Women, Stress and Anxiety....

I am the kind of person who can't sit still. Even if I try to, somehow I always find something to do to keep moving. Often I think that by doing these things I am avoiding the inevitable, STRESS. Stress leads to anxiety. It can build up and if you aren't careful, it can do great damage. Over the years, and in my own personal life I have learned that you can't hold it all inside and take on the world yourself. Believe me, I have tried. At one point I might have commented "Says who?" Now I know better. I've learned that great friends and family that love and support you can make all the difference, you just have to let them in! 

Taking steps for reducing stress and anxiety in your life will not only give you serenity but can add years to your life, too. Stress puts both your body and your mind under strain. Short-term stress can’t be helped and we all have to make it through stressful situations. 

 You know how it is: You’re cruising along, feeling that all is well, when wham! — everything seems to fall apart at once. Your dishwasher breaks, the ice maker stops working and the cubes don't come out crushed, the lawn becomes infested by grubs, laundry piles up, work stress gets worse, oh... and your kid needs 40 cupcakes — by tomorrow morning! It’s all too much and now you feel like you’ve lost control of your life. Surprisingly, while we expect to be thrown off balance by the big crises in life (an illness, the loss of a job, the end of a relationship), experts believe it’s more often the steady pileup of smaller annoyances that makes us feel really powerless. So what do you do? Take control sister! Slow down, and take a deep breath. Did you know that long, slow breaths send oxygen throughout your body, which relaxes you and, in turn, helps clear your head. Try one- or two-minute deep-breathing sessions each morning and evening. Chores and responsibilities will build up if you allow them to, but who cares? They'll get done eventually. Don't try to be superwoman. Make a list of what needs to be done and prioritize it. Trust me, you are not the 'Drama Mama" you are just a woman trying to take on the world and even you could use a little back-up!

There are so many things that cause us stress, which leads to anxiety. The worst thing that anyone can do is to ignore stress.  No matter how long you don’t deal with it or how often you push it aside, it will always bounce back into your life unless you root it out. Did you know that by reducing stress and anxiety it enables you to move beyond the emotions and the struggle that keep you standing in the vast ocean trying to keep that ball away? Yes it does. The first step you should do is to limit the amount of external things that bring on more stress or aggravate the stress you already have. For example, if hearing sad stories on the radio upset you, turn the radio off. Don’t fill your mind with negative stories in any type of media. In case you haven’t noticed, the uplifting, positive articles rarely make the news. I almost hate watching the news because it is always so sad and depressing...at least 8 times out of 10 it is. Bad news can fill a person with anxiety. This too can be quite harmful.

Get rid of the negative from your life. If you have a friend who’s always pulling you down emotionally or tearing down your self-esteem, this is not a healthy relationship and it’s time to move on and do it quickly! Get rid of the negative people in your life that just keep adding to it. In the long run, it's not going to do you any good whatsoever! Look for events and people that introduce more laughter and joy into your life. Shut off the television and get on your feet. It’s a proven fact that exercise is a great way to get rid of anxiety along with stress. If a negative thought pops into your mind, refuse to dwell on it.Don't let the negativity win and control your happiness. I am a good example of this next one....Don’t bottle up your emotions and assume no one wants to listen to what’s going on in your life. Make time with a good friend to sit and talk about how you’re feeling. 

 By reducing stress and anxiety in your life, you’ll start to feel more relaxed and happier and in the end you'll be a much better you! Don't try to do it all by yourself. ASK FOR HELP! Don't try to take on the world alone. Make that list and check and don't get upset if it doesn't all get done today. I'm the queen of sticky notes and at times I get overwhelmed and feel like I am never going to get everything finished...fear not. You will. Tomorrow is another day...

www.simplydeliciouslingerie.com

Does Anxiety Control YOU?

 Everyday can be stressful and even the slightest things can set us off and cause disruption in our way of everyday living...I've allowed it to happen to me several times and I am sure that if you saw the subject of this article and clicked on it to read the contents, most like you have at one time or another experienced it as well. In all honesty, there is absoulutely nothing to feel ashamed of. My anxiety can affect me in a variety of ways. At first I did not know how to deal with it not did I understand why exactly this was hapening to me. So why does it happen? What causes it? Work, family issues, life, love? Whe you truly understand what anxiety is, you can then learn how to manage it, and deal with it.

How to manage anxiety
 Managing one's anxiety is a key task of being an adult human being and taking responsibility for oneself. It is also a difficult task and will take effort and practice.

First of all, anxiety will always be part of our lives and we need to develop a certain level of tolerance to feeling anxious. It is not possible to live life without anxiety. As self-aware beings, who can think about many possible futures and we can always make up scenarios about which we can worry. Also, we need to take appropriate risks in our lives. If we could keep ourselves as safe as possible we would never leave our houses nor live a fulfilling life. In all, life is about living. Don't be afraid to jump in and get your feet wet sometimes...if you don't you'll never know what the outcome will be and you truly may be missing out on something great!

