Little Ways to Make Anxiety Less Awful

          Anxiety is something I struggle with pretty heavily. It hits hardest in the car because of a recent car accident, but it happens a little bit about everything. People I don't know looking at me in public, people I do know wanting to hang out, health concerns, and messes all make me very anxious. It'll probably even take me ten minutes to decide that I want to post this anywhere because I'll be afraid of people judging me even though logically I know nobody will really notice because they're so busy living. Anyway, when the sky is falling, here are some ways to prop it back up for long enough to handle it.

Step 1: Find Time

            The first and most important step is to make some time for you to take a breather. I know, you have a million things to do and they're all urgent and need to be dealt with so you can meet your deadline or so you don't forget about it and just not do it and then ruin everything. I feel that way too, but your health is important. You have to be your own priority. Think of it this way; you have two lists of priorities. One is your Life Priorities List and the other is your Daily Priorities List. Your Life Priorities List should always have health at the very top. After that everyone has their own list like morals you won't compromise, general life direction things, stuff like that. Then on your Daily Priorities List there are things like specific tasks, social life, paying bills (usually at the top of the list) and that type of thing. The way these lists should work is that LPL should always win over DPL. If going at the pace you're going is going to compromise your health, take one of the things (important as it may be) and move it a little later so you can have some you time. It can be hard to make that call, but you're worth it.

Step 2: Environment Fixing

            Find a place where you can spend a little time to just gather yourself together. If you are an indoors person, make it your room. If you're an outdoors person, find a park. Once you have your place, it's important to clean your house. I know, it seems like such a simple thing, but when you know everything is in order at home, that's one less thing that's on your mind when you're trying to deal with the EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME of life. Then, if you're an indoors person, make your space pretty. find a way to decorate your place with things that you love.

 I chose a to make a canopy over my bed with an old comforter I thought was pretty.

 I keep my prom dress hanging up where I can see it,

and I hung up my favorite parasol and some mobiles I made for my friends.

        The point of these is to remind you of things you love and make your environment a more enjoyable to be. My dress, for example reminds me of the year that some of my friends and I made or modified our own prom dresses. We would have sleepovers and work on them together and watch movies and gossip. It was a very happy time. After you have the look down get the smell you want. It could be a perfume or a wall plug in, whatever works. Then, once the room is set, find a way to spend your you time. A comforting movie, a great book, a long bath, a nap, a facial, anything that relaxes you.

         If you're an outdoorsy person, the place you want to be probably a,ready looks and smells great, so you can skip that step. Go to your place and take some pictures or go for a run or listen to music, anything you can find to do. 

 I like to take someone cute with me to talk and walk with.

Exercise can also be a magnificent way to relieve stress. (Context: I hiked here with friends)

Step 3: Set Goals

           This blog is actually my way of doing this. When you feel like you're buried under a landslide of stress, pick one thing. Write everything else you need to do down and forget about it so you can focus on that one thing. Throw your whole self into accomplishing that thing and then when you do, reward yourself and keep going. At the end of the day, if you didn't get to everything on the list, arrange to do it tomorrow or enlist help getting it done. Having a goal keeps you from feeling helpless and without direction. 

            My goal was to blog every other day to keep myself consistently doing something that may be difficult because I might not always have something to talk about, as was the case today. Then I started to get anxious about not being able to keep the commitment that I made and then BAM there was my topic. That's another great thing about setting goals; it's a way of learning to deal with low-level anxiety. It's like training yourself to find different solutions to problems than you might have originally thought of an being flexible enough to see them.

          And finally, the most important thing remember is that if your anxiety is ruling your life, you need to talk to someone about it. Anxiety and depression are hard to deal with and dealing with them alone only makes them worse. When you are ready and in a safe place, talk to someone you can trust and get help. You are more important and loved than you can ever know.

Wow, that got heavy for a second. Um... Hold on... Need to end on a light note...

Nailed it.