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.

Well I can wholeheartedly recommend taking a Vitamin B complex (i.e. the whole combination) - it's an established nerve tonic and will certainly reduce your irritability and help make you calmer for longer spells. Choose one with a fairly high dosage e.g. 100 mg daily of each Vitamin B. Any excess that is not required just gets flushed out, since it is a water soluble vitamin. My experience is that it takes about one and a half hours to kick in and lasts about 2 hours, i.e. may need to take it about twice a day to time it for those particularly stressful occasions.

If you have a yeast-related condition, e.g. athlete's foot, thrush or candida, then buy one that's yeast free.

You probably realise that a young child will pick up and reflect your mood/irritability, so not showing your present condition to the child (as much as is possible) would benefit you both.

Also do you meditate? This might also be helpful to you.

[moontulip]

Originally Posted by amy green

You probably realise that a young child will pick up and reflect your mood/irritability, so not showing your present condition to the child (as much as is possible) would benefit you both.

Also do you meditate? This might also be helpful to you.

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

[Kaere]

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

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 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

I have so been where you are, was there yesterday in fact. As I type my 3yr old is screaming his fool head off, when I need a break we sing, music, I swear sooths everything. I play bounce stuff hip-hop, pop, rock and we get the crazies out. Then I slow it down R&B, soft soothing sounds, sooths us both. Usually he just wanders off for some time in his room. It really works when the weather is bad like today or 108 degrees. Or we clean, he loves being a big boy and helping me around the house, we just don't do anything he can destroy lol. Good luck.

[Silver]

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!

Originally Posted by Seven

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.

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.