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Managing Anxiety

Breathwork can help with anxiety. Sometimes, when it comes to managing mental health, it's best to go back to the basics, like breathing. It seems too simple, and it is simple, but that doesn't make it any less important. Breathwork is an amazing tool to refocus, calm one's mind, and work through moments of high anxiety. The best part is that it can be done anywhere at any time.
Finding yourself falling into an anxious spiral is scary, and it's easy to feel out of control. Luckily, there are some physical skills you can utilize to fight off this feeling. Sometimes, in an anxious spiral, it's difficult to think clearly, so when I face those issues, I tend to lean into physical practices, meaning that I'm doing an action using my body and not necessarily my mind to find comfort. Using physical practices is a great way to center yourself and regain emotional balance.
Journaling can be an exceptional tool for managing mental health, and I've found creative journaling tips that have helped me reframe what it means to journal. When hearing the word "journaling," I used to think of "dear diary" entries, but now I believe there are many journaling tactics that are useful in combatting anxiety, depression, and guilt and gauging mental illness recovery progress. I'm excited to share some creative ways I've used journaling tips to assist in managing my mental health.
Suffering from anxiety is hard. With all of life's challenges, it can be difficult not to let anxiety mold itself into an ever-looming monster in one's mind. I've had a habit of elongating my own suffering from anxiety with needless rumination, worrying, and dread. But why allow my anxiety to take away from all the other moments in my life?
Anxiety and decision-making do not go together—like, at all. Have you ever seen that meme from the movie version of The Notebook where Ryan Gosling’s character asks, “What do you want?” and Rachel McAdams' character says, “It’s not that simple!”? That’s my everyday life. I’d be lying if I said my boyfriend hasn’t quoted that dialog to me on more than one occasion.
Because I grew up with the label "shy" instead of "anxious," there are a lot of things I didn’t realize I do because of anxiety, and no one ever recognized them as anxious behaviors. It took me reading about them somewhere else or hearing someone else say them for the lightbulb to go off about my anxious behaviors.
Recently, my therapist suggested that I look into how to use emotional freedom technique (EFT) tapping in recovery to see if it was something I might be interested in trying. Now, it's one of my favorite coping techniques and I think it's going to make a big difference in my trauma work. If you haven't heard of EFT tapping, it involves tapping on specific points while speaking phrases of acceptance.
I recently experienced rapid weight loss from anxiety, and it felt like a vicious cycle that would never end. My anxiety worsened with every meal I missed, and every pound I lost. It was completely overwhelming and scary, but I got through it. Read on to learn how I was able to stop the cycle of rapid weight loss and return to a healthy weight.
Therapy has been my number one tool in my recovery, but every now and again, my therapist is wrong about something, and it freaks me out. I've had several therapists over the years, and in the past, when a therapist misunderstood something I said or made an assumption that was incorrect, I had no idea how to respond. I felt ignored, wrong, and bad, and I had no idea how to say any of this to them. But it doesn't have to be that way. It is possible to speak up when you're being misunderstood.
In general, suicidal thoughts are not normal, but they have been for me lately. I have been actively working toward my recovery for over six years now, and yet for the last two months, I've experienced some kind of suicidal thought nearly every day. I don't want to die, I just want to hit "rock bottom" so I can finally actually get better. (Note: This post contains a trigger warning.)