You can’t sleep. Your appetite is really poor. Your stomach is either nauseous, gets upset, or you’re constipated on end. You feel tension and have a mind that can’t seem to be at ease. And it’s from something going on in your life.
They tell us that stress is normal, and sometimes it is. But other times it goes beyond normal and seriously disrupts our balance and daily life. I know for me, the past several years of my life have been pretty rife with stress, and sometimes times it abates, and in some other ways it got worse. I’d never had a panic attack until 5 years ago, a day before my sister died. I sometimes wonder if the attack was something of a premonition, as if my soul knew something bad was gonna happen. After that I had several more near-panic attacks for the next some years, and drinking coffee made it worse. Yes, simple things like that really can trigger an episode.
I’ve learned a few things on how to manage the tides of stress or anxiety, and maybe they’ll work for you too.
Cut out what you can actually avoid
Sometimes we can actually bring stress and anxiety on ourselves because of something we can really walk away from in our lives or stop doing. This is something I’ve learned the easiest, especially having been to hell and back more than once in my life. You get to a point where you can easily make a decision to cut something loose that’s causing you grief where you really do not have to keep facing it or taking it. Consider whatever it is that’s stressing you out and giving you the blues: is it something necessary? Do I need to stay in this relationship? Is it worth it for me to keep doing such-and-such? It’s a tough question, and initially most of us are not going to want to give up whatever it is because another part of us psychologically feels like we’ll be broken without it. But once you understand this it can make it easier for you to cut it out. And once you cut it out, you have a measure of relief.
I’ve heard that some foods, or the order in which you eat them can contribute to stress or anxiety. As I mentioned, drinking coffee for me has been lethal, so I refuse to have it anymore. I’ve never liked coffee, but I started a few years ago because my mom and my brother love it and talk about its health benefits, so tried it. In the beginning it seemed fine and could give me a clear mind, but in a hour so, I just start feeling strange panic come over me. I’ll feel tense and anxious, and it can escalate so rapidly I feel like I can’t stop it. The feeling is as if you’re flying high in the sky, until suddenly you realize your miles off the ground and are terrified by it. When I realized coffee was doing this I called it quits right away.
If you know or suspect that something in your diet is a contributor to stress, let it go, no matter how good it is.
Take it step by step with what you CAN’T avoid
And then there are the things you can’t get out of. School, work, family conflict at home, etc. No doubt, stuff like that IS going to rob you of a measure of peace, but you still have to find peace in the middle of the storm. The age-old solution is still to work with one moment at a time, especially if you're overwhelmed with so much to do. You do have to tell yourself to take it step by step. Don't try to do a whole lot at once, it almost never works.
Some people suggest writing a list but I never write lists or try to check things off when I've got a lot to do, it really just makes me even more anxious. I know what I have to do, it's about what should be done the most urgently that I narrow it all down to. And from there you keep working yourself toward the next thing until you reach the least important. That's really the key.
One of the things that can help with extreme stress is to listen to music at night, before you sleep or while you sleep. Classical is some of the best, but also some of that celestial type of techno music, and nature sounds. Drinking a little alcohol before bed works the absolute best for me. I know some of you aren’t of drinking age yet, lol, but for the rest of us drinking some red wine, brandy, or even a little beer relaxes you before bed. I know for me when I do it, I wake up feeling pretty good the next morning and have a clearer mind.
Cut back on social media
This has been something a lot of people have condemned or expressed is impossible, and I will be honest and say that it can be difficult when you’ve cemented yourself to it so much. But it CAN be improved. Being heavily involved in social media has been known to take up a lot of head space in a lot of people, to the point where they can get anxiety from the nastiness of people on it, or even lament on something someone said for days. A lot of people don’t admit that this has happened to them at one point or another, wanting to seem like nothing people on a screen can say ever bothers them, but it happens to us all eventually. It did for me in the early years when I was on Answerbag, and an old article from online columnist Tina Su really helped me back then.
I’ve mentioned here more than once how I used to be on the now-defunct site Experience Project. Well, one of the reasons I left was because being there was giving me more and more anxiety. During the months leading up to me finally deleting my account there, I had a long battle with myself, threatening to do it more than once, actually wanting to leave but scared to. I had become terribly addicted, spending just about every day there, wanting to see what was going on and worrying that I was missing out on any action. And on days where I couldn’t be on or forced myself to give it a rest, I still found myself thinking about it all day and wanting nothing more than to be there. It was pathetic.
