What do you do when your nerves are shot?
 

Soon upon waking up today my nerves have been shot, every single innocent and non detrimental thing my 4yr old kid is doing right now is driving me crazy, I just want him to sit down and stop moving/squealing. I know this is natural and I need to chill out but it's just one of those days. What do you do when you feel on edge and easily irritable over nothing? I tried relaxing for a moment and recognizing that all that I'm irritated with is natural and healthy behavior but it's not helping me. Could this be an issue of nutrition?

Any advice would be great, thanks.

Okay, what do I do when my kids make me crazy?

Take them outside - go to the park, let them run around like crazy little people for awhile, something where I don't have to worry about what they're trying to break. Get them tired.

"Heavy work" is good too - if you can, make a game out of lugging something heavy from one place to another. It can be very calming and bring them to gentler level. Another type of stimulus, do you know what I mean? So moving bottles of water, helping to make and play with playdough, digging in the garden, etc...

This may help bring down their "jagged edges" and give you some relief. If you can have someone watch them for a couple of hours, get some extra sleep too... lack of sleep is a huge factor for me, might be for you as well.

When that's not possible, I lock myself in the bathroom with my ipod and the lights off for five minutes. No joke.

Getting outside and grounding yourself should help - hug a tree, it will literally make you feel better :hug3:

Other than that - I find that drinking something that you find calming/soothing helps, as well. For me, almost any kind of tea makes me sleepy, so if I have some green tea, etc I seem to calm right down (probably because I start dozing off, lolol, but whatever works!)
When it comes to the kids, I remember once a friend of mine used a great trick when they were watching a bunch of kids: they had the kids play a game of "Statue". All of them have to be completely still & silent- the first one who moves or makes a sound loses :D Works like a charm - at least for 10 minutes or so until one of the kids can't stand it anymore!!
Maybe combine all of the above - make yourself something soothing to drink, bring the kids outside with you, and have them play Statue while you sip your drink while leaning against a tree :smile:

Aww. Any and all these suggestions are really good ~ IF they work at the time if your kid(s) are in that kind of mood. The thought crossed my mind that you could get them to play a 'quiet' game with you - let them pretend to be mysterious yogis who sit cross-legged wearing towels on their heads, etc., just see if they can see how long they can sit still - and ask them to choose between thinking as many thoughts as they can (winner gets some sort of little prize) or whatever you can think of that they might go for or if they can empty all the thoughts in their head - or a staring contest. Been there done that! Good luck and bless you!

I don't have little children to drive me crazy but I get into an acute rage by all sorts of little things that don't normally bother other people too much. I'm curious about how I can bring some relief to this for myself as I often feel badly about being so intolerant. Great thread topic!

Take Evening Primrose Oil Capsules 1000mg. I as a male take it for the same reasons - to cool my nerves.

Great answers! Thanks alot. I'll try the pills for sure. And yeah, I hardly got any sleep last night. Thanks for the advice I feel alot better now.

Is there any way that you could leave your child with someone and have some special time to yourself, this may be very important for you and your child.

A calcium/magnesium amino acid chelate supplement would be of benefit.

A herbal nervine could be helpful too.

A (physical) stress outlet i.e. 5 minutes on an exercise bike or some deep breathing exercises, might help too.

What came to mind when I was reading your post was laughter. If you can get them to laugh, and really enjoy it, that helps the energy between you two to set a different course. When mine were little, one of the things they loved the most was dress up. For my son, he loved spiderman, and we had lots of leftover costumes from Halloween and I started buying fabric at garage sales and made him capes, and it grew to a large basket in the livingroom full of old work dresses and high heels for the girls and batman and spiderman and capes for the boys. That may not have calmed the energy down, but it made them happy and happy was much better than screaming meemies.

For the older ones, I started a thing where they would make up a story and I would write it down for them. If there was more than one, one would start with a paragraph then it was the next ones turn. That kept them occupied and happy for quite a while and was lots of fun on those days when it's too hot to go outside for long.

Of course, the water hose outside was the favorite.

Take deep breaths and try and remember you are doing the best you can, and they can sense that. Find your inner kid and play dressup too - why not? I had this crazy thought today I wanted to dance like Michael Jackson, that that really sounded like fun and I turned the TV on later today and Ellen started dancing like Michael Jackson. Maybe its contagious.

Great piece of advice Amy, its so important... :-) It's similar with dogs too, they will mirror your emotions very quickly.

Nerves:

Chamomile
Lemon Balm
Mint
Cat-Mint
GABA
Acetly L Carnitine
Alpha Lipoic Acid
KAVA Root
Cha
Chaste Tree Berry

Meditation
Walks in Nature
Organic Diet (no processed foods, no refined foods)