From the looks of it, I’m gonna have a “blank" sucks series on my blog hehe. So, today’s topic, Anxiety…..it’s sucks, thanks for reading!…. Okay I’m joking, let me go into why anxiety sucks. Anxiety, to me, is a common emotion in many people. I feel like certain people think of nervousness as anxiety but, again to me, it’s 100x worst than just feeling nervous. A proper definition of anxiety from the American Psychological Association (APA):
“An emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure.”
I find it really interesting that emotion can actually cause distress in your body to the point of raising your blood pressure...jeez. There are many types of anxiety disorders, a few that are heard very often such as:
Social Anxiety
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Phobia
Certain symptoms that are common to these disorders are:
rapid breathing
trouble concentrating
increased heart rate
difficulty falling asleep
Restlessness
I definitely had times when I start breathing fast or felt that my heart was gonna pop out of my chest. I remember it being really bad when I started high school....you know, new people and a new environment. I used to hate….and I don’t use the word hate a lot but...HATE presentations or having to talk out loud about something in class. Even just saying “here” or “present” when the teacher is marking the register will make my heart race. I even remember one time in an English Literature class, if my memory serves me right, the teacher assigned persons to read paragraphs in the literature book we were using at the time. Oh...did you guess it?... yeah, I was one of the persons she picked….yay. I was obviously not happy about it, my heart was racing and I'm pretty sure I started sweating. I literally, out of just not wanting to do it, lied that I had an ear issue where I can’t hear myself properly so I can’t talk loud enough to read the paragraph.
Surprisingly….that kinda worked because I do remember not reading anything...also I obviously don’t have an ear issue...but I was a really soft-spoken person at the time...but my ears...yeah there were fine. Not even sure if that made any sense...like I can't hear myself to know if I'm talking loud enough. Now, lying is not good haha, but I felt like I had to do it because I honestly take the stress to do it. Something about a bunch of eyes staring at me and the place being quiet just made me want to crawl out of my skin. Throughout high school, I got better...I even developed the skill of staring at the wall at the back of the class while making presentations and I think I just got used to it a little. Since starting university, I still have anxiety, like with my heart racing and feeling uneasy but it’s easier for me and I think my brain just accepted that I can’t escape talking in front of people. I think since I’m doing a degree or courses that I’m actually interested in, it’s easier for me to talk with people looking at me….but I still skip a heartbeat when a teacher picks me to answer a question or something...even in online classes since they can see my name and just call it out. I just pretend I didn’t hear or just don’t open my mic, only a few classes where I have no choice haha.
I’ve never been diagnosed but I’m pretty sure I have social anxiety...like simple things normal people can do with ease...I struggle. For example, ordering food over the phone...I’m 19 years old by the way and I still can’t properly do that. I remember when I was like 13 or 14, my dad told me to order pizza on his phone...I literally couldn’t do it and my poor dad was so confused...I even started crying. I ended up making the order but I felt like an idiot because I was stuttering haha. I haven’t attempted to try that again and with the beauty of technology, food delivery apps exist and I don’t need to talk to anyone, just greet the delivery guy, collect my food and go back to my house. I will use every way to solve something before I have to talk to someone...customer care, yeah, don’t like calling them, if I can email them or use a live chat….yeah, I think you know what I would do haha.
Since having anxiety for a good amount of years now, I developed some tips that have worked for me and I’m gonna share some with you:
Knowing your triggers
Basically, anything that sets off your anxiety… be aware of them, it’s really important to know what triggers you. I learnt through growing up that crowds trigger my anxiety...if I’m with friends, I’m actually okay but by myself is another story. I have this thing that I feel like people are staring at me when I have to walk through crowds..so I avoid them hehe. Before Lockdown, when I could go to school still the library was my favourite place...I could get my own space, there was Wi-Fi and I could have an electrical outlet beside me to charge my laptop. Even just a nice quiet area with a bench. I remember I would get so drained after being in classes all day and I would just leave right after haha, I use to take a taxi to go home so I would just book them and head home...also I would book my taxi with an app so even better.
Try your best to stay positive
Repeat after me…..”I’m going to stay away from negative energy and thoughts!” ….and you better mean it hehe. No, but seriously, maintaining positive thoughts can help anxiety so much. Starting to worry about things can cause stress and just starts the spiral effect of “what if’s” then all those negative thoughts flood in. It’s not the easiest thing to do but it is beneficial.
Distract yourself
When I say this, you can distract yourself with things you enjoy, like a Netflix series or even be active like doing exercise or a sport. I tend to use music as my distraction and also watch YouTube videos...YouTube is like cable to me these days. Back in high school days...I say that like it’s been decades when it's been 2 or 3 years….I used to do track and field so that kept me nice and distracted. Distracting myself from my own worries really helps my stress levels.
I always had the thought of writing something about anxiety for a while now and I finally did it. I’ve been trying to think of blog post ideas because I don’t want to do similar stuff as other bloggers. I want to talk about certain topics but put my own spin on them, hence why I add my stories with my post hehe. As always, I have some questions for you, do you suffer from anxiety or do you know someone with anxiety and how does it affect you or the person you know? I'm gonna leave some links below that are a good read and I also found helpful when writing this post.
Save for later!
I hope you're at your happiest if not, it's okay...I hope you're starting or working on reaching the highest peak of happiness.
- Anissa (TheQuietGirl)
