Anxiety: Mornings are the Worst.
Robert Frost may have been ‘one acquainted with the night’ but if you’ve ever have an anxious moment (or many) or a nasty bout or live with anxiety as a default program running in your head and body, then you have to know that mornings are the worst. The worst. Absolutely.
And yes, I know Robert Frost was probably referring to depression versus a time of day (night) but let’s face it — depression is a quiet sneaky thing whereas anxiety is a very frenetic, frantic fluttering that is as obvious and as hard to ignore as a three-tailed cat.
I know this because until a year or two ago I would say I was one acquainted with anxiety about 85% of the time. There were seasons and reasons and a disposition and post-trauma — you name it . When it came to anxiety I was surprised I managed to do anything else in life other than manage it. Why I don’t seem to be anxious now is a whole other piece of work (writing). But let’s just say when it comes to anxiety — I should have written the book. In fact I did start one but then I got busy and happier and I forgot.
So trust me — just in case you are reading this between 4 and 8 am and feel queasy with ‘it’. I get how mornings and anxiety works.
Even if you’ve slept well or slept at all, you get up and you feel sort of fine or disoriented as in your mood and emotions have been caught in mid-sentence (so to speak). Then: bang! There it is. You remember. You’re still anxious.
Your stomach feels like you ate fiery ants or hyper butterflies. Everything is either coiled in knots and/or with a coating of nausea. It totally sucks. Then your mind starts darting to ‘what could it be about, or why won’t it go away or why is it always there? Those are the thoughts that suck you in the undertow. If only, you think for the hundredth time, your best thinking could solve it, and then the anxiety would dissipate.
But here’s the thing. Your otherwise wonderful, beautiful mind is your worst enemy when it comes to anxiety because logic and rationalization will never beat anxiety since it’s immune to such tools. Anxiety might or might not have a reason but it is also a habit of the mind. Your mind, if it’s been anxious for a day, a month or years, knows one finite route home and without any interruption, that sort of circuitry stays rather intact, like a well-worn pathway to hell. It loops and loops (and your mood is the result of those looping thoughts) and it’s utterly exhausting.
Still, you’ll try anyway to outsmart it until you’re darting around inside yourself like a crazed pinball in a lopsided pin ball machine. It peaks to a fever pitch at which point you text a friend or call a parent or leave a message on your therapist’s answering machine. And then it goes down a notch but it’s not gone. (But and this is no small thing but you’ll never admit it: you’re still standing)
What IS it?
Sometimes you know what it’s about and that’s sort of helpful because it’s circumstantial and time and/or some solution will solve some or all of it. It’s cold comfort but sometimes that can pierce through and you can stand it a bit better than when it is without rhyme or reason that you know of. It’s a chronic nervous state that makes you wake up in a sweat.
But most anxiety is random, free-form naughty stuff that just resides in you and gnaws away and alters the very tone and timber of the day until you feel like you are walking alongside your own life — side saddle –when you should be the horse and rider fused together.
Where was I?
Mornings and anxiety: classic.
So what to do?
Repeat after me and say this to yourself:
The mornings are the worse. I’ll feel better in an hour after showering and having some breakfast and starting my routine (if you don’t have one which as a freelancer and author I totally get, make one).
Tell yourself: It’s always bad in the mornings. That’s the nature of anxiety.
Then (and this is mindfulness basics), ask yourself where you feel it (By it I mean the anxiety).
This is precious stuff.
If you try and think it away, it will, like Lady Macbeth’s blood stained what not, it will only become a bigger, more-bad stain.
Instead: feel it.
What?
Yes, you can feel it.
It is a physical feeling as well as a thought process.
Anxiety can vary but for a lot of us it’s resides you your stomach and feels like a coiled snake. Or you can feel the tension in your shoulders and arms. So, describe all that to yourself.
What?
Yes, out the beast. Expose the s.o.b.
This is really effective because the truth is, anxiety is a bully and most bullies cannot bear to be outed. Anxiety is also dark and you need to shine the light of day on it and flatten the drama out of it and all things considered, anxiety is a real drama queen.
When you have the temerity to take it head on, i.e. conversationally (in your head or even out loud) describe it. Extend me some credibility because I have been there. Describing anxiety to yourself and noting how you feel makes it lose some of its sting. There’s nothing romantic about anxiety or much strength to it after you detail what it feels like verbally.
Say: I feel butterflies in my stomach. I feel unmoored and weirdly out of context. I feel clutched and maybe dizzy. My throat feels like it’s coated with gravel.
Next?
Slow your breathing down. Come on — you know you’re panting at this point, certainly taking shallow breaths which are only going to tell your entire operating system that you’re in high alert.
So, in to 4–6 counts and out to 4–6 counts, start breathing. This is an oh-so-physical thing that slows down the body which slows down the brain which, bless the brain’s heart, is but a lackey to the physical systems. If you tell your brain: “we are a bit calmer’ the brain will behave calmer and stop, just a wee bit, from scaring the beejeesus out of you. There will actually bit a tiny sliver of space and light wherein you can feel a touch of normal thought patterns try and take the wheel. You might, over time, have an inane, boring thought finally intersperse itself. Oh joy.
Got it?
First — talk about the anxiety to yourself. Where do you feel it?
Two — slow breathing
Three (a support group taught me this), move your muscles, command yourself to get up, wash your face, brush your teeth. Tell yourself what you’re doing as you’re doing this going-through-the-motions things.
Sounds weird but it works.
Now check in again.
Stomach? Still butterflies but far less and/or moving a bit slower.
Muscle tension? Maybe a bit less.
Weird rambling, scary thoughts? A bit less relentless.
If you can’t do any of this or even some of it try and remember.
I get it. I get you. I’ve been there. Mornings are the worst.
So in the anxiety vortex: try, try try and remember that.
And tomorrow morning when it hits again remind yourself: oh yes, there’s the silly morning anxiety thing. It’s fine. I welcome it. It’s my ‘normal’ for now. Somewhere on the planet there’s someone else is flipping like a beached fish trying to escape the discomfort. It could be my counterpart in Paris or a bad moment in the Dalai Lama’s house but someone, somewhere is feeling the same as you.
Imagine you’re comforting them.
Imagine they’re comforting you.
Remember morning is only so long. There’s lunch and afternoon, that twilight peak and then the settling down again in the evening.
Whatever is bothering you is also a habit of thinking and response.
It will take a while for the morning anxiety to dissipate.
One day it will.
Trust me.
Nothing, even the bad, lasts forever.
