Anxiety & What to Do About It
Hello everyone, and welcome back. The topic of this week’s blog is a very important one. I also need to begin this by saying that I am not a doctor. Nor do I profess to being a know-it-all, although my family may disagree with me. I am only speaking from what I have seen and experienced myself.
Anxiety…where to start? I know for certain that 20 years ago I had no idea what it meant. I didn’t hear of people having it. Why? No one was talking about it. I’d never experienced it as far as I knew. It wasn’t until maybe six years ago that I grew close with anxiety. For me, it was this dread, deep in my gut. Like a tightening; that I knew something bad was going to happen and it wasn’t going to be good for me. It seemed the longer this anxiety remained, the worse it got. For some people, anxiety is crippling. They feel actual physical symptoms. A friend of mine said it feels like a heart attack. I felt my heart beating out of control, and I used to break into a cold sweat. I used to fall into a full out panic attack, and that wasn’t good for my asthma. If I hadn’t had an anxiety issue, the trivial, everyday things would be no problem. Except that I had ANXIETY.
There were a number of things that led up to my anxiety…an abusive relationship, becoming a first time mother, legal issues, you name it. For me, these things were BIG and scary. What followed for a few years was depression. I think that was the turning point for me, because I knew that my son needed me. I couldn’t live in that dark, scary, lonely place by myself, because now that I became a mom, I had to put him first.
So how did I make it go away? Well, I didn't. I still have anxiety. Not like I did back then. I found ways to prevent it and control it. Unfortunately, with the rise of the Pandemic, it found ways to creep back into my life. Social media is the worst. Especially before bed when you know you should just turn off your phone and go to sleep. Sometimes I lay awake at night thinking about what the world has turned into and I cry.
How do I manage? Well, I don’t take medication for it. Some people need to. I use certain forms of self care to revitalize myself and distract myself from this scary world. There are times when we need to be present, like when we work, shop, or when we take care of our families. Then there are the times that you take care of you.
For me, these look like:
Journaling
Keeping a gratitude list/journal
Reading (to learn or for fun)
Watching a movie
Having a hot shower or a bath
Walking/Exercising
Getting a good sleep
Having a cup of hot herbal tea
Out of this list, the two things that actually let me express my emotions are journaling and keeping a list of gratitudes. I vent all my emotions in my personal journal. I write in it morning and night. If I don’t get time some nights, I don’t pressure myself. It’s there and it’s a helpful tool to make me feel better. Writing down my thoughts on paper is one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. It lets me vent without throwing those feelings on someone else. I can empty out the heavy thoughts and emotions so that I can spend more time on the things that will actually help me be more productive in life.
My gratitudes are a daily list of one to three things that I’m grateful for. They are different every single day. When you train your mind to think differently, you start to feel different too and positive changes take place without you even realizing.
To be completely honest, exercising, having a bath and getting a good sleep sometimes don’t help me. They actually leave me wallowing in anxious thought because they allow me time to think about the things that are actually making me anxious in the first place. The positive result comes from the endorphins from the exercise. Having a hot bath or shower feels good and is supposed to be relaxing (unless of course your kids insist on being in the bathroom too.) Getting a good nights rest clears your head so you can function on a healthy level the next day. I still struggle with insomnia some nights, and this is where anxious thoughts come into play.
The rest of my list, like watching a movie or reading are purely for distraction. I find myself getting so immersed in a movie or book that I don’t have time to think about anxiety or the things that cause it. This is a good thing because it gives your mind time to relax.
My final advice is sometimes to just let yourself have a bad day. We can’t be our best, most productive selves every single day. We need time and room for mistakes and room to grow. It’s okay to feel. We’re all human. I remember when my dad was alive. He once said to me “Why bother crying? It won’t change anything.” I replied that it made me feel better. And it does. It helps me to have a good cry sometimes. I don’t think that is a weakness. I think it shows strength and resilience because it helps you grieve for whatever reason you need to grieve for.
Also, never underestimate the power of a hug
❤️ SAN