Eventually it created a rise in anxiety for me, and what made it worse was that more people seemed to become attached to me, wanting to message me all the time - I could log in to EP and be overwhelmed by an inbox of 13 to 15 messages and several alerts. But I brought it on myself by accepting it. It eventually got to the point where I got sick of it. I didn’t want to hear from the gossipy people in my circle wanting to tell me daily about what their nemesis was doing. I didn’t want to hear the repeated blues of another who only ever wanted to talk about herself and what bothered her.
And I got sick of others just wanting to use me for my mod powers, to try to get the admins to unlock their account, flag somebody they hated, etc. At that point I found it easier to stay off EP for more and more days at a time. I’d put my account on hiatus, just to see how I could manage with that, but even then I felt like still having my account open was like a ball-and-chain, and I would never be free until I finally blew it up. And I did. My sexy Lithuanian female friend had also told me she was leaving for the same reasons, and we both deleted our accounts, the first time I ever did in the 3 years I was there. After that, life felt better and like I could actually breathe.
Social media can have a way of making you preoccupied with it, to even a stressful point. So if you’re dealing with a situation like I did, face yourself, be honest, and make that decision to let go. If it’s at a point of unhealthy focus and restricting you from getting anything done in life, by all means let it go. You WILL feel a lot better when you do.
Keep your distance from people in your life who are stressing you out
A lot of us have a super hard time doing this. It may be somebody in your life you can't really avoid, maybe even a family member, or a lover. You feel like separating from them is impossible or bad if you do, but it's not. You may not have to cut them out entirely, but you can keep a certain distance so that you maintain your peace of mind. Maybe it will be forever, or maybe it should be the case for right now.
If someone is saying things to you that you find to be offensive, attacking you, being hurtful or acting in toxic ways that give you anxiety, you do have a right to keep your distance. And if you want nothing to do with them at all anymore, that's just as good. There really is no reason why you should keep putting your mind and emotions through stress and anxiety by feeling like you need to be there for that person, like you need to listen to them, or have to have them around. People can be some of the biggest stress factors, and there comes a time where we have to decide how much more we really want to take from them.
Music suggestions for stress:
The Bejeweled Zen music actually makes me think about passionate sex with a queen out of a fantasy movie or video game, and I couldn't tell you why, lol, but it still has a calming effect.
Foods that may help
Green Leafy Vegetables
Dark leafy greens like spinach are rich in folate, which helps your body produce mood-regulating neurotransmitters, including serotonin and dopamine. One 2012 study found people who consumed the most folate had a lower risk of depression than those who ate the least.5
Not to mention, research from the University of Otago found eating fruits and vegetables of any sort (except fruit juice and dried fruit) helped young adults calm their nerves.6 Department of Psychology researcher Dr. Tamlin Conner said.
"On days when people ate more fruits and vegetables, they reported feeling calmer, happier, and more energetic than they normally did."
Wild-Caught Alaskan Salmon
Found in salmon, sardines, and anchovies, or supplement form, such as krill oil, the animal-based omega-3 fats EPA and DHA play a role in your emotional well-being. There are a number of vendors, like Vital Choice, that have documented radiation free salmon.
One study in Brain Behavior and Immunity showed a dramatic 20 percent reduction in anxiety among medical students taking omega-3,11 while past research has shown omega-3 fats work just as well as antidepressants in preventing the signs of depression, but without any of the side effects.
Blueberries
Anthocyanins are the pigments that give berries like blueberries and blackberries their deep color. These antioxidants aid your brain in the production of dopamine, a chemical that is critical to coordination, memory function, and your mood. Also, as TIME reported.
"Research has also shown that blueberry eaters experience a boost in natural killer cells, 'a type of white blood cell that plays a vital role in immunity, critical for countering stress,' says Cynthia Sass, MPH, RD, Health's contributing nutrition editor."
Dark Chocolate
If you're one of these individuals who gets a nice mood boost whenever you sink your teeth into a bar of pure, unadulterated chocolate, it is not happenstance. There's a chemical reason behind it called anandamide, a neurotransmitter produced in the brain that temporarily blocks feelings of pain and depression. It's a derivative of the Sanskrit word "bliss," and one of the great things about chocolate is that it not only produces this compound, it also contains other chemicals that prolong the "feel-good" aspects of anandamide.
Chocolate has even been referred to as "the new anti-anxiety drug." One study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology also revealed that drinking an antioxidant-rich chocolate drink equal to about 1.5 ounces of dark chocolate daily felt calmer than those who did not.
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/04/27/10-stress-relieving-superfoods.aspx
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