Living Peacefully with Anxiety

Hello, friends! 

This week, I've been feeling anxiety more than usual. From being stuck in my thoughts throughout the day, to having difficulty shutting my mind off at night, it's been a reminder of what my reality used to be. 

I've lived most of my life in an anxious state. The reality of growing up in an alcoholic home is insecurity; I never knew what kind of house I was going to walk into and rarely had the chance to develop my own identity. This insecurity taught me to always think ahead, planning for the worst. Add this to my negative self-concept and you have a recipe for anxiety that's resistant to change.

Through my personal development, learning what anxiety was, why it is there, and how to live with it was important in finding literal and figurative peace of mind. Please note: this is not focused on "getting rid of" anxiety. Anxiety is an incredible motivator, teacher, and kept us humans alive from our early predators. The issues we find today is that our predators have changed from bears, cougars and tigers to co-dependence, upcoming bills and expectations. 

Let's do it - here are some simple strategies to calm your mind, accept anxiety for what it is and use it for your advantage.

Have a Meditation Practice

We'll start with the simplest and most effective strategy we have at our disposal: meditation. Meditation is your one-way ticket to mindfulness, using breathing and focus to let 'everything else around' melt away. Our breathing is unique in that we can take control of it whenever we choose. We can use this to pump ourselves up before a big sporting event, or calm ourselves as our day comes to a close. In short, we can influence our sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous system, commonly known as fight-or-flight/rest-and-digest response. Through breathing, we have control over which response we experience.

Now, it's important to highlight the word practice here. Like anything in life, the first time you try something, it's going to be awkward and clunky. But, the more consistent your practice is, the more consistent your results become. It's like shooting a free-throw - you only improve through persistent effort.

I have two simple strategies for you:

1) Take 15 seconds to remove all of your expectations. This is my favorite go-to when I want quick relief from racing thoughts. The biggest lesson here is the undue pressure we put ourselves under. When I practice this, I am able to appreciate myself for the hard work I am putting in, love myself despite my flaws, and snap back into the present moment.

2) Watching Thoughts. So often, our anxiety can come from trying to control everything and everything. Thinking back to my childhood, if I could control it, I knew the outcome. But in life, we can't control everything. In fact, we can only really control a few things: our attitudes, behaviours, feelings and thoughts. 

Wait, you just said anxiety comes from trying to control your thoughts, and now you're saying I can control it?? 

Sort of.

The key in this practice is to realize that your thoughts are not your own; they do not represent who you are or what you do. We can choose to listen to these thoughts, or disregard them. This practice involves doing some deep breathing, drawing specific attention to the top and bottom of your breaths. Next, tune into the thoughts running through your head and watch them. Imagine these thoughts are behind a pane of glass - all you can do is observe these thoughts. What you will find the more you practice is the ability to let go of unwanted thoughts as they come. Reminder: meditation is not about have zero thoughts - changing your relationship with your thoughts is what matters. I'll write much more about this in the future, but for the moment, download a guided meditation app - Simple Habit is my favourite right now.

Healthy Diet and Exercise

This is pretty self-explanatory, but deserves repeating: what you eat and how you move is what you become. We you eat chemicals, you're going to be a slave to chaotic chemical reactions. If you do not move your body, you are not giving yourself one of the best stress-relievers we have as humans. We were meant to move and eat real food. Change this, and watch your world change. 

Get on a Routine

 

Our brains crave patterns. If we live chaotically (eating whenever we feel like it; going to bed whenever the mood hits us; not keeping a schedule), our brains will find this stressful. One of the biggest game changers in my life was reading two books: Sleep Smarter by Shawn Stevenson and Own The Day Own Your Life by Aubrey Marcus. Both of these books stress the importance of routine in your day. You see, when we create a pattern, our neuro-pathways change; the patterns we do more often are insulated by myelin, making our responses easier and more automatic. This can work positively or negatively. Ever find your phone in your hand without even thinking about it? That's myelin. But, this can also happen with things like making your bed, having a sleep schedule, working out and meditation. The more you do it, the more automatic it becomes. 

How does this help anxiety? When we take chaos out of our life and add in order, we're going to find some peace and control. The less you have to worry about your daily routine, the more mental energy you can devote to the things that matter.

Start a Gratitude Log

In today's age of comparison and projections, we tend focus on the negative. One only has to turn on the news to see how much negative information is presented. This can lead to us only focusing on the negative parts of ourselves. Or worse, we look to what makes us unique as a flaw. 

A gratitude log is a way to focus on the positive. Try this: next time you find yourself in a critical or negative head space, ask yourself what you are grateful for. What myself and many others find is what we focus on depends on what we ask ourselves. If you're constantly asking yourself "why am I so dumb/useless/unloveable/etc", that's going to be your focus. Hello anxiety.

A gratitude log is another pattern builder. When we go to bed, we want to turn our thoughts down and settle into happy-time. If you already have a journal practice, wonderful. If not, this is a good place to start. At the end of each day, list 10 things you're grateful for. What you may find is you begin focusing on the positive more and more.

What you focus on is a choice. Choose to focus on the positive. 

Use It

Anxiety is a great learning tool. Learning how to reframe it is the tough part. For most of my life, I looked as anxiety as my inner-critic: always showing me what I wasn't doing and why I'm worthless. But, as Christine Hassler points out, we can give this critic a new role. By finding compassion for ourselves and putting aside our self-judgments, our inner-critic can become our inner-coach, showing us the areas we are neglecting, which teaching us what satisfies and fulfills. 

Anxiety can be understood in a couple of different ways. When who you want to become and who you currently are differ, we feel anxiety. We are fearful. The other way we can experience anxiety is the resistance we feel when working towards an important goal (to read on this subject, pick up "The War of Art" (not "The Art of War")). Either way, when we are critical and judgmental towards ourselves and our efforts, we make things worse. 

What anxiety has taught me is when I try to live up to the standards of others, expect perfection or focus on what I'm not doing, my mind is a war zone. Without anxiety, I would not have learned the importance of self-compassion and self-love. I am thankful for my anxiety.

Talk with Someone

No one person is an island.

When we try to fight things alone, we are at a disadvantage. Even tasks which we can do ourselves are made easier with help from others. If anxiety is something you struggle with, welcome to being human. Everyone can relate to being anxious, and many have learned to live with this anxiety peacefully. If you know a friend or family member struggling with anxiety, share this post with them. Talk about it together. Together, we are strong; individually, we are weak. 

I also encourage seeking some help if you want to streamline this process. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness; it is the craving for efficiency. Check out the one-on-one section of this site and take advantage of our launch prices.

Who you choose to surround yourself with is who you will become. While you can't choose your biological family, you can choose the family you keep today. Choose to surround yourself with winners, supporters and success. 

That's all I have for today. The biggest thing I can stress is finding what works for you. Have some of your own strategies? Drop them in the comments below! 

I hope you have an amazing week and find peace of mind!