I? Am really, really bad at remembering to relax, let alone already _being_ relaxed.

This has always been a problem, in that my shoulders and upper back tend to hate me on a regular basis, but is much more of a problem with the tendonitis.

I _have_ to force myself to concentrate on spending a few minutes relaxing, especially shoulders/neck/arms/hands, both when my computer forces me to take a break, and when my wrists are actively being twingy at me. This is... difficult. Especially since any level of concentration likely means that I'm tense (so... even things not particularly involving my hands or wrists, like movies with any sort of intentional tension caused, are problems), so any time I get interested/involved with something, I'm likely to be tense and need to take a break from it (an exception is reading a book, I believe, except that requires holding something).

This is a problem, and one _hell_ of a hard habit to break. I had already been working on this, but I now both have much more reason to do so and much more immediate feedback if I am or am not doing a good job at it. If I'm not - or only barely - in flare, pain signals are useful feedback for this, and the hard plastic wrist braces I have force me to use the rest of my arm instead of my wrists as much, so I am more likely to notice if shoulders are tense.

It's... interesting. And I _know_ much of why I'm still having as much trouble as I am is the tension issue I have. (well, that and the fact that sleep was already problematic, and has huge effects on my healing) Especially when high levels of frustration also tend to make me tense (and seriously stress me out and wreck havoc on my cope levels; one of the easiest and most consistent ways to get me to cry is high levels of frustration). And... not being able to do things that I 'should' be able to do, or do anything _else_ if I want to be able to do daily living things (jasra is handling large amounts of daily living things requiring hands, for me, right now, allowing me to not _only_ do such things, and allowing me to work)? Very frustrating.