Nervousness

It usually begins somewhere in the stomach. A flutter, a tingling, a kind of inner wind that won't settle. Then it moves into the chest, and suddenly your heart beats faster, even though you're just standing at a traffic light. Your hands become damp, your fingers tremble slightly when you try to do something delicate. Your voice sounds a shade higher than usual. You talk too fast. You gesture too much. You cannot sit still.

And in your head? A thought carousel that won't switch off. You leap from one worry to the next, from one plan to the next, from one "what if" to the next. Your system is running at full capacity. Constantly. Even at night, even in moments when nothing is objectively happening. The tension sits in the nervous system like an excessively high base load.