Anxiety is part of our bodies, a natural response, which alerts us to potential danger. Just like physical pain it is uncomfortable, but really necessary to guide us in life. It is OK and natural to feel anxious some of the time. Part of managing anxiety successfully is to accept that it will be part of your life. For example, some of the time we may worry about our partner leaving us. This is part of the price we pay for attaching and loving the other in the first place. Accepting a certain level of anxiety means we don't let it stop us living life or investing in someone. Also, accepting it means we don't make things worse by ruminating too much about why we are anxious, or criticizing ourselves for feeling that way.
However, anxiety can grow into fear, or even panic. In that case it can be one of the most stressful and uncomfortable experiences we can have. If anxiety goes beyond levels we can accept and tolerate we need to actively manage and regulate it:

·         Regulating anxiety involves three levels, which all need to be addressed:

·         Thinking

·         Feeling

·         The body

Thinking
Anxiety can greatly influence our thinking in a way that isn't rational. We may easily go into catastrophizing, i.e. imagining the worst possible nightmare to become true. However, this is your imagination going wild and often has no basis in real life.

Managing your anxiety on a thinking level involves looking at all the evidence rationally. Is there any real reason for you to be anxious? For example, do you have any real evidence that your partner doesn't love you anymore? Would this evidence sound rational and substantial to your best friend or a colleague at work? It helps to check out our 'evidence' with others to see whether we have blown things out of proportion or not. In terms of transactional analysis theory, we would say we need to make an assessment about your fears from the Adult ego state. Or, in other words: from a rational perspective based on your abilities and knowledge as an adult today, is there anything to be anxious about? If yes, is there anything practical you can do about the situation?
 Don't let the remaining irrational fears seduce you into going over the practical evidence again and again. Hold on to your rational conclusions and move on to managing your anxiety on an emotional and physical level.


Feeling
Apart from influencing our thinking, anxiety is also an emotional and physical process. On an emotional level we experience ourselves as scared, panicky or terrified when we feel anxious. Within the transactional analysis model we locate irrational fears in the child ego state. Another way of looking at irrational fears is that they are a memory of how scared we were as children, which we experience in response to hear and now situations as if the fear is about today. Any anxiety or fear which seems out of proportion to today's events or which is irrational and out of context will most likely be about the past rather than the present.

Anxiety is often left over from childhood as it has a lot to do with attachment. Building up a secure attachment with your main caregiver as a baby results in feelings of safety, trust in the world, and trust in oneself. However, if we do not feel securely attached, or our caregivers are at some point absent, depressed, or anxious and stressed themselves, we do not get enough help with managing early anxieties about being in the world. We then need to practice this skill as adults to learn to manage anxiety better.

Anxiety which is left over from the past may be experienced extremely powerfully in the present. This is because as children we do not yet have the emotional or physical ability to regulate anxiety successfully. It is as if our brains and minds are not yet ready to manage anxiety and we need an adult  to support us with this process. The child will experience anxiety as all-consuming or unbearable due to the lack of physical and emotional maturity to be able to regulate it. If we re-experience the same anxiety today as adults, we also tend to experience the level of anxiety as all-consuming or unbearable, although we now have the potential to regulate the anxiety and certainly will survive feeling it.

So how does one regulate our own anxiety in the body?

To regulate anxiety on an emotional level we need to support ourselves in the same way a good and available adult would have done in the past. We need to soothe ourselves by being kind to ourselves, maybe using positive statements about ourselves, and telling ourselves that we will be OK and that we have done all the practical steps we could take to solve the situation. Therefore, we need to reassure ourselves, accept that the anxiety will be there, and not panic about it. If we panic about anxiety, we get even more anxious as we build up anticipatory anxiety: we get anxious about being anxious. This can become a vicious cycle. At this point simply accept the anxiety that you're feeling right now and keep your thoughts in the present rather than letting your mind drift to dwell on all sorts of possibilities in the future. Keep reminding yourself that it is normal and natural to feel anxious.

 If you have checked out your thinking,  you can reassure yourself that your anxiety will be about the past not the present and that the present situation is safe, or as safe as can be given life's uncertainties. Beyond that there is no point worrying as as Doris Day once sang... "whatever will be, will be".

Keep reminding yourself that you are safe here and now, despite feeling anxiety from the past.Let it go! It;s so unhealthy to hang on to something that is emotionally weighing you down. You did survive your past experiences and you can now learn to settle and regulate your anxiety efficiently. Also, because the fear will be about the past, there will only be so much left for you to experience. It is as if what is left over from the past is only a limited amount. Experiencing it, talking about it, making sense of it and integrating it will mean at some point it will all be gone and life will appear so much easier and much more enjoyable for you.