Anxiety!

anxiety

noun

1. 1. 

   a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome.

   "he felt a surge of anxiety"

   synonyms:

   worry, concern, apprehension, apprehensiveness, consternation, uneasiness, unease, fearfulness, fear, disquiet, disquietude, perturbation,  fretfulness, agitation, angst, nervousness, nerves, edginess, tension,  tenseness, stress, misgiving, trepidation, foreboding, suspense;

In the past year I have gone through a number of traumatic personal experiences that are not related to the Osteoporosis but, and I will admit, was pretty concerned that the stress and upset of the experiences would have a major impact and even negatively reversing effect on my bones.
Stress as we know is a major issue as it effects cortisol levels which in turn knock your hormones out of sync, which effects your stress coping mechanisms, as well as numerous other reactions like getting snappy, tired, short tempered, resigned, disconnected, forgetful, intolerant, short attention span.

So what is it with the Anxiety then? I rarely suffer from anxiety, but I did much earlier in the year and it was at times rather terrifying. The thing about it is that you go in circles so you stress yourself more, because you know you are anxious and then that exacerbates the situation. Shortness of breath, tight chest, feeling hot and cold, panicky, unreasonable, sometimes palpitations as you are trying to sleep as your heart seems to be galloping like a horse round a course -  hell for leather! Insomnia can kick in, brain whirring, a feeling fear and foreboding but you aren't sure what about, its like an every present black cloud just about or near you, lurking in an ever lingering ''Im going nowhere'' ominous kind of way. Shrugging off that cloud is tough. It takes calm, support, love, reassurance, someone to believe  in you, but it also take you the sufferer to actually sit down and really look at what it is thats bothering you!

I had to force myself to sit down and write a list! I wrote - in fact it sort of spewed on to the page -  all the things I was worried about, but then something more came out, things that I really didn't want to admit to myself  let alone anyone else, and thats when I knew that I had hit the issues! Anxiety is often derived from those darker fears, the ones that go against your true self, against your gut feel. These are the nub of the issue and until you can identify and face these the anxiety can't be released or dealt with or faced up to!

Its funny, whenever I have done anything in my life that was truly against my gut feel and against what I personally call my 'true north'  - my inner self and belief system and guiding hand, I have battled with it, reasoned with it, justified it, persuaded it and trying to purssuade myself, yet it grows stronger and more deliberate like a bear banging the cymbals beside your head -  it jolts you, your body vibrates and your head is ringing.........the inner knot solidifies inside you, and then clenches as it grows.......you get a tightness in the throat, and a sick feeling, your head feels fuzzy, panicky wobbles start to sweep through your body, sometimes tears and uncontrollable crying ........so why oh why do we fight this stuff! ITS NOT A GOOD FEELING. It also drives an adrenaline style shock through the body as you try to regain control again.........maybe its this that we use to move us forward, but what ever it is, when you suddenly realise what is the actual core ball of anxiety causing all this, its both terrifying and a relief.......


So I Wrote that list, and then I wrote the stuff underneath that list, and underneath that -  its what in NLP terms we call chunking down, or peeling back deeper and deeper to find the root cause.
I had to make some decisions about whether ignoring the gut feel and that 'thing' was something I could carry on with. It seemed like a huge wall, built all around me, but then a small brick seemed to slip and then another and bit by bit they were crumbling down. Now Im not saying that any of this process was pretty, or happy, or in any way a good place to be, but the anxiety knot was easing -  I was taking control again, of my own gut feel, and allowing it to steer me back on track again........pointing me back to true north.


There are a few techniques I used to help me and they are pretty simple:

BREATHING- Everyone talks about breathing, but this really does work (I took a few classes in Hatha Yoga to learn how) and that identified for me an easy way to control the feeling as it was welling up. Meditation is also good for balancing your breathing and centring yourself to restore a bit more calm.....

DANCING -  yes -  this might seem a mad one, but if you have ever watched Greys Anatomy you'll know what Im on about when you're having a truly rubbishy shitty day and your person pulls you up to your feet, sticks on the cheesiest tunes (I find Living in Electric Dreams is an instant winner!) and you dance -  who cares how or what you look like, but damn it works, you are so busy bopping about that you sort any sense of anxiety with a shot of endorphin, silliness and by getting out of breath, your brain is now focusing on that and not that thing you're anxious about!  -  ok so this won't resolve anything but it gets rid of that nasty rising feeling dealt with.

WRITING THE LIST - and then the other lists  -  dont worry you dont have to share them! but by writing it down it really helps clarify where its coming from. It may be rational or irrational fears that you have grown up with..............things like NLP timeline therapy, tapping and hypnotherapy can often help with dealing with and releasing some of those!

DO ONE THING -  take one thing on the list, it doesn't matter how small it is, but go and deal with it! Get it done. Because feeling overwhelmed is all part of it, and by doing even one thing, it is reshaping the issue to something more copyable with and you can break it down bit by bit!

Anxiety is also something that OP sufferers feel -  they  can be anxious of falling, leaving the house and hurting themselves, breaking something from lifting, or twisting..........this is a rational anxiety, as its well founded in sufferers and  is a very real risk; but where we have to be careful is that the more we focus on some of these things,  the more likely they are to actually happen -  WHY -  because when we get anxious we tense up, and when we tense up, our body is not flowing freely and our limbs aren't swinging the way they were designed -  this can put us off balance and cause a fall.........

I found this article below recently and wanted to share as its a really great thorough summary of how to support someone with Anxiety. and lots of great insights too.........

http://curebank.info/13-things-to-remember-if-you-love-a-person-with-anxiety/