I was exhausted, had a headache, and felt nauseous. I felt the butterflies flying through my chest, my thoughts scattered every which way and focus eluded me. And I hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet. My eyes opened in recognition that my nemesis, anxiety had come to visit.
I usually deal with anxiety by immersing myself into some binge-worthy show (or The Real Housewives or some other reality show spawned by Bravo -- don’t judge me), eating chocolate and hiding from the world. But this time, I decided that I was all done with that and needed new coping strategies as these were also the same activities I enjoyed on girls night (and nights my husband worked late, and nights I spent with my daughter, and … hmmm I think I see a trend ) and I realized I needed to do something new and out of my comfort zone.
So I grabbed my iPhone, put the question to the world (well at least to my small twitterverse) and while waiting for the replies searched the Mayo Clinic and Webmd to find out what they recommended (Meds, Yoga, Meditation, Journaling, huh--no chocolate??) .
The twitterverse quickly answered me with meditation (and with the meditation app headspace), a Ted Talk with new way to view and handle stress, just embracing it and being cranky and more. Thank you TwitterPeeps, the ideas were great and even more awesome is knowing I am not alone!!
I called in sick to work, watched the Ted Talk, forced myself out of bed, tried out some yoga (a story for another day) and meditation, and then put on my sneakers and headphones and went for a long walk. I did some chores so I felt as though I accomplished something, and started a journal (also recommended by the Mayo Clinic) to track where my head and emotions are on a more day to day basis.
I will confess I did scarf down some chocolate ice cream (1 cup--but oh so worth it!) while watching tv that night, but that is a far cry from mainlining straight chocolate into my system! While I don’t feel 100%, I do feel better and now have some great ideas to handle it all.
Sharing is caring, so share what ways you use to cope with anxiety and stress.
Hi Lynn,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your experiences with us - and your witty remarks are quite intriguing!
I feel that this post is a little choppy. There is a lot of great information however, as a reader I felt like it jumped form idea to idea. For instance, the second paragraph is just two run-on sentences. Instead you could break this up and be more detailed. An example would be:
“I usually deal with anxiety by immersing myself into a binge-worthy show like the The Real Housewives or another Bravo drama (don’t judge me!). But this time I decided to find myself a new solution, that wasn’t eating chocolate behind closed doors. I needed to find something that I didn’t already do on girls nights out or when my husband stayed late at the office or even with my little girl - there might be a trend here … So, in order do this I needed to step out of my comfort zone.”
While this isn’t perfect, it is a start to get things to flow smoother. I obviously don’t know your personal life so I couldn’t expand but it is a start.
Another way to expand would be to give more details on the TedTalk. I personally love TedTalks so I would have loved to know more, like the name or what the main ideas were!
This was a great start! I would just love to see a more in-depth analysis!