I have officially not knit since Sunday at 7pm! The good news is that my elbow feels fine again. However, I have noticed a side effect.

As part of my child psychology class, we had to do an experiment on ourselves like with Pavlov's dog: change a bad habit to make it a good one or to make it go away. I had read that crochet was a good activity to get rid of stress. So I crocheted for two weeks (I didn't successfully make anything). That exercise helped me with my nervous tick of constantly picking at my nails.  So when the official experiment ended, I continued it, but switched back to knitting because I enjoyed that more. That was the summer of 2009, when my time spent knitting started to go through the roof.

Up until my injury, any time I had to sit and listen, I had needles and yarn in my hand. It really helped me to be productive. I didn't have one unproductive moment. This is why going so long without knitting is rather remarkable.

There was a negative consequence...knitting does not remove stress. One would think that after years of knitting to avoid picking at my nails, one day would be nothing. Wrong! I was watching TV yesterday and I couldn't stop moving my hands. They were going to my cuticles, my arms, everywhere. I was constantly moving. Finally my boyfriend had to grab both of my hands to keep them still. What did I do? I gave  him a hand massage.

So my experiment ultimately failed: no matter how long I replace a bad habit with a good one, my hands will still be going going going! At least my elbow is pain-free. It felt fine last night. Still, no knitting today. I will go to the gym and see how it works.

Lesson: take a break from knitting for 10 minutes after having knit 45 minutes.

Happy knitting!