When Anxiety Attacks
I’ve talked about this a bit, but 2018 is shaping up to be my busiest year yet. Before I even turned the page on my desk calendar to January 1, I already had a ton of dates booked up and some pretty big plans: two trips (one business, one pleasure), a couple weddings, some showers, various celebrations and gatherings, some Broadway shows and other events, and a move… [more to come on that.]
Sure, it was a lot, but it was a lot of good stuff that I was super excited for and it made me look forward to the year and all the exciting things to come.
But then I realized something: sometimes a lot of “stuff” can be the opposite of exciting. Sometimes a lot of “stuff” comes with feelings of anxiousness and being overwhelmed. Sometimes when you’re adding “stuff” to an already busy schedule, you realize…
This is too much stuff.
I need less stuff.
That’s what happened to me in the past couple of weeks, and I started experiencing that all-too-common reaction to serious stress: anxiety. Cool! When you’re super busy, that’s definitely something you want piled on top of the thousand other things you have going on! Long days and WAY TOO MUCH stress at work coupled with busy weekends and quite frankly — no time to relax, ever — resulted in me experiencing some real uncomfortable bouts of anxiety. I had serious heart palpitations, stress-induced migraines, an inability to calm myself down from that constant feeling of frazzled nerves, and an overactive brain that couldn’t stop obsessing and dwelling over it all.
I did what you’re supposed to do in situations like these when you realize you are going through something and need some help. Talking to a professional therapist or medical professional? No! I took to Twitter, obviously.
I got some AMAZING responses to this tweet and it made me realize just how much I was exacerbating the problem and adding to my anxiety. For starters, I was too immersed in the news/current events and getting myself wrapped up in the chaos of devastating school shootings, a President who has the ability to make me feel unhealthy rage, and WAY too much negativity. I want to be well-informed, but at what cost? I watched the endless coverage from the Parkland school shooting and wondered why the overwhelming anxiousness I had felt all day wasn’t subsiding. Derrr.
Aside from that, the media I tend to consume for entertainment falls in the same category: shows about murder/crime/death/rape/suicide/etc. flood my DVR and line up my Netflix queue. I normally can handle it and tend to gravitate towards television and movies with darker premises, but at some point you gotta ask yourself:
When my body is going through severe stress and anxiety, is this show about Gianni Versace being brutally murdered a good choice?
Probably not.
Thinking about this stuff and some other things weighing me down, I decided to make some quick changes:
- I found some lighthearted TV to watch that wasn’t about people dying (rather, people getting makeovers! The new Queer Eye on Netflix almost singlehandedly cured me, y’all)
- I went to sleep playing calming playlists on Spotify, rather than dozing off to the sounds of CNN and consuming all the shittiness of the world right before bed.
- As silly as it sounds, I focused on breathing and other self-soothing techniques so I could remove the million thoughts swirling around my head at any given time in an attempt to feel CLEAR.
- I did some serious problem solving and thought about how I can alleviate some of the “stuff” on my plate. While we can’t control everything in life and a lot is out of our hands — what CAN we control? What CAN we take off our plates? What CAN we say no to? It’s important that we asses and at least try.
- Two words: SELF CARE, muthaf*ckas.
cheers to that, honeyyyyy. (seriously, watch the new Queer Eye if you haven’t already)
Oh, and when in doubt? Your body will literally FORCE you to calm down and relax by getting you sick; giving you no choice but to slow down and focus on not just improving your mental health, but your physical health as well. That’s what happened to me this week when I found myself with flu-like symptoms, a fever and a cough that wouldn’t quit. Ideal? No. Pleasant? Of course not. But the ONE silver lining is it caused me to take a much needed break from everything including work, social media/this blog, and even some fun social stuff.
Look, we only get one body, guys. We need to take care of it.
