Irritability

You notice it in the way your shoulders rise when someone arrives late. In the tone with which you respond when your partner leaves something lying around. In the short, sharp pull through your chest the moment the child ignores you for the third time, the moment a colleague interrupts, the moment the person ahead of you in the supermarket packs too slowly. It is an inner flaring — small, quick, often well concealed, but perceptible. Your nervous system reports: this doesn't fit. This is not how it should be.

Medically we know the companions of chronic irritability: tension headaches, digestive complaints, skin eczema, liver strain, joint pain, sleep disturbances. The body carries the constant micro-activation. It pays the bill for a nervous system that permanently stands in defence mode.