This is who I am

Did you know that clenching your teeth together too much can cause migraine-type pain?  It’s true.

I went to the dentist today to get a check up because I had some crazy severe pain last week and over the weekend, and the dentist feared it was an abscess.

This concerned me, because I have great hygiene.  I don’t floss every day, but I floss probably three times a week, which isn’t terrible.  Every other aspect of my dental hygiene, however, is fantastic.   So I was trying to figure out how my teeth were in such bad shape that I could have gotten an infection in the root of one of them.

Well, I didn’t.  Apparently I’ve been over-clenching my teeth lately, which landed me in bed for two and half days last week and weekend.

When the dentist asked me if I had a lot of stress in my life, I had to stifle a loud laugh.  Lately my life has been nothing BUT stress.  There was the paper, the illnesses, the relationship stress, the Church under the Bridge drive, and various forms of spiritual attack, to name a few.

He told me to take ibuprofen for the pain, remove the stress, and do something fun and relaxing to help release the stress from my body.  Now I just need to figure out what that is, but I think part of it is that I need to spend a lot more time alone.

Unfortunately, that means a lot less time with you wonderful people.  It’s not that I don’t love you all dearly, it’s just that I need to maintain my own sanity, and reading for homework doesn’t count as “alone-time.”

I also need to find a hobby that I really love to do…something besides rock-climbing or geocaching…those are too competitive.  I need something that I won’t turn into a competition…something that makes my soul sing…something other than writing, because I put a lot of pressure on myself to make that perfect.

What do you do to de-stress? Who knows, maybe you’ll inspire me!