I slept most of the weekend trying to cope with feeling sick and achy. No I don’t have the coronavirus. Maybe it’s allergies.

But most often, this time of year, it’s a special brand of cold and sinus-like symptoms that make me feel like I have a swollen face, stuffy/drippy nose, sore throat, and clogged ears.

Not exactly a lot of fun.

On Saturday, my counselor taught me a new tapping routine for my face that seems to help too.

So what did I do all weekend?

Sleep more than 20 hours this weekend. I woke up long enough to meet with my counselor on Saturday and didn’t wake up until almost 2pm on Sunday.

Drink sanity chai and moistening cold tea because the sanity chai is warming and drying while the cold tea helps add moisture back to my dry self and cools me down from the inside out. Yes I need both because the moisture to make all that drippy stuff had to come from somewhere inside me right?

So what does each do? And why?

Well, the sanity chai helps in a lot of ways, but for the purposes of this post:

1. Warms me up from the inside out when I feel too cold inside and too hot on my skin
2. Has astringent herbs to help dry out the places with too much moisture and reduce swelling (inside nose and cheeks)
   1. But the drying part works everywhere in my body, not just the areas that need it
3. Helps me move stuff inside my body, improve digestion, and circulate blood – more sneezing, etc., but at least it’s coming out instead of staying in

And the marshmallow root/fennel seed cold (more like room temperature) tea does this:

1. Balances the heat from the chai so that I don’t start sweating or get a rash from too much heat coming out at once
2. Moistens the cells, tissues, organs, etc. from the inside out so that the sore throat and feelings of dehydration/dry skin, etc. go away
3. Helps with digestion and elimination so that all the stuff being moved around goes where it’s supposed to go – i.e. nutrients to the cells, blood to nourish the body, and waste to the elimination organ systems.

As for the ice packs, well I resisted them for a long time. For some reason that I can’t remember, using ice packs triggers anxiety. Lots of anxiety. But Sunday night I used an ice pack to reduce the swelling around my nose, cheeks jaws,, and eye sockets. Yes, I am being very specific because there are many places on the face that can get swollen. But these places always get swollen, puffy, and angry on my face this time of year.

No idea why. I can’t remember. Wish I could because that would help me figure out more effective coping strategies. But life is what it is.

So if I”m a little late in posting the next few weeks, it’s because I have a cold that’s not a cold and am figuring out how to stay healthy.

Thanks for reading.