Connecting you to health information that is relevant
"Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action." - Walter Anderson
Let’s begin!
Have you ever felt anxious or worried? Silly question, we all have felt these emotions. These feelings give important information and should not be ignored. Anxiety, distress or worry are emotions that are telling us something is wrong. It could be from a trigger that is occurring right now or related to something in your past.
Anxiety becomes a concern when it starts to have a negative impact on our daily lives. Does your anxiety affect your relationships? Does your anxiety impact your work or school? Does it keep you up at night making it harder to fall asleep? There are four aspects of anxiety that need to be considered.
Frequency, Duration, Intensity and Impact
The Anxiety Project Survey gave you a baseline of your current levels and impact of your anxiety. How often you are anxious, how long it lasts and how strong the emotion creates the impact that anxiety can have on your life.
Over the next 3 weeks we will be sending you emails and text messages to connect you to content, videos, and resources. Our goal is to give you tools to manage and reduce your anxiety.
What you will learn.
At the end of the 21 Day Challenge we will be sending you another survey to see if things have improved.
Check out the link below by Dr. Kelly Orr PhD, a clinical psychologist, to better understand anxiety.
What is ONE THING that helped you from this article?
The One Thing
Anxious? Start by identifying if it is a helpful or harmful feeling. Harmful? Here is the process of gaining control in the moment.
Example #1 - I am feeling a sense of unease and worry. I reflect that I was thinking of a deadline coming up on a project and I am not ready. This is a helpful worry that will hopefully motivate me to complete the work needed to be ready.
Example #2 - I am lying in bed and worrying about my business. The trigger was a comment from my wife about a small problem just before bed. Now I can't sleep. I am imagining catastrophic ends to our business, from closing our doors to failing in our purpose. This is an unhealthy and mostly unwarranted worry. My anxiousness is keeping me up and creating a second problem of poor sleep with the potential of a vicious cycle. Identifying the trigger and addressing the 'self-talk' can help manage my anxiety and get to sleep.
Identifying the trigger can help if it is a trigger that is recurring. This can help us identify where we may need to place some boundaries.
DAILY CHALLENGE
Each day write down as many anxious thoughts that you currently have. Set a timer and work hard to get as many thoughts on paper that you can.
Shred, tear up, and throw in the trash what you have written down. YES, get rid of these thoughts!
The rest of the day is yours to do with as you please. If an anxious thought appears, identify it as being either helpful or unhealthy. If unhealthy, tell yourself “I have already dealt with that thought” or “I will deal with that tomorrow”.
In as little as 3 weeks there should be a noticeable difference in your anxiety.
Sleep and Anxiety
When we fail to get enough sleep or the quality of our sleep is poor, this has negative mental and physical consequences. Sleep less than 7 hours a night over a period of one to two weeks and the sleep deprivation, while mild, starts to get compounded. Having your sleep checked and focusing on one habit to improve your sleep is the place to start.
Improve Your Sleep, Improve Your Anxiety
Check out the link below to dig deeper.
