Anxiety – Medium Level | Somewhat In Control

Hi guys and welcome to my place! 🙂

It’s time for me to continue these series. Sorry that it took so long, but these are not as easy to write as reviews posts… I need to somewhat feel 100% inspired and already have an idea what I am about to write, but hey! Here am I!!!

First a disclaimer (as always): I am not a psychologist nor a doctor! Second, the tips I am going to give resulted to me, it may not work for you! You will need to try it out and see for yourself the ones who work or not. Please if you are reading this probably you suffer anxiety and are looking for some help, this way I strongly advise you to go to your doctor to start treatment ASAP.

Now, with that out-of-the-way let’s start it shall we? The tips I’m going to give you are when I found myself with medium level of anxiety. What is medium level of anxiety you ask? Well, let’s see… I started to have somewhat control in my anxiety. I knew that it was still there, but I was able to notice when my body was going to start in an anxiety spree and shut it down, making me more relaxed throughout the day. But do not take me wrong, I still did have some panic attacks. But, in this phase they were way less frequent than when I was with high level of anxiety (not that it was that difficult since I had one almost every day). So yeah, this is for when you feel that you have somewhat control over your anxiety.

First I want to say that most of the tips I gave you in the last post still apply here. At this moment I already had mastered most of them and I was able to notice pretty quickly if they were working or not, if not I was able to change strategies fast and try another that would possibly work. To be honest, after re-reading all the tips the only one that does not apply would be the “Don’t put yourself in situations that you know that will trigger your anxiety”. You can read all the tips here!

So, if I told you not to put yourself in situations that will trigger your anxiety, here I will tell you completely the contrary:

Test yourself and put yourself in situations that trigger anxiety

Now, this has to be with baby steps and be prepared that for the first times you do this it will trigger your anxiety a lot. But the thing is, if you don’t face your fears then you will never be able to show your brain that it has nothing to fear to begin with!

Going to give you my example. If you remember I told you that I was completely obsessed with germs and because of that I wouldn’t eat anything that dropped on my house floor or even in the kitchen balcony. Well, this was the time I started doing it, consciously! Let’s say I was cooking and while passing the food to the plate some of it went and fell in the balcony, well I would just take a deep breath take it and eat it… It may seem a small thing, but I guarantee you it wasn’t! In the first, second time I did this my anxiety went rampage and I had to deal with an upcoming panic attack in the next few minutes. However, it did work… After several times my mind stopped to see that kind of things as a threat and at the moment I literally don’t think twice when something may have some germs attached to it. As a result I don’t get any kind of anxiety.

So, when you start to feel that you have a little control and decide you are ready I suggest to test your boundaries and more than that push those boundaries.

Start doing things that you stopped doing when the anxiety kicked in

Maybe this is just a personal thing, but I stopped watching/playing horror. Now, as you know, I LOVE horror theme media! But, when I was having peaks of anxiety every day I though to myself that doing things that would scare me was not really that great, specially because at the moment everything was fuel for my mind to linger and start having irrational fears of anything. Sharknado? Don’t worry! My mind would start fearing sharks in a tornado! Doesn’t make sense? Tell that to my anxiety!

So, in the same way that I tested and pushed my boundaries with the food, I did yet again with horror related stuff. I’m not going to lie, when I was starting the first horror movie I was literally sweating but, in the end, I just ended up enjoying it and  felt proud of being able to do it! Nowadays I can fully enjoy the thrill of horror movies and horror games again. I live for the scare jumps that even lead me to say cross words out loud 😀

Time to focus on other people

When we feel anxiety is just normal that we start being way more egocentric than we normally are. This happens because there is so much happening under our system that we forget to even look to other people and their own problem. I can’t count the times people were talking with me and I just thinking “I’m not hearing anything you are saying because at this moment I’m trying my best not to have a panic attack”.

The thing is, helping others and stop thinking about yourself does help and this is the moment you can finally be somewhat relaxed to the point of actually hearing other and helping them. It’s completely normal shutting yourself up when having anxiety and this it the moment to start getting out of your shell again! 🙂

Time to focus on YOURSELF

What??? Didn’t I just said that you should focus on others? The thing is, at this moment you are able to have time to focus, I mean you just gained so many hours in a day where you just spent thinking about anxiety and panic attacks! So, with all this free time it’s time for you to start slowly working on yourself.

What do I mean with working with yourself? Well, I mean a lot of things actually:

Working on the root of your anxiety

Why do you have anxiety in the first place? Normally the things that you fear are not really the root of your anxiety (Example: I never got sick by eating something that fell in the floor, so why start having panic attacks from one moment to another?), so this is the time to really understand why do you have anxiety and what was the root of all the illness. More than that, it’s time to start working on it so you can pass that obstacle, or let’s say, if it’s something that you don’t have any control, then it’s time to start accepting it and move on with your life. Now, this will take a LOT of time! So, don’t worry if that doesn’t work out in a few months. (Heck I’m still working in some of them at the present!) Other thing is, if you see that you are getting more anxious while thinking about it, stop and try other day! You have a lot of time, no need to rush it. (I didn’t say it was easy!)

Relaaaaaax!

Remember that feeling of just feeling relaxed? That sweet, sweet moment that you just feel comfortable and enjoying yourself? Well, you are finally able to feel that way. I was in high level of anxiety during months, and well, I was never ever relaxed! I could be focused on something, yes… but let’s say that sit and watch an Anime episode without having any kind of anxiety trigger thought was just… Impossible! So, now that you finally have the possibility to have this enjoy it!

Treat Yourself

Now if you are like me, you stopped doing what made you feel better with yourself. Here are some ideas: long baths, taking the time to apply some kind of cream in your face that will give you the impression that you got prettier by just doing that, get a haircut, things like that. Basically the ideas I gave you in the Love Yourself post in Valentine’s day. It relaxes you and more than that makes you feel an improved version of yourself. Because of anxiety you probably stopped doing this kind of things, or if you did, you weren’t enjoying them to the fullest because of all the scary thoughts that never stopped, so it’s time to start doing it again.

I think that everything I said is possible to do it in a phrase. It’s the time to start recovering your life again, building relationships with others and start attacking the root of your anxiety. There! One phrase! But let’s be honest, if I did that I didn’t really have any kind of content to write a post… Moreover, that phrase is that kind of mambo jambo that everyone knows but when comes to understanding how does it apply, nobody knows for sure. This way I prefer a longer post with objective and practical tips.

I hope this post helps you and like me, that these tips work for you! 🙂 Again (although it’s never too much) I say: My door is open for you if you need to talk! I’m no doctor, netheir I have a psychologic degree, but I’ll do everything in my possession to help you 🙂

See You Soon! 😀