Anxiety disorder

What To Do When You’re Anxious

Mary3 Comments

Anxiety is something that can strike at anytime, here are my tips on ways to handle anxiety and what you should do when your anxious.

  • If you can, leave the situation that’s making you anxious. This won’t always be the case, sometimes you’re at work or school or whatever else, but if you can leave. Remove yourself from the situation.
  • Take a nap. Anxiety attacks are physically exhausting. Your body releases adrenaline, which after an extreme release that can make you just exhausted. take a nap, it’ll help you feel better.
  • Take a shower. It’s very easy to not take a shower when you don’t want to do anything, however, you will feel so much better once you wash all of the anxious feeling right down the drain. It also is one step closer to getting yourself and life together.
  • Make a to-do list. I know this won’t help everyone, it might make some people feel more organized. Personally, I can better evaluate my life when I make lists, it helps me feel better, and as I cross things off the list it makes the anxiety lessen with each check mark.
  • Go on a walk/run/jog or do some exercise of some sort. A lot of people find yoga really helpful. Personally, I am not an athletic person at all, but I do find it very therapeutic to sprint as far as I can just to get all of my anxious feelings out.

What do you do when you’re anxious? These are really just some of my best tips on what to do when your anxious!

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Anxiety and Traveling.

Mary5 Comments

travel and anxiety

Anxiety and traveling for some people aren’t a good mix. For some people who don’t suffer from general anxiety like myself, they can suffer from travel anxiety. The act of traveling alone can cause anxious feelings and can even result in panic attacks which can seriously make a vacation turn sour.

One of my biggest fears since I deal with anxiety is letting it ruin things I want to do, and one of the main things I want to do in life is travel. Because of this I do try to take my traveling as relaxed, simple, and as smooth as possible. So here are some tips so that you can do the same!

  1. Keep mental list of where all of your important documents are. If you’re going international be sure to keep your passport and boarding pass together, as well as any other documents you might be. For example in the fall when I get off the plane I’ll make sure to have my passport and entry note in my hand.
  2. Have a plan for the travels. If it’s a new airport, look up where your terminal is online. Know where you’re supposed to go and be. Have print out directions and use your phone or GPS to travel. It often helps if you have various sources to ensure you’re traveling to the right place.
  3. Have a plan for the arrival. If you have something to look forward to it can make the traveling process seem more worth it. If you have anxiety about being away from home, you can do a countdown of day until you get to leave, just don’t forget to enjoy your time away. If the journey makes you anxious looking forward to what the reward is can really help to relax your mind.
  4. Bring comforts. For some the unfamiliarity of traveling can cause anxiety, if you have something that comforts you and you have the ability to bring it along, do it. It’ll definitely make the journey easier.
  5. Know things can go wrong. I honestly go into everything expecting the worst. There are a lot of things that can go wrong when you travel, if you’re prepared for them it won’t make them seem as bad.
  6. Be early. I know this is like my life motto, if you aren’t early you’re late, but when it comes to travelling it’s true. I would rather sit in an airport for three hours and people watch than trying to rush through security and running to my terminal. Same goes for driving, you can’t always plan for traffic. Leave early. Always be early. Rushing can cause anxiety, so the less of it you can do the better.
  7. Plan ahead. When you set an agenda and plans months in advance you can start to prepare your mind for the travels. If you have your mind prepared you will be prepared and less anxious. This really helps for just keeping a sound mind.
  8. Be ready for panic attacks. Be ready to calm yourself down. If you can have exit strategies, if you can’t try to have someone with you who understands. If you can’t do that either, make sure if anyone notices they understand what is going on. The last thing you want is a lot of attention because it will only fuel the anxiety. If you’re on the plane take a little walk through the aisles so you feel less claustrophobic. If you are in a car, pull over. Know how to slow down the panic or stop it, or know techniques that work for other people. It really is the worse case scenario that this would happen, but it does, and helps if you are prepared.
  9. Create a happy place. Make a distraction from whatever is stressing you out. Try to focus on something that doesn’t fuel the anxiety. Make a happy place in your mind where you can go when you close your eyes.
  10. Take a break. When you feel anxious sometimes you need a break. You just need to take a step back and breathe. Walk away, refresh your mind, don’t forget to drink lots of water. Take care of yourself. If you have to remove yourself, do it. You know your limits, don’t forget them.

Don’t let anxiety ruin adventure and travel for you. There’s so much to see and do in the world, and if you don’t want to see it that’s okay, but if you do, don’t let anxiety take that away. I am so afraid of that, but it also helps me be aware. You can travel with anxiety, it doesn’t have to stop you, I refuse to let it stop me.

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It’s Hard to Explain

Mary8 Comments

The thing with suffering from major anxiety and panic attacks like I have been for the past several days it’s hard to explain to people who don’t get it. I’ve been emailing with someone who does, and it’s so much easier talking to them than it is talking to someone who just doesn’t get it. Trying to explain you hardly understand yourself is really hard.

There are times where I just sit and sob for no reason. I’ll be in the car and I’ll just start crying. I can’t help it and I wish I could. People don’t get that. People don’t understand that I can’t control my anxious emotions and what comes with them, because trust me, no one wishes that I could more than me. I wish I could do certain things without panicking but I can’t. There are many times that I just collapse in fear of literally nothing but my own thoughts and that’s the hardest thing to explain.

It’s a struggle to leave the house or get up some mornings, yesterday for example. I’ve been finding peace in crafts, especially painting pottery. Yet, hanging out with other people is just not something I want to do, I don’t want to try and explain my sudden desire to leave. It’s hard to be with people and talk to people and be out and about when your mind is constantly looking for an exit plan. Whenever I leave my house I’m developing an exit plan as soon as I’m out the door. If I’m in a situation that involves sitting for any amount of time, I sit on the end, unless someone can approach me from the end, then I sit only one seat in. If I’m going out to eat, I have some sort of plan in case I have to leave quickly, and if it’s a rough day, I’m not going to order any food incase I have to leave and I don’t even have enough time to pay. How do you explain this to someone?

How do you explain that you don’t want to leave the house? How do you explain that before you go somewhere new you have to look it up so you know what to expect? How do you explain to a friend that you need to go home because you think you can’t breathe? These are the questions I ask myself as it gets worse and worse. It’s even harder when it comes to family sometimes because you see how it affects them. You see how they struggle trying to understand when you can’t even explain yourself. You can’t tell them what’s going on in your own mind and it’s frustrating. In my case I yell because I’m frustrated with myself, but yelling doesn’t help anyone. I yell because I don’t know what my mind is doing and it drives me crazy. I hate having no control over myself and that’s how I feel about 99% of the time. When you can’t explain how your mind works to the people you love the most it’s really frustrating for everyone.

There are times where it’s hard to do anything and I don’t know how to handle myself some days. On Friday it got so bad I just turned everything off. My phone went off, my laptop went off and that’s why I wasn’t around. Yesterday I didn’t want to write that’s why it was shit. It’s painful to get online when things make you anxious on social media. I don’t need to see tweets about stupid things (even though I tweet stupid things half the time) that’s not stuff I need to concern myself with when I spend half of my day crying.

I’m not sure why I felt the need to write all of this out. I just felt like I think people need to know that it’s hard to explain yourself when you don’t even understand what’s going on. My head is a mess of thoughts and I can’t distinguish things I should and shouldn’t be afraid of. It sucks but that’s who I am. I’m trying to cope and lately it’s not working. I’m just sharing it here so people understand why it’s hard for people like me to do a lot of things. I know that sounds dumb but I literally have no idea what’s going on in my head the majority of the time.

XOXO,

Mary.