Do You Wake Up Feeling Anxious Most Mornings? Here’s a Plan of Attack
For years people have told me that they consistently wake up in the morning feeling some level of anxiety. The chaos wrought by COVID, which has thrown our life rhythms out of whack, has exacerbated the problem considerably.
For most people the problem presents as waking with a floating, anxious feeling that then worsens after lying in bed for several minutes ruminating about a panoply of worries, big and small.
The question is: What can you do about it?
Say hello to anxiety
First, you need to do something that will sound counterintuitive: you need to go inside and acknowledge the anxiety. When most people feel anxious their response is to push it away, not even aware that they’re doing it. It’s more a thought of, “Ahh. I just hate this feeling.” And that feeling lingers…
What do I mean by acknowledge the anxiety? Place your attention on it. Say hello to it. Literally. DON’T try to will it away or fight with it or engage with it. Just acknowledge that it’s there in as non-judgmental a way as possible.
What this accomplishes is a separation of you and the anxiety into a subject and an object, whereas before there was just a single entity, mish-mash of anxious guck.
