Wednesday Worry tips
Welcome to Wednesday worry tips and thanks for stopping by! Every week I’ll be sharing tips and nuggets to help with worry and anxiety – from the absolute basic foundations needed for our nervous system and brain to function at it’s best, how to calm your nervous system down when its been under duress, how to quieten and take back control of that busy mind and everything in between! I’ll be sharing tips, knowledge, strategies and techniques over the upcoming months so stay tuned if it’s helpful to you.
#wednesdayworrytips
SERIES: The foundational building blocks
So foundational building blocks is where we’ll start and is what often gets overlooked in the busy lives we lead. Yet, our mind and body are one and they only function as well as we are looking after it. Too little sleep is known to lower our happiness levels and increase cortisol in our bodies which promotes anxiety. Equally, sleep is when you transfer information into your long-term memory, vital for our future!
1. A regular sleep routine may sound a bit dull (yawn) but it really is essential, as much as we can if we’re experiencing stress, worry or are highly active.
2. Avoid the use of devices for at least 2 hours before bed. I know, I know, Facebook or Snapchat (etc!) is calling you, it’s the only time you have to look after the kids go to bed, you HAVE to get that last email off for work… I get it! It’s an easy vacuum to succumb to. yet it is exactly this that keeps that brain of yours over-stimulated and stops your body clock being able to wind down and get ready for sleep. This overstimulation and lack of sleep are what will keep you stuck in a vicious cycle of ‘stress response’, so find a way to change your routine so that you don’t need to look at these devices late in the evening.
3. In the bedroom avoid blue light that is emitted from televisions tablets and mobile phones. Blue light is known to increase melatonin and make our brain highly alert (which is where the advice of turn it off a couple of hours before comes from to give your brain time to adjust and settle down. You can buy amber glasses that significantly reduce the blue light if you need to, but to be honest, most phones/tablets contain a setting that reduces this. If not keep the television, tablet and mobile phone turned off in the bedroom. Bedrooms have other, better uses like reading and RnR.
4. Have a pad by your bed for any ‘worries’ that come up so you can note them down and feel safe in the knowledge that you’ll work through them tomorrow.
More
ANXIETY TIPS
When rest feels wrong: quiet burnout and the fear of slowing down
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What is anxiety and why you can’t ‘think’ your way out of it
Breathing for anxiety — how it works and how to do it properly
When stress, tension, anxiety or panic kicks in, the first thing to respond is our breathing. Most of us have heard ‘and breathe’ yet, how many of us know ‘how’ or truly give it the adjustments it needs?
How to contain anxiety: a technique that works
How do we contain anxiety for those situations when the worry is constantly present and we have minimal if any control over it? This tip will help keep you grounded whilst creating time to acknowledge the source of the worry.
Name It, Claim It, Tame It, Aim It: A Four-Step Framework for Anxiety and Stress
A simple and easy model to work with anxiety.
Possible vs probable: a key distinction in managing anxiety
With anxiety there’s a distinction to make between what’s possible and probable. Focusing too much on every possibility causes a lot of unnecessary worry.
When anxiety becomes YOUR NORMAL
Tips and techniques are useful. But if part of you still feels constantly alert, wired, over-responsible or unable to properly switch off, there’s usually a deeper pattern underneath the symptoms. Find out more about:
