I know I’ve said “I feel like the Lexapro is starting to help” before, but at this point I’m willing to upgrade it to “it is helping a lot.”
It’s also giving me extra-vivid dreams as well as hypnopompic hallucianations (while transitioning from sleep to wakefulness). Nothing disturbing, mostly just weird and amusing. This morning it was a red and green flickering LED clock that very clearly read 2:47… in the opposite corner of the room than our actual clock, which is blue and which I can barely read even with my glasses on, when it was more like 5:20.
But I’ll take the weirdness, given that I’m not panicking or even dwelling on worries so much now.
The most common anxiety experience I’ve had for the past few weeks has been noticing that my heart rate was pounding/racing without me exerting myself. I’d assume that was either panic already in progress with an unknown trigger, or that I have some kind of heart issue to worry about. So I’d dwell on it, which would sustain the worry and/or elevate it. I had some guesses about a possible trigger but they didn’t really pan out. I finally realized, it happens within a few minutes to a couple of hours after eating, especially if I stand up or move around a bit. And it’s a fairly normal, harmless physiological thing which can be increased if you take insulin (and various other things, including stress levels). Heh.
Saturday when I noticed it happening, I still dwelled on it a little, but less. Today? No problemo, cool as a cucumber.
I’ve also been considering various devices that might be able to give me insights (like health tracking rings/watches) or help in relaxation or meditation. I read a lot of reviews and arguments, marketing stuff, etc. and weighed various pros and cons.
Oura Ring: seems to be the best of the health trackers for the job. But it requires a subscription for full analysis of your data. I thought maybe comparing objective measurements to my feelings might give me more perspective, but some folks with anxiety are actually triggered by the additional data and AI-powered analysis, so that’s a gamble. I think this will depend on how things progress with therapy, and how I feel about it at a later time.
Reflect Orb: a squishy ball that you hold while meditating or relaxing, which measures heart rate variability and rates your stress/calm with a simple 4-color light ring. Then you can sync to an app and get a timeline and overall trends. Reviewers tend to be positive on it, but it doesn’t do anything else. It’s unclear what you lose out if you don’t have a subscription (otherwise I’d have considered buying a used one). And the company is Israeli, founded by a former intelligence agent, and there were some kind of squicky interviews talking about the need for stress relief after the Hamas attack.
Mendi: a headband that links to a smartphone, and a focus training game. Concentrate on the ball and it rises, lose focus and it starts to fall, keep up a streak as long as possible. Then it tracks your stats. This is supposed to help in general with focus, clarity, and maintaining calm. But for what it is, it’s expensive, and there are some doubts about the accuracy of the sensing method. I also feel like direct feedback on calm vs. stress would be more helpful to me than focus in particular.
Pulsetto: a tVNS (transdural vagus nerve stimulator) device that you wear around your neck. There are some mostly good reviews of the product, a concerning number of negative reviews about the customer service, and some really questionable marketing.
Truvaga Plus: a handheld tVNS device that you hold up to your neck for 2-minute sessions. It generally has excellent reviews and is the consumer version of an FDA-approved, by-prescription-only device the same company makes. It’s quite pricey, apparently has trouble connecting to the app at times, and their somewhat cheaper (but still not cheap by any means) standalone versionhas a non-rechargeable battery and is only good for 350 2-minute sessions before it becomes landfill. I wonder whether the Plus version reports usage data since I can’t think of many other reasons why it’d use an app.
Zenowell Luna: a tVNS device that’s like a 2005-era MP3 player with a single earbud (except electrodes rather than audio). Also excellent reviews, aside from a few people with the wrong ear canal shape. (I’ve had no trouble with any kind of earbuds I’ve tried, so I don’t think I’ll have this issue.) There’s an older and a little cheaper version, but this one has twice the battery life and an additional program mode designed for headache relief, which since I get migraines sometimes might be useful. The other modes are Sleep, Relax and Meditate — there’s no app or Bluetooth connection required. I decided to go ahead and give this one a try.
The German company that owns Native Instruments, Izotope, Plugin Alliance and Brainworx has filed for insolvency. The blame can no doubt be placed on venture capitalism. This represents a signficant chunk of the industry and a lot of customers who might not be able to use a lot of plugins critical to their workflow in the future. Hopefully there will be some kind of solution that prevents everyone from getting screwed over.