Tips to handle Anxiety - what works for me

Hope you're all having a lovely Friday morning or evening wherever you're in the world. Mine didn't begin that great today and I wanted to talk about it.This year, I'm determined to bring a more authentic self to social media which means you all are going to be subjected to a lot of ranting.😀

I'm not sharing this for sympathy but for awareness. The world is sometimes not a kind place and we all have so much to deal with in our lives.

Today's one of those days where my anxiety is riding me so hard it's hard to breathe...This manifests as:

1. Racing thoughts - I can't tell you how fast my mind jumps from one thing to another and usually it's all negative ones. This makes my breath all choppy and I move through the house restlessly, and if I'm alone, just banging on things.

2. A knot in my throat and complete overwhelm as I look at my to do list: sometimes I end up crying. And it's actually a release and a relief.

3. Way too short leash on my temper. I usually tell the girls first thing that I don't feel good without scaring them. That my mind feels a little too jumbled up and that I need some quiet. They hug me which sometimes goes a long way. Sometimes doesn't.

4. Constant looping of negative thoughts that I can't get out of: They're all framed like this: "I wish my life wasn't so..."
"Why am I spending time on this? It's never going to amount to anything?" "Ten years later, I'll still be in the same place."
"I mess up everything." "I'm such a failure."
"Everyone's better than me." "Where did it all go wrong?" etc.
It's so hard to break out of the loop.

Usually, my bandaid fix for this is to ditch everything, lower my expectations to zero and then veg out on the couch either netflixing or losing myself in a book. This is only a bandaid fix because while the anxiety might pass, everything that was overwhelming is still there.

Also, it's kind of self sabotage because I'm letting all that negative talk turn into truth.

However, when it's really bad, vegging out is the only option and I try to be kind to myself. But when I'm on deadline, the vegging out becomes another thing that induces more anxiety. Vicious cycle anyone?

But as my self awareness grows - this is something I constantly work on, every day, every minute, I spend time digging into what had set me off. Sometimes, there's a reason - like today. Sometimes, there isn't.

Now for things I have learned work for me to calm those racing thoughts:

1. Take my journal out and retrace my steps back to before the racing thoughts began. Writing down my fears and insecurities is a meditative, almost magical experience that makes my mind release those fears at best, and at worst, morphs them into tiny niggles instead of huge boulders breathing down my neck.

2. A Long Walk with a favorite audio book - This is such a no brainer. Being outside the house immediately makes me feel better. No explanations needed.

3. Clean the house a little with Hindi/Telugu songs that I used to listen to a lot when I was growing up. My parents always had some music going on in the background ALL THE TIME. Which means I calm down because all those songs have such safe, familiar associations and I inherited their love for music too. There's also something very therapeutic about cleaning your physical environment. I think it gives me back a semblance of control over myself. If I can clean this, I can clean my mind kinda thing.

4. Talk to a loved one - this is also a no -brainer. If I talk to my sister during this, I whine. My brother - total snot dripping cry. Hubster - Yelling and Venting and then calming down.

These are things that work for me. They might not work for you. You might need medication and reaching out for help is the best thing you can do for yourself. So please take it all with a pinch or a heap of salt.