This COVID-19 pandemic inducing early shopping panic, so many self-isolating needing groceries delivered, and no government or charity arranging grocery pickup and delivery for people with disabilities like me, meant it took me a week to work out where to order from that didn’t charge an arm and a leg and that actually allowed me to reserve a time slot. And that I felt did follow sanitizing procedures from filling my basket to delivering it. They’re all running low, I hear from those who can go to the stores, and they don’t have enough drivers to deliver. I finally figured out last night that if I wanted a time slot I had to go to the online grocery store at 12:01am. And I had to be super quick — not easy on an iPad with slower processing of brain injury — to capture a rare free delivery slot before somebody else did.
By the time I was done long after 1:00am (I’m not a quick shopper on an unfamiliar website that crashed once), my eye bags looked like they were overfilled with grape juice and I felt ill with fatigue. I didn’t get up till noon — after my normal morning routine of CES 100Hz as I dozed and then my weekly high alpha AVE session.
What was SMR/Gamma AVE going to be like under these circumstances?
I managed to do my SMR/Gamma audiovisual entrainment (AVE) within the time frame I’d decided on, some time between 12:30pm and 1:00.
- I didn’t listen to the radio but a church service.
- I had the same war with hip pain and deep relaxation as yesterday.
- Relaxation more effective today.
- Didn’t experience much open awareness during.
- I had an unexpected pop of energy (which writing this is sucking up, sigh) a minute or so after the session ended.
- Happy gamma rose a few minutes after the end of the session, and I was no longer in a funk nor so mentally fatigued that chatting online felt onerous. Still needed an online break, though.
- My mind expanded its awareness out slowly more and more about 20 minutes after the end of the session. It made me feel like my normal Sunday chores were doable, but I’ll have to be careful to do them slowly with many breaks because I know from past experience that if I launch into that feeling, my body will pay me back. I need to have fully recovered from the energy drain of midnight grocery shopping before I can buzz around even for an hour.
- Vigilance was still down a bit before I began today’s session. It’s not gone like after my first session, but it’s not screaming either.
Update 6:30pm: Most of the effects wore off after 4.5 hours. I think I’m going to aim for six times per week between 12:30 and 1:00pm. Since I don’t have to go out to appointments any more (freedom!), I can schedule things like this in the middle of the day every weekday. I need to take a leaf out of a fellow brain injury experiencer’s book and schedule a new routine for my days. The coronavirus is screwing up even my Sundays.
