Mental Health Week 2017: Anxiety Stripped Down

There are many reasons why I feel the need to write a blog post about anxiety. One of them being, Anxiety feels like a hidden disorder, many of us have it yet we are so afraid to talk out loud about it. Anxiety seems to be frowned upon because we are seen as shy rather than anxious. Secondly, because It is mental health week 2017 and it is so important to be open and free about Mental health.

I've lived with anxiety for almost all my life. Its not been easy. Anxiety isn't easy. However, it can get easier as time goes on.

Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, unease or panic inside when faced with situations we are not comfortable with, or day to day running's of life. It is a strong desire that we have inside that something is going to happen, almost a second voice in the back of our minds guiding us away from doing what we want.

Symptoms of Anxiety: 

• Unreliability to make plans, often the person backs out last minute, seems reluctant on making plans or agreeing to do something, 
• Unrealistic view on problems or worries
• Irritability 
• A sense of restlessness or feeling edgy 
• Headaches
• Nausea 
• Difficulty concentrating 
• Needing to go to the bathroom frequently
• Trembling 
• Trouble sleeping or staying awake 
• Tiredness 
• Panic attacks or phobias 
• Being shaky 
• Going silent or "shy" in large groups of people

Anxiety happens in so many ways and is different for everyone. Most of us have more generalized anxiety, this is where we get scared of going outside the house, worrying what people think of us, talking out loud in a group of people/ at school, or just being outside around strangers etc. This kind of anxiety is characterized by extreme worry about everyday life events without a proper purpose or reason why. People suffering from this tend to expect the worst possible case scenario and disaster. This creates worry and panic in situations that happen within everyday life, whether its about their health, school or money. Anxiety creates an issue. The worry felt is more often unrealistic and an extra weight carried by the mind. The anxiety felt dominates everyday life. It controls thinking and interferes with the functioning of day to day events. It puts pressure on making relationships with people. It puts in place fear and uncertainty.

Friendships and relationships can suffer due to anxiety. This is because there is a constant voice in our head overthinking, telling us different. Sometimes as people with anxiety we get scared and we tend to isolate ourselves instead. Anxiety then wins, it dominates the way we live and how we grow as people. People who don't suffer from anxiety then find it hard to comprehend with the constant need to be reassured and often they don't get the same thought process of panic and worry we do.

As humans we almost feel anxiety is a natural state of thinking. However it is not a natural thought process. We don't implement anxiety on ourselves, yet somehow we trap the feeling of being nervous and stop ourselves reaching out to the things we want to do most. Anxiety almost becomes a safety blanket. It feels like comfort. It tricks us to think its normal. It almost feels weird, and unnatural experiencing no anxiety in certain situations. We almost point the blame at the mental health aspect of anxiety. Yet we put it on ourselves. Yes anxiety does happen through trauma, life events or situations. Yet we are the ones carrying it on. We are the only ones who can change anxiety. That sinks deep within our minds when we finally join up the dots.

The truth is anxiety can only be cured and undone through ourselves. We carry the anxiety through with us and we almost complicate it further. Once it sinks in that YOU have to want to change, you will. Anxiety is a journey. It isn't a overnight process, but by seeking advise, even cognitive behavioral therapy and by making small changes, anxiety can be overcome.

One step in changing Anxiety or anxious behavior can be done just by discovering your fears. What is it that makes you feel on edge? What situation have you been in to make you feel that way? - The first step is finding the root to the problem.

There are many triggers for fear in everyday life, we cannot always work out why we become frightened or feel like we could be harmed. It is all to do with our emotional part of the brain which sends danger signals to the body. It is learning to find coping mechanisms and ways to change our thought process of panic and danger. It is growing to become less aware of what could go wrong and thinking of what is the worst that could happen.

As anxiety puts fear inside our minds, it creates nervous habits. Habits can be created through our behavior because we have given ourselves this label of blaming the word "anxiety" and being angry because we are having to go through the pain and suffering of anxiety - it is acceptable to be anxious, however we are excusing ourselves getting better and outgrowing the anxious thoughts. However, habits can be cultivated, we can change our behavior. If we are able to trap the thought or the situation which provides makes us feel nervous we are able to look into this and change the way we act.

A step in the right direction is understanding the underlying problem. This is done by finding out why anxiety was developed in the first place, and why it has effected us in the way it has. It has to be to an extent where trauma or answers are brought up to the surface to pull apart why we have ended up this way. Only then it is possible to begin to reduce our constant negative thoughts, feelings and behaviors. We can then find ways and solutions to turn them into positive ones.
As we begin to discover and learn about why anxiety disorders work, a lot of the fear becomes reduced and removes from the mindset. Once understanding and learning the problem, we then are able to focus on recovery. The true answer lies between understanding and growing past our thoughts.

