How I got out of the vicious cycle of anxiety
Two years ago, I was in a very dark time of my life. It was a time where my life felt upside down. At that moment I could not enjoy the beauty in life and was trapped in my own misery. It was strange as there was nothing wrong and the next minute, my mind became my worst enemy. All I wanted to do was to stop my brain from running, and continue my normal life. But the more I tried, the darker my world became. I tried a lot of things, but as I said the more I did, the worse it became. It was like searching for a medicine and every medication I took made the illness worse. Anxiety became a part of my morning routine and joined me through the day. Before I will tell you all how I cured my anxiety, I would first like to explain what anxiety is and what the symptoms are.
Anxiety disorder takes anxiety to the next level
It is normal to feel anxious before an important exam or event, but with an anxiety disorder it involves more than just temporarily fear or worry. The feeling of worry and fear does not go away, and gets worse over time.
This can interfere with one's social life but also for example with someone's job performance.
The symptoms
| Emotional symptoms of anxiety disorder | Physical symptoms of anxiety |
|---|---|
| Anticipating the worst | Pounding heart |
| Trouble concentrating | Sweating |
| Sleep problems | Headaches |
| Difficulty controlling the worry | Stomach upsets |
| Sleep problems | Dizziness |
| Irritability | Shortness of breath |
The symptoms of the symptoms…..
The difficult aspect about anxiety is that the symptoms can cause you to get even more anxious.
I for example used to get the physical symptoms sweating and a pounding heart. These physical symptoms made my anxiety only worse, which was difficult as I had trouble controlling my worry. One day I stumbled across an article about anxiety disorder, the advice from the article is how I cured my anxiety.
Anxiety only gets worse. This is why!
Imagine a kid playing on a playground. The kid starts running on the sand while suddenly he falls inside a big hole. The kid is now trapped inside a hole, with no one around. The kid is in panic and tries to find a solution to get out of the hole. He tries to get out, but due to all this movement the hole gets deeper and deeper. This makes him panic even more, and again he tries to get out. But once again the opposite happens, the hole gets bigger.
Anxiety is the same, it is an unsettling feeling inside your body. You probably already tried solutions as herbal tea, meditation, exercising and solutions to fight your anxiety symptoms. But still haven't been able to cure the anxiety within you. Anxiety is like the boy trapped inside the hole, the more you try to fight it the worse your anxiety seems to get.
Let it go! Let it gooooooo!
If you are a Disney fan, then you might be surprised that the solution was there all along hidden away in the song from frozen.
Your new TO-DO list
After reading the advice from the article, I stopped with taking my relaxing herbal tea, breathing exercises, fighting the thoughts within me and instead I accepted the feeling of anxiousness and continued my day. I quickly noticed that this was so much more productive than all the measures I took before. The anxiety left my body and I finally got out of the vicious cycle of anxiety.
The content is written by @cookiemonster. The picture is from Pixabay and the GIFs are from GIPHY