More of my friends are adopting the “brain weasel” nomenclature than I would have, perhaps, anticipated. This makes for quite efficient conversations:
“My brain weasels are loud today...”
“Tell ’em to sod off, the little buggers.”
“Sorry: I have brain weasels today.”
“No worries - let me know if you’d like to meet up later...”
Today someone was able to use the term to let me know that they were having a difficult morning. Then they asked: did I have any advice? Turns out that... yes. I rattled off a pretty decent list. Revised version below, because I thought it might be useful to others:
Help! I’m in work and the brain weasels are snapping. What can I do?
Thing is, you can’t exactly go back to bed, can you? So here are some work-compatible things to do:
- Maslow it - drink more water (go and do that right now), eat well, ensure you feel safe/ physically comfortable in your environment.
- Adrenalin seems to mute them. Maybe go for a brisk trundle at lunchtime. If something more strenuous is an option, maybe consider that...
- Listen to (powerful, strong, happy, or positively defiant) music. Plug it in, baby!
- Pick a thing (it can be absolutely tiny) and do it well today. That often shuts them up. If it works, do another one. Rinse, repeat. One step. Then the next. The day is over. You won.
- Treat them like a belligerent fundamentalist/ troll* - when you answer their snide little accusations, they’ll switch tack. You can choose to ignore them or refute every argument. Both approaches take energy, but ignoring/ refuting also demonstrates control, which giving in and admitting they’re right (they’re not) does not (it also saps energy, but builds no strength).
Think of this like physical health: - If you exercise, it’s hard work at first and hurts, but less work long-term, because you have a fitter body to carry you around in.
- If you either go into to denial or decide that you’re determined to beat an illness, you’re WAY more likely to than if you just meekly give in. Hardiness for the win.
- In my experience/ opinion, comfort blankets DO NOT WORK. They will just give the metaphysical rodents more ammunition. So do something challenging you know you do well; don’t resort to sugar/ caffeine/ alcohol/ Facebook/ mobile phone games, etc.
- Find someone pleasant to talk to who has the time and energy for you. Don’t feel you have to talk about your problems, but do talk about stuff you like as well as stuff you don’t like.
- Make a plan for the evening that involves healthy behaviour (exercise, good food, early night, helpful social time, etc. - even if all that happens is you go to bed early out of all of those, making a plan and executing it will feel excellent and tell those pernicious, furry idiots off good and proper)
A favourite refutation I came up with recently was when I was trying desperately to find something, brain foggy and starting to hyperventilate, and the weasels said: “Hah! You’ve lost it! You’re rubbish! You don’t know where it is!” and I found myself saying: “Yeah? If you’re so much bloody** better than me, you can tell me where it is then! No? Then shut the hell** up! From now on, you’d better prove you’re actually better than me any time you try this nonsense, or you forfeit all right to bloody** criticise me!”
I won’t deny it - that did feel good...! :)
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*fundamentalists come in all forms - pick your poison, it’s not all religious
**The language was a lot worse than that - swearing is very energising, if you’re me...
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