Keep your anxiety at bay!
We’re living in a strange world these days, we’re confined at home or we’re still working, with danger to our health. Personally I’m at home, my work isn’t essential, but I’m truly grateful for the workers who go out bravely every day, to take care of us in many different ways. Nevertheless both situations can provoke stress and anxiety.
I had a moment of anxiety last week, not because I was worried about the situation but, because I had something important to do which I wasn’t used to. I made it way too big in my head before I even started and got anxious.
What I did then was call my daughter because we’re in business together too 🙂 and talked about my worries. Afterwards I had a good conversation with a dear friend, about the same topic and although both tried to reassure me that all would go well and that I was not to work so hard, the advice I received just didn’t sit well.
I always question and challenge myself, my thoughts and my feelings.
What I took out of the situation, is that I have to get out of my head and into my body, meaning instead of thinking, I have to act.
When I stay in thinking mode in situations that are out of my comfort zone, I overthink and make it much bigger than it is.
Usually when I start doing, I just go one step at a time and that’s what I did.
So when I started to act, in that moment I put pencil to paper, things just started to flow. It didn’t take me a long time to finish my exercise and it was much easier than I thought. As opposed to when I was in my head, thinking about it.
Everything comes with taking action. For example, if you want to lose weight, you can think about which kind of diet you will follow, how many days per week you will train, to which gym you will go but if you don’t put your clothes on and actually work out, or if you don’t make the healthy meals you know you need to make, you will always stay at the same weight or even putting on weight.
Same with stress and anxiety. Get out of your head into your body, move, do something physical, you have a good chance these feelings will disappear.
Take into account that you can’t make good decisions in a state of fight or flight.
The old part of your brain (limbic system) where the emotions lay, is activated, and the prefrontal cortex, where the decision making center lies, has decreased activity.
Therefore your reactions in a state of stress or anxiety is more emotional based then logic.
A good and easy thing to do to cope with stress and anxiety, is getting back to the breath.
Practice deep belly breathing or whatever pattern of breathing you prefere. You will feel tension disappear from your jaws, shoulders, neck or whatever part of your body feels tense at that moment.
Your brain will calm down and when that happens, you’re going back again to good decision making.
I hope this will help you too, as much as it helps me in times of stress or anxiety.
If you want to learn more about these techniques, don’t hesitate to get in contact with me. Let’s talk and get you into a more relaxed state 😉
Keep healthy, keep safe!
With love and health,
Monique