Because anxiety sucks. That’s why we need coping tactics.
Some woman contacted me this week kinda randomly because she was hoping I could give her some techniques to help her deal with anxiety.
Which always makes me wish you could hug people over the internet. Because I’d totally do it.
And because: ohhhhhhhh. Anxiety = not fun.
Normal, yes. Anxiety is generally pretty normal for anyone who has lead even a slightly interesting life, but no, not fun at all.
Let’s talk about that.
Point one: Anxiety is normal
Now this is where I’m probably supposed to give you the whole “don’t listen to me, I’m not a shrink” spiel and direct you to my fancypants disclaimer, but pretend I’ve done that so we can get to the point.
The only people who haven’t ever experienced anxiety to some extent (and I know you’re thinking that “some extent” is hardly as crippling as yours but trust me on this) are not people you want to be.
People who have not been writhing on the floor in terror at some point in the past few years have either been leading extremely boring lives …. or are so repressed and overly-self-disciplined that it’s going to come back and bite them in the ass. And you don’t want to be there when that happens.
The rest of us deal with anxiety. Life is full of hard and scary because it’s always in flux. And believe me, it’s normal and it’s human to freak out when the scary shows up.
In fact, I’m feeling slightly anxious right now, wondering what I’m going to say in my brain-training lecture at the Berlin Yoga Festival tomorrow. Normal.
I work with a lot of people who deal with everything from minor “whoah, having a moment here” freakouts to full-on panic attacks, and believe me, it’s common as a headcold.
That is, if you can imagine for a second a world in which people didn’t admit to getting headcolds.
Point two: Thinking that it’s not normal makes it worse
Know what? I used to have panic attacks too when I was in university, and the more I convinced myself I was going mad, the more often they’d show up.
Of course, my family’s habit of dropping hints that I probably was going mad: less than helpful.
You probably can’t imagine the relief I felt when I met with a smart, funny, beautiful, capable psychologist, but try. Because she assured me that I was remarkably well-adjusted and that anyone who said otherwise was clearly off their rocker.
In the most perfect reframe I’ve ever witnessed, she said — and I’ll remember this forever —
“Hmmm … so you left home at 17, went halfway across the world all by yourself with no plans and no money, had a hundred things go horribly wrong at the same time including getting dumped, having a close friend die, and getting kicked out of your flat, and now you’re dealing with some fear.
“Well, yeah. That’s pretty much the healthiest reaction you could possibly be having.”
OH.
It took about five seconds for that penny to drop. After which I stopped worrying that I was losing it and decided to start taking better care of myself so that I could start noticing what was setting me off and what was grounding me. And that was the end of the anxiety.
And, you might say, the beginning of my interest in the mysterious and fascinating ways of patterns and habits.
Point three: There are *so* many things you can do about it
It used to be that your only option for dealing with anxiety was years and years of therapy.
Or — if you were a quick study autodidact like me — a nibble of therapy, a library card and a lifetime of intentional self-practice.
Today, though, is probably the best time in the history of the planet to be flipping the heck out.
Because there are a million great techniques out there from acupressure tapping to vipassana meditation to yin yoga to NVC (compassionate communication) to hypnotherapy …. and on and on.
Plus there are much easier ways to get started. Things like my Emergency Calming Techniques package if you’re into serious shifting and instant relief. Or things like, I don’t know, books that Oprah reads, if you’d rather just dip your toe in.
There’s choice out there, is what I’m saying.
So start reading, start journaling, start actively and passively tracking down those patterns so you can learn about how they work.
Start picking up those useful clues that are going to give you important information about how you interact with yourself and the world around you.
And when the hard and the scary show up, take a deep breath and allow yourself to be terrified. Just for a minute. Just for now. Remind yourself that you’re letting yourself be terrified, which is way more powerful than your fear.
Who knows, maybe you’ll even find out what your anxiety is trying to tell you.
*internet hug to you*
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All True, True, True. Everyone has anxiety – even that “I am totally going crazy….they are going to have to commit me….I’m losing my mind” kind of anxiety. If you listen to other people very closely – they’ll reveal this to you….but most people don’t really want to even hear about it – because it causes them anxiety.
For some reason when other people tell us “you’re not crazy” we listen to them but when we first try to tell ourselves that – we don’t believe it. It’s always good to find someone to tell you “you’re not crazy” and then it takes a lot of work to figure out how to continue to tell yourself that. Eventually you’ll figure out how that works.
You definitely have to be pro-active about figuring out the solution to your anxiety….because the alternative is not really living. But, give yourself some time…it’s not overnight success. It is definitely about learning.
Here are some examples from some of my good friends and rellies:
1) S – he needs to run – serious runs – like 20 miles when he feels it coming on. Sometimes that doesn’t work alone, and he may need to bike 30 miles, too. For S – it’s all physical.
2.)M- she has to call friends. Immediately. She needs to vent to people who love her. When you get a call from M – you know she needs you – because she’s not a big talker normally.
3.)T – she’s a doctor go-er. She has to make an appointment with a doctor. She has to be sure that she’s not dying in a physical/medical sense. Only after she is sure that she is not having a heart attack will she realize she had a panic attack and then deal with that…or not.
