot than I, I’ll send you to my friend Lauren’s article on Hokas.) Made for diabetics, I find these to be well-structured, supportive and gentle. Rather like the mother archetype no one can ever achieve. Another tool, of course, is to go for a walk in said shoes, unless your to-do list reads, “Lie on the couch all day trying not to move thereby alerting monsters.”
- Escape into a truly immersive book. For literary fiction, if you accept not quite understanding what’s happening because you’ve surrendered yourself to language and characters, I recommend “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny.” It’s, um, the very long story of two young people in the Indo-American diaspora and their family history in Goa, the Himalayas and New York? Kind of? Loved it. For pop novels, chomped down like fresh popcorn, try “The Compound.” Do watch one episode of the British show “Love Island” before you crack it open, but only one, because I would never betray you by recommending the full series.
- Laugh before you sleep. You can find “Friday Night Dinner” on Britbox. A Jewish family in modern Britain has family dinner (they don’t call it Shabbat, which is one of the jokes) with mom, dad, and two “adult” sons. If you watch, you’ll see why I put “adult” in quotation marks. It’s problematic they didn’t cast it with Jewish actors, and the cast has acknowledged that in the years since it was released. But if that aspect doesn’t make it difficult to for you watch, the dynamics between the two boys made me laugh so hard in so many episodes that I slept peacefully and may have reset my nervous system reset for close to a month
BONUS/BREAK GLASS IN SEMI-EMERGENCY: On days when it’s really bad, but not quite so awful you’re ready to move to medical intervention, and you’ve decided that alcohol isn’t your friend, experiment with a Binaural EMDR video from Maggie Kelly, on YouTube. Headphones on, listen for as long as feels right.
Finally, as part of my contribution to deep breathing, recent photos from my garden. Many living things are trying to grow.
Along borders.
In community with like, on occasion. Waiting for water, rejoicing with our little faces, or overgrowing our spot.
A jasmine vine crept over the fence from my neighbor along with a veritable festoon of Lady Banks roses. Coexistence = art.
I wish you a good weekend, my friends. If you have any tried-and-true similar tips, please feel free to share them below. Solidarity can be found in many spaces.
20 Responses
Your garden is a little bastion of peace. So lovely, and I smiled at the brave yellow roses and jasmine vine.
If I don’t write down everything I have to do each day the night before, I will get out of bed 10 times after I lie down to add to the list. I’m really bad about that. A consistent morning routine is a balm for anxiety for me, though: sunlight and greenery if available (bonus points for birdsong), deep breathing, stretches, a few exercises, and a complete ban on news-reading until after breakfast and a cup of Japanese green tea. Tea is an old tradition because it works — but green contains more theanine and less caffeine in general than black, and I need all the help I can get.
My nervous system thanks you for the kind recommendations and tranquil garden photos. :) A beautiful and truly restorative weekend to all.
I understand that nighttime to do list. My solution, because I agree it’s important to get it out our heads, is to lie in bed with m7 phone (I do Duolingo Spanish before sleep) and send myself To Do emails;). Interesting information that I am guessing will be useful for people, about tea, thank you!
Can’t say enough about SAS Relax sandals. They are the only ones I’ve ever worn that don’t promote blisters on my hot summer feet. And they sort of fit a jolie laid mystique.
Ah, good to know! Jolie laide forever, AKA cool granny sandals:)
What a beautiful and relaxing garden! Your rituals sound so relaxing, too….we can all use that these days.
Yes, SAS shoes are great – so many comfortable styles, closed shoes as well as summer sandals. They come in a variety of widths, too, from AA to D….ah, bliss. Becomes more and more important with age :))
Thank you! I never knew feet could be so sensitive!
What a lovely and much needed interlude. Thank you for the oxygen mask!
Oh my gosh yes. You’re welcome, and you all have surely given me enough breathing helps over the years.
Just wanted to stop by and say that up here in the “great white north” (google Bob and Doug McKenzie to get the reference) we are thinking of you, fearing for you, and sending calming Canadian vibes and virtual hugs your way. xox
Thank you. Great White North forever! You are such excellent neighbors and right now we are dreadful.
My garden is a constant source of solace and peace. Your rose/jasmine vignette is perfection! One thing that has gotten me through since January 2025 is working jigsaw puzzles, and about 6 months ago I started listening to audiobooks at the same time to break the habit of listening to political podcasts. It worked and I found a mind calming combination that never fails to refresh. About an hour each morning gives me the reset I need. The Compound is in my queue!
