So … I’m only diagnosed with ADHD but also live with the assumption of being autistic which means: I recognize overload-patterns with me and follow autism-advice which almost always improves my situation.
Now I have this peculiar problem: Most of the time I work from home (which is great!) but every few weeks I have to show up at the office. On those days I get up an hour earlier than usual and take the train to the city where the office is. The journey consists of 20min bus ride, then about 1h of train and then 2 subway-rides and 10min of walking. I got a routine for that, so it usually is no big mental load.
On those days the stress-meter of my Garmin-Smartwatch is constantly at peak values. On the next day I’m always tired and drained, no matter how much sleep I get. (below you should find a screenshot from the app)
I already have noisecancelling-headphones which I wear during the journey and whenever I’m working alone in the office. Working alone in the office while listening to music on the nc-headphones is similar to my work-situation at home, but the stress-level still stays at peak.
I also try to do breathing exercises and try not to cram too many meetings and other stressful-work-items into those office-days. And I try to have the train journey as comfy as possible, my employer pays me a 1st-class-ride and I usually use this time to relax, listen to some podcast / read / watch a film or do some work which I consider as interesting/funny, like reading about some new technology. None of this seems to improve the situation. The stress doesn’t go away.
As rising earlier usually ain’t that much of a deal for me (I sometimes have weirdly early remote-meetings) and as the people I meet in the office are the mostly the same as I’m having videocalls with all day when I’m at home, my suspicion is, that it is the fact that I’m not at home but at another place which causes this stress.
So do you folks have any additional advice what I can do on those office-days to be more relaxed / less stressed / less burned-out?
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Its interesting how your stress just flies up to %100 the moment you wake up, its like the meme
“woke up”
“day ruined”There isn’t a lot I can say, other than wearing headphones and booting up Mynoise. You can also try turning off your inner noise, than attempt to listen deep inside whatever comes from your mind in a quiet space- try this until you can hear tinnitus. I call that “mindlessness” meditation, where you just focus only at your automated thoughts
I think it would be interesting to investigate the source and why it causes the stress. It might be helpful to keep some sort of journal of what you are thinking about in the back of your head (those thoughts that we have but usually aren’t directly aware of unless we really make an effort to notice them), songs that you are listening to in the moment, and things that you are doing. After a few of these, you might be able to notice patterns, then take measures to address them.
I’ll soon have another trip and try to collect better data. Thx. :)
you’re welcome! Feel free to make another post sharing your findings once you’ve collected data. you can also hit us up on the chat noted in the sidebar. There’s a room specifically for helpful support.
My stress during travelling is caused by sensory overload due to a weakness in stimulus filtering. To cope with it I:
- use earplugs or/and NC Headphones against accustic overload
- use a hoody, a basecap or/and sunglasses against optical overload
- try to read while travelling against informational overload caused by banners, screens and the like
However at the end of a travelling day I am still tired beyond measure. So I decided to work (and earn) less, in order to able to recreate and rest more.
BTW: I have the less expensive Polar Grit X, which has less features then the Garmin Fenix 6 in terms of stress measurements, but still does a good job in measuring my recovery during sleep and based on that predicting my energy level.
OK, this sounds reasonable. I will try to shut more of the journey out. Thx :)
Regarding measuring: Do you also see patterns in your energy levels when you catch a cold. It shows already before the symptoms kick in. I wonder if those data is inspected thoroughly by medical research.
Autonomic nervous system recovery values do decline, before I show any symptoms of illness. Makes sense IMO, because these values represent how good my body copes with stressors of various kind: mental ones, e.g. sensory overload, and physical ones, e.g. illness.
Not to derail, but how do you like the watch? The idea of tracking my stress levels is appealing to me.
I have a Fenix 6 Pro, which is one of Garmin’s flagships but already two generations old (It was followed by Fenix 7 and a few weeks ago the brand new Fenix 7 Pro just came out).
Their stress-measurement is some voodooesque-magik-hokus-pokus-algorithm which’s inner workings Garmin doesn’t really reveal. So from a health-standpoint I would not rely on it. It somehow uses HRV-measurements combined with all the other sensors of the watch to calculate this index but the details are obscure.
But it is an interesting data point to compare my days. For example the stress-level also is off the charts whenever I’m starting to get sick and it is much lower whenever our child is out of the house ;)
So: Yes it can be interesting but has no medical relevance, therefore I would not spend the huge price Garmin demands just for this feature. Othe features have more weight for me: It is a SmartWatch with a display which doesn’t need illumination to be readable and runs a week without the need to recharge and it is great for all kinds of sports. :)
Thank you for all the information. I had figured the price wouldn’t be worth it.
My garmin says I’m stressed all the time. I don’t know what it means. I do know that if I drink, it’s high that day and the day after. Sometimes I’ll get really stoked on something, I’m sober and my watch tells me to relax. Wish I knew what it meant.
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