I think it’s such a funny turn of phrase to say battling anxiety or battling anything that isn’t physical. I automatically envision brandishing a sword to my own mind in an animated form, if only it were that simple. If only the mind didn’t have it’s own metaphorical sword.

It’s 11:37 pm on Easter Monday and I have really appreciated this long weekend. I haven’t gotten up to much, mainly sleeping, catching up on shows and drinking lots of tea. The sleeping is the best thing. I’ve appreciated being able to sleep in and sleep through most of the day when usually I would have be jumping out of bed.

I’m hoping that this will help me in the weeks to come. Help me deal with interactions, work and everyday stresses. I can’t be sure, I don’t think anyone can be when thinking about the future, but I hope it will.

A little while ago I came up with a little list of 5 things that help me when battling anxiety and I thought that I should share them.

1. Music; sometimes loud and yelly music or good singing music, other times contemplative music, or music with lyrics that make you stop and listen, and sometimes a good classical piece by Bach or a jazz number by Curtis Fuller.
2. Move; shake it out and shake it off, an impromptu dance party can really help to reset your body and your breathing. Jumping around, going for a run or just changing your scenery can also be a great reset technique.
3. Breathe; whether you watch a calming gif for breathing, or you count to ten while breathing in and out. Closing my eyes and concentrating on my own breathing helps my heart rate to slow down and my stomach to unknot.
4. Water; nice cold water, little sips, concentrate on how good it tastes. Sometimes rinsing it around my mouth, making sure my gums are hydrated and my tongue is coated before swallowing it can really help. Actually tasting the water instead of just drinking it because we’re told we need to.
5.  Write; getting thoughts and feelings and words out into a physical place can help them from running around and around your own head. This can be a letter to no one, lyrics to a song, a poem, notes to yourself or whatever you need them to be. I guess this is why I wrote this list in the first place, to share it on some level.

I’m sure I could write a list of 10 things that I actually do when I get anxiety, or when I feel my anxiety creeping up and taking over, because what does “get anxiety” even mean? If I already have anxiety then I can’t get it because I already have it, right? It’s there, it’s always there, it just lies dormant sometimes making you think that everything’s okay and that you can keep doing what you doing, go about your day as normal and just see what happens.

If you suffer from anxiety what do you do in order to deal with your it? Have you found my tips useful for battling anxiety? Have you been in a situation where you can’t do anything to avoid it or battle it and you’ve just had to “deal” with it? I have and I might write about it another time but I’m leaving this here for tonight.

Lizzie X