Interesting. My mom used to do puzzles all the time, and my sister does now. I can imagine having both fingers and imagination occupied the universe might narrow to the peaceful and possible. Lovely.
Find any local live performance of music you enjoy. Caught two free jazz concerts by two different and equally excellent quartets this week. One played largely standards and the other strictly original pieces. Both transported me out of the chaos of the world. Loved being in an audience of fellow jazz lovers also: a community of strangers sharing an experience. Any brush with the arts and humanities reminds me there is goodness in this world.
That’s a good idea. Our local parks have weekend concerts, and the one I attended was so peaceful – the people gathered, the blue sky, the oaks, an a swallowtail. I agree about art for sure. I’ve become a member of the SFMOMA for exactly that reason.
Another very funny, poignant book to read:
Becoming Duchess Goldblatt, nonfiction
and both novels by Anne Youngston
(Meet Me at the Museum and The Narrowboat Summer)
Going to a farmer’s market in the early am.
Listening to a revenge novel: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.
Very descriptive and cinematic!
Thank you so much for the recommendations! I read Count of Monte Cristo when I was a kid and I remember LOVING it. Didn’t want it to end kind of loving it. Enjoy:)
My favorite ambient external soother is https://purrli.com/ – turn the meowing down to zero (bottom slider), and turn the purring to slower-and-steadier (most of the sliders tilted to left than to right) for the ideal effect for me. Favorite “I am trying to get to sleep but brain is spinning” hacks are low-stress audiobooks [Cranford by Gaskell – free Librivox recording by Noel Badrian was my most recent one] and imaginary journeys or imaginary garden/ball-gown/castle-interior-design plans (it needs to be imaginary or you’ll want to write things down/remember, but it is still fun and sometimes engaging enough to decide what you’d plant where if you owned a gigantic greenhouse or were tasked with creating a formal garden at a castle or a set of topiary for a theme park of your choice or whatever)
Other things I have been occasionally finding useful:
– reminders that there are people out there who are trying to make positive differences and are doing it
– participation in those efforts (deliver women’s hygiene supplies to a shelter or food bank! tutor kids! help with park cleanups! pick up other peoples’ litter! volunteer at a local library! some tiny thing you get done is still a little more than would otherwise have gotten done!)
– sending thank-you notes or thinking-of-you notes
– art
— looking at favorite art (esp. landscapes you can imagine yourself into)
— making amateur art (it does not have to be any good at all! clay is soothing; filling in an area with color is soothing if you can get over imperfections) (needle felting is The Best from my perspective, though, since you get to stab something over and over again until it’s shaped the way you want it to be; I usually do the repetitive stabbing to get things 95% into the right shape while upset and finish off things that need more precision, like faces, when I am not-upset)
– plants, seedlings, signs of life in the spring [micro or macro; I especially find seeing something where I can identify changes day-to-day or week-to-week to be helpful
– walloping bread dough
– really *noticing* good food
– vigorous exercise to burn off anger
– stretching
– memorizing good things
I hope we can get out of this together! :-)
Thank you so much. What great ideas. I have to laugh, in a good way, and the rage release via stabbing to felt:). I imagine women have done this through the centuries. Like you, I have always found that taking care of other people can really help with my own sense of comfort and happiness. I am going to try to memorize something good.
You promised us “A Quiet(ish) March,” yet you’ve followed that warning with two outstanding March blockbusters, so thank you!
BTW, you’re dead right that “coexistance=art.” That final frame is one beautiful composition, almost bridal bouquet [done by your daughter’s florist] perfection.
Perfectly said: “We work with who we are.” I am a project person, so there are various incomplete projects all over my house. All are ready to be brought forward a notch, or to completion. Yet they sit. Worse, with all those partial creations under this roof, I’ll start a new project! Very good for “protecting our last nerves.”
But something [in Italics] about this post of yours fired up my engine and I went at these stalled projects like a demon yesterday/last night! Again, thank you!
And to KC ahead of me in line here: tired of various remembered snips from high school, I decided I was going to memorize The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, so I bookmarked it for reference and am still at it. And to her “making amateur art” idea, this speaks to my pressing/mounting leaves projects, a true love of mine, every single time an invitation to the concept of flow [the Csikszentmihalyi definition].
Onward!
It’s true, quiet is not my best quality unless someone else takes the microphone;). But in all seriousness, I wanted to do whatever I could to a) ask you all to attend a No Kings march and b) take care of yourselves whether you come to the march or not. It’s pretty grueling. I love the image of leaf pressing and mounting, and now I just have to figure out what to memorize…
I learned Jabberwocky in high school. Maybe I can get that back;).