I went through that period of time years ago when I was in Undergrad. I decided to take all my hardest classes in one semester, was involved in shows in my theater department, and felt like I barely had time to eat. It was the first time in my entire life I started drinking coffee, all day every day. By the end of that semester I remember waking up early one morning for a final feeling like I was going to have a heart attack at 19 years old. Our health and vitality is within our own power but it has to be a conscious decision each moment in how we want to take care of ourselves. What I have discovered in my almost 32 years on this earth, is that when stressful times come around, we must increase our level of self care to support our body in navigating those times with more ease.
This is where finding our own personal rhythm to the day can be so very supportive so that when something unexpected and slightly intense occurs we have this rhythm we can rely on that we are still going to wake up when we need to, eat and nourish our body at the same times, find ways we can move our body and choose acts that feel like self care, and choose to go to bed so that we can get adequate rest for our body to engage in its deeper repair from perhaps increased levels of stress coursing through our system.
I'll admit, it took me quite awhile to find a rhythm that worked for me. For so long, I had no connection to my hunger or fullness cues physically or emotionally. When we can start to identify these hunger cues, they can guide us throughout our day in what is needed when. I looked at my husband last night and just named I feel really sad right now. There was no story behind, nothing that needed to be done to fix it or make it go away, it just got to be there as my truth in that moment and just the acknowledgement and giving it space to be heard and seen, the sadness naturally dissipated over time. If we are constantly on the go, constantly feeling depleted, it can be slightly harder to identify if an emotions is present, are we truly physically hungry, and what are we needing to give voice to so that we can feel connected and grounded within ourselves.