Tag: stress

when anxiety tools aren’t working…

High anxiety has been part of my life for a very long time, and some days are worse than others. And sometimes, those high-anxiety days turn into high-anxiety weeks (or longer). That’s the way it’s felt recently.

There are tools I keep in my metaphorical toolkit for calming and de-stressing. These are things that have proven to be helpful for me over the years, things I turn to time and time again. Things like breathing exercises, prayer, painting, taking walks, tapping, aromatherapy, brain retraining, porch sittin’, watching comfort tv, meditating, and other tools and techniques for quieting an anxious nervous system.

But I’m going to be honest. When my fear is stuck in high gear, the tools don’t always seem to work.

When that happens, I’ve found that it’s best to layer tools. I need to do a combination of different things, and sometimes I have to experiment to find which combination will work on a particular day. And sometimes I have to do this in an off-and-on sort of way because the effects might not last long.

And I’m going to be honest again. If the anxiety is super high, the effects might not only be temporary for me, the effects also might be quite limited when it comes to how calm and less anxious I feel.

But I consider any reduction in the high anxiety to be a positive step.

Do you have a metaphorical anxiety toolkit of techniques you can turn to when feeling stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed? It’s worth it to have one and use it…and if it seems like the tools aren’t working, try layering them.

❤

porch time…

Sitting and relaxing and unwinding. Breathing in the fresh air. Getting calm. These are some of the benefits to having a space outside to retreat to and sit for a while, especially on a regular basis. For me, it’s our little front porch.

I call my time out there my porch time. (Also known as porch sittin’.) And it’s something I’ve come to consider as being essential to my well-being the past several years.

Porch time is a time when I usually read whatever novel I’m reading. Sometimes I have my coffee out there. Sometimes my husband joins me in porch sittin’ and we enjoy the fresh air and nature sounds. Sometimes I take a TV tray out there, get settled with my tablet and foldable USB keyboard, and work on my writing.

Sometimes I don’t do anything but look at the sky and breathe, doing my best to release whatever stress and anxiety I’m feeling.

Our porch is very small and quite narrow. But it’s covered, so it protects from sun and rain. There’s room enough for a wooden park bench along one side and a folding camp chair on the other, and little outdoor pillows for each, so it offers spots to sit and relax. We have a couple of small stands and tables out there, so it gives room to place coffee cups and books.

And since it’s literally right outside my front door, I don’t have to get in the car and go somewhere to get to a relaxing spot…which means I can spend time there even if I’m having a low-energy or off-balance day.

In cooler months, I put on a sweater or jacket while I’m out there, and I have a lightweight flannel throw to keep me extra cozy while I read. When it’s hot, I can take one of our small battery-operated fans to help create a breeze. The weather (especially when it’s cold) does keep me away more often than I’d like. But then I get back into the routine of it as soon as I can because it is so important to my mental and emotional well-being.

Porch time is calming and relaxing, but it’s even more than that for me.

It’s grounding.

It’s restorative.

And it’s healing.

Do you have a space like that in your life? Somewhere you can easily get to, a place to unwind and breathe and get grounded and simply be?

I hope you do. It can really help.

❤

tapping to calm…

Last week I had a dental appointment. It was for a routine cleaning, the type of dental appointment I’ve had regularly for decades, so you’d think I’d be okay about it after all these years.

But dental appointments, even for routine visits and cleanings, give me huge anxiety spikes.

As far back as I can remember, I’ve felt nervous about visits to dentists and doctors, but the anxiety got worse at some point during the past twenty years or so. And it seems like it just continues to get more severe as the years pass.

So the anxiety was very high before my appointment last week, but there was one thing in particular that helped bring it down.

I tapped to calm.

Tapping (also known as EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique) is something I learned a long time ago, back in 2008 when I first got involved in energy work. It involves tapping on certain points of your upper body while saying certain things about what’s going on.

It sounds woo-woo and weird. As time goes on, though, more is being understood about exactly why and how it works, and studies have shown what we who have experienced it found out firsthand: tapping can be helpful for a variety of things, including anxiety.

There are definitions, videos, articles, and books out there about tapping that can do a much better job than I can do of explaining or describing it, so I’m not even going to try doing that in this space.

But I do want to recommend my favorite tapping YouTube channel, Brad Yates – Tap with Brad.

Brad’s channel goes back well over a decade and has over 1,500 videos, most of them quite short and all of them easy to follow. When I want to tap about something going on in particular, I’ll visit his channel and input my concern (or problem or issue) into the channel’s search box, and I’ll usually find several videos to fit what I want to address. I simply follow along.

If you’ve never tapped before, it might seem strange or feel ridiculous at first. But it’s easy. It doesn’t take much time at all. And it helps.

I’d say it’s definitely worth a try.

❤