Living with Generalized Anxiety Disorder has taught me so many things about myself. I’ve learned what some of my tendencies are, as well as what habits I fall into when it comes to coping mechanisms. I’ve learned about my triggers, what overstimulates me and what makes me anxious. But over the past few years, I’ve started focusing on other things connected to my anxiety. My GAD has always impacted my physical health, but it wasn’t something I often reflected on. Like other mental health disorders, anxiety can affect our physical health. Here’s how it impacts mine!
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Calming the Noise in My Head
I don’t know if there’s something I’ve written about more in the past month than my increased interest in meditation. And while I’m slowly learning what the benefits for me, a very helpful one became clear earlier this week. A huge benefit of reaching a meditative state is that, even though it’s incredibly brief, the noise in my head quiets down. But it wasn’t until it quieted down that I realized just how loud and constant the noise is in my head – and learned, yet again, how anxiety can manifest in people.
Continue readingWhen Anxiety Leads to Restlessness
Sometimes, anxiety is like an itch you can’t scratch. You know it’s there – you can sense it, feel it, even acknowledge it if you’re able – but you feel helpless to do anything about it. I’ve experienced this feeling a few times here and there during the past week, which is what I want to talk about today.
Continue readingWith Anxiety, It’s Always Something
While I’ve improved how I manage anxiety over the years, there are plenty of ways my anxiety manifests that I’ve never been able to get a handle on. No matter how much I try to manage anxiety in every possible area of my life, there always seems to be something that makes me anxious. Once I see what that something is, I work to manage that anxiety or try to problem solve as best I can. But when that problem is solved, it seems like something else pops up in its place that also makes me anxious. So why does this happen, and what can we do about it?
Continue readingHaving Anxiety During Vacation
Anxiety is not fun. Being on vacation, for the most part, is fun. So what happens when the two are combined? Well friends, I’d like to share with you what it’s like to deal with anxiety when you’re on vacation. It’s something I’ve been doing for years, and even before the pandemic, I knew there would be challenges when I took time off. But I’ve learned that while there will always be challenges, preparation can make a world of a difference when I try to enjoy my time off.
Continue readingA Weekend Derailed By Anxiety
I had a different post planned for this week that I hope I can post soon, but some things happened over the weekend that inspired a different type of post from me today. As I’ve written before, sometimes anxiety beats me, and on Saturday I had one of the worst anxiety attacks I’ve had in a long time. Before I continue I should say that I am doing better now, and that the situation itself is resolved. But one of the reasons I view this as one of the most difficult anxiety attacks I’ve had in a long time was because of how hard it was to not view it as an enormous setback, which is what I’d like to write about today.
Continue readingStrategies To Help Manage Social Anxiety
Earlier this week, I opened up a conversation about how social anxiety continues to exist in a pandemic, and how it can be even harder to manage because of it. It’s helpful that I can be more selective about social interactions due to the pandemic, but it also means there are fewer opportunities to try and work through some of that social anxiety and overcome it when I can. Fortunately, there several strategies and tips that I’ve learned over the years that help me manage my anxiety, and they can be helpful in most social situations regardless of the specifics. Here are some of my most-used strategies that help me manage social anxiety on a daily basis!
Continue readingCommon Types of Anxiety Disorders (From the Experts)
Continuing on the topic of anxiety disorders and their symptoms from earlier this week, I thought I could further the conversation by sharing with you all some of the more common anxiety disorders that currently exist in the United States.
Common Physical Symptoms of Anxiety Disorders
The first time someone brought up the term ‘symptoms’ in connection with mental health, I was confused. All my life, I’d been told that symptoms are diseases and chronic conditions. If something feels off, it was understood that you hit up WebMD to find out which symptoms could match up with what you’re feeling. So when this therapist brought up several physical symptoms to describe my chronic (which I didn’t know at the time) anxiety, I was put off. But once they explained further, I began to understand that certain physical symptoms can indicate other types of anxiety disorders past my own.
It Feels Like Something’s Always Wrong – And That’s Okay
Every so often, I look up the symptoms of my mental health disorders. Usually, I do it if it’s been long enough that I can’t remember the last time I did it. Sometimes I get lost and end up in a DSM wasteland (that’s the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders), but I try not to get too deep into it because I am not a mental health professional.
Anyway, I was doing this last week when I decided I hadn’t checked out the symptoms of GAD in a bit. Generalized Anxiety Disorder, aka GAD, affects 3.1% of the entire U.S. population, so it’s not like it’s an entirely foreign disorder. But since everyone is different, certain symptoms of GAD can impact people more than others. For me, it would be the ‘excessive anxiety and worry’ symptom that strikes time and again.
My Brain's Not Broken 