Hope your hands are continuing to heal, but so sorry about the constant, "on guard" anxiety that's been with you lately. If it's any consolation, my good friend, who is a social worker, is experiencing the same thing right now. For no reason she can pinpoint, she's at a heightened state of dread, fear and anxiety this past week. So even the "experts" who are trained in this field are baffled by what triggers it and how to make it stop.
Your reminder that my tics seemed to start acting up around the time I started working at the shelter got me thinking and you and I may have stumbled upon it: about the time I started working again, I stopped taking daily walks with my dogs. When I retired I made it a point to take long, daily walks with them (for their sake and mine) but after putting in over 10,000 steps while at work, I stopped walking the dogs. The steps I do while working are NOT the same as taking a relaxing, leisurely walk with the dogs, so when this heat and humidity does down, I'm going to have to force myself to start doing that again. I'll bet it will make a difference. I would love to walk them at night after dark when the temperature cools down a little but I just don't feel safe walking after dark these days. :(
I've got a new distraction developing today: my teenage nephew is going away for a week and asked me if I would come get his iguana and care for it while he's gone. So I will be obsessed with researching and caring for a new pet for a while.
Sue