Once we begin to understand and believe why we behave the way we do it becomes easier to change. We learn different behaviors through life, and we can change behaviors too. For example, we learnt how to swim, whilst being afraid of water and the deep end. Same thing with anxiety we become afraid of situations and the deep water. However we can build ourselves up to the deep end - change those behaviors into more positive ones. Once we begin to let go of the past and move forward, we can begin to build bridges over our nervousness and panic. We can learn to glue together our weaknesses in order to make strengths.
We need to learn to become more positive and happy with ourselves, say yes to situations that scare us, test our boundaries and learn to grow as a life change, not one big jump. Then lastly begin to feel more control and confidence. Be yourself, be proud that you are who you are, and most importantly stay true to you.

We often get caught in a false materialistic happiness due to the up rise in "self-fulfilling prophecy" we get caught in a cycle of "not being good enough" and anxiety and depression increase leading us to feel we are failing the system. - Break out of this system, one step at a time.
It is important to look into our own behavior and admit our faults, and learn to change or develop certain aspects of ourselves.

I hope this striped down version of anxiety helps at least one of you. Please keep in mind there are millions of us suffering with anxiety, even though you may feel alone, there is always someone suffering just as much as you. Believe in yourself the way I believe in each and every one of you reading this. YOU can overcome anxiety. YOU can go to the party you want to. YOU can speak in a room full of people. Test yourself, you can do it. Just remember, One step at a time, one jump first before you leap. As always you can always message me for advise, help or support. Thanks for reading!

"Don't let the fear of what could happen make nothing happen"

Does your phone cause your sadness?

Are our phones taking over our lives? It feels that nowadays every conversation, meal or day consists of somebody with a mobile. We hold them when we eat at the table, we use them while we are bored, we use them to tell the world our lifestyles, we use them to portray who we are, we use them to interact and we use them to explore and learn. But do we know when to stop?

As humans we are becoming more and more independent to this false sense of happiness we get when we use our phones. It releases dopamine into the brain. Dopamine seeks pleasure and enjoyment therefore it attracts you to find things which could be "bad" for us. It encourages us to desire, to want more, to need to feel more. I guess we get desire and happiness through the things we see on the screens of our mobiles and computers.

Phones have become a barrier for our emotions and life skills. We lack social interaction. Many of us forget how to pick up the skills to make friends, to go outside and be happy. We are almost afraid of intimacy and getting close to people because we are discovering new methods of pushing each other away, ignoring one another and hiding behind phone screens to prevent who we really are.
 Many of us use social media to express our lives and to keep up to date with the latest trends and gossip. However we have become so obsessed with trying to portray a "perfect, happy life" we forget that we are only trying to convince ourselves. Yes, some of us are out there living their dreams, hopes and goals. But there are also some of us who feel to put a false sense of achievement across social media to trick the world to thinking we live a certain way.  This is done through images, and constant updating about our lives. However we forget that not everything is as it seems on social media. We don't see behind the scenes of every picture. We don't see the loneliness or the hours spent hating ourselves, the tears or the heartache. We have become so invested in trying to be everything we aren't on social media, in the hope that people believe we are worthy. We try to pull emotion through the content we put up, we try to be something in order to feel we are achieving enough.

We are constantly in a viscous cycle of comparison. It is so easy to compare peoples faces on screen, compare ourselves and see what things we think we are missing. We connect with people on different sides of the world and many of us have friends we have never met online. We portray ourselves as people we wish to be because we have power to say anything behind a screen with no filter. It is very easy to get lost in a virtual world and perceive ourselves to be the person we are when we type without having to speak out loud. The keyboard is a comfort barrier for what we can say whilst still having time to run away, however face to face conversation wouldn't allow us to change or have time to run after speaking. Reality is you can never run too far from who you are inside. Being someone you're not online wont change who you are offline, it wont bring you more friends, it will bring you a false sense of accomplishment.

 Technology gives us a false sense of connection. A lot of us focus most of our time and energy on less meaningful relationships with people across the internet. We put on a false front because the person on the other side will never really know who we are, we almost get lost in a world of fantasy, we begin to believe these people are in our lives. But really we are trapped inside a screen. This
then pushes us away from the people we actually make real connections with in life.

Anxiety and depression are on a growing rate linked into us always using our phones. Technology has become so advanced we are able to track everything and anything within seconds. The whole word "trust" has diapered. We no longer know how to put our life and soul into the hands of someone else. We are always able to see what our significant other is viewing, liking, or messaging. We have this whole overwhelming sense of jealousy and uncertainty when making friends or connections. Technology is helping to contribute with people not giving each other attention, intimacy, and real deep conversations face to face that mean something. We are getting to comfortable with just staying inside and watching t.v., typing on social media to one another we are forgetting real life. Everything is more meaningful face to face. We are becoming so comfortable hidden behind screens we forget to go outside to pick up the social skills that are essential to live. Many of us go and hang out with our friends yet are still effortlessly engaged with our phones. We constantly have the urge we are missing out on something.

Is happiness finishing your long day of work to go home and sit and scroll at your phone for hours on end being envious of other peoples lives? Is happiness confiding in strangers we will never get the intimacy to really feel or meet?


DO MORE THAT MAKES YOU FORGET TO CHECK YOUR PHONE!