4.)L – she needs her therapist. She’s been going for long-term therapy -none of that short term behavioral stuff for her – she never really learned to communicate to friends in that girl-friend sort of way – she’s more academic with her friends. She needs her shrink for all the personal stuff. She has made amazing changes in her life over the years because she really wants to change her patterns.
5.)M -He chooses denial. He’s an eater. I know when he has major anxiety because he gains 10 lbs overnight. Would not be my choice, but he’s just not there yet. He won’t talk about his anxiety….ever. I feel for him the most.
6.)B – Cancels cable and stops listening to the media. She literally changes her environment by surrounding herself with different people, different places so she can regroup and think about where she was.
7.) L – also a traveller. Changing location, even for a weekend – seems to give her perspective. When she was younger she’d take leave from work and travel to the other side of the country for a month-long trip, or enroll herself in school in another country for a one month language course. it helped her think.
8.) E – she needs to feel overly useful. This can work against her sometimes….if she over-extends herself. She volunteers and pours herself into projects….it’s another slight form of denial – but it calms her down temporarily – she’s learning, slowly, that it doesn’t always work for her.
9.) N – she’s a thinker. She mulls and mulls and mulls things over – very analytical – she has to find the triggers and the root and break things down…in the end she does yoga – it’s really the only thing that truly brings her back to the moment. All that mulling is either past or future – when she gets in the moment – she’s happiest and with the least anxiety.
10.) L – 4 square breathing – a lot of journal reading and writing and trust in herself. She has to battle all the self-doubts and let others go first once in a while.
Hi Havi!
I am loving your blog posts and have been inspired to kick off my own little summer reading frenzy based on the books you’ve been recommending. But honest to God, do you really read 3 of these types of books a week?!!?
I made it through “How Things Work” but my brain hurt for 5 days looking at and trying to make sense of all the diagrams. so then I figured “Don’t Make Me Think” would be a good follow up but those
illustrations were pretty hard to look at as well. I mean without thinking damn hard.
I was proud that I made it through and stuck with it so next was
“Made To Stick” which is profound yet, like Gorilla Glue for my brain.
I am so grateful to you. I’m an eager student, you know the type- first day of school, first one in the classroom, pencils sharpened, bring on the chalkboard, So I’ve enjoyed you lighting up parts of my brain that have been idle for awhile. You really turned on my eyeballs.
Plus I’m hoping it all gets me unstuck.Thank you
Penny
@Laura Thanks so much for your insightful comment and all the practical examples. I’m sure people will find that super interesting.
Also: I’m so relieved not to be the only one who leaves lengthy comments. Hooray.
@Penny Wow. You went and read all three books? Seriously? That’s crazy. In a good way.
I am going to answer this in an actual post, but for now let me say that part of the “I read three of these a week” thing is “I don’t have kids”.
That’s not really a productivity trick or anything (no kidding!) but it does probably buy me more reading time than most people get.
Hi Havi:
I am scouring your blog this morning in hopes of finding some anxiety coping tips and other things you recommend for folks to do to help themselves when at a major low. This post helped me tons. I just downloaded your Emergency Calming Techniques. Will read it in a bit. My anxiety is through the roof since this past fall: quit my job & co-founded a company, mother diagnosed w/ a progressive, degenerative neurological disorder last month, my mother-in-law had 4 hospital stays last year (not in good health & I am so close with her), my brother is having a very hard time (I’ll leave his *stuff* at that) and I lost a very close friend to cancer.
My anxiety levels have been so high at times, especially late last year to present, that I vomit.
I saw my dr. and was put on:
– antidepressants
– anti-anxiety medication
– prescription sleep meds (non-addictive)
Do I really want to be taking those meds? no! have they helped me? yes! I was *totally* against taking this route, but i felt as though if I didn’t then I would crash & burn.
My goals now are to get back to my regular yoga practice, continue reading more (kind of hard w/ a 6 year old son) and get back in touch w/ my spiritual foundation. Daunting goals right now, but I do know that with persistence, I will get there. I listened to your ‘exercisy-thingy’ mp3 last week & you gave me some great ideas & tools to get back into yoga & walking on a regular basis. Thank you for making that free & available for everyone.
I am sorry to unload all of this on you (and others), but I thought it might be interesting for you (and others?) to see the approach I have taken (temporarily) to deal w/ my anxiety.
As I begin incorporating some self-love things, I will begin to slowly back off the meds. I hope to be off them completely within 3 months. I will let you know how things progress, if you’re interested.
In the meantime, have a glloooorious day! I know I will try to;-)
I cannot express how grateful I am to have found your site. You have already helped me tremendously. I’ve been a reader for a few months. Maybe one day I can afford some of your products. For now, though, I will just continue reading your posts and following you on Twitter!
Just writing this post helped. I think I will begin journaling now!
@Amanda – I’m glad to hear that you’re taking all the steps to make sure you get the support you need and making sure that you get extra help as you do it.
Sounds like you’ve been through a world of hard. It absolutely makes sense that you’d be falling apart, given the situation. And sometimes it takes time, love, medication and a lot of work to move through this stuff.
Reminding yourself that you are absolutely allowed and entitled to be a wreck right now is really important. Anyone else in your shoes would be too. You can fall apart as much as you need to. You’ll always be there to come back to.
Take care, my dear and so much love and luck to you in your process. Talk to me on Twitter sometime!