Learn to manage your anxiety proactively

To wrap up 2020 as we look forward to some time off (even if the pandemic restricts us from taking time away), I wanted to share a post I've been working on around mental health. In this week's post, I wanted to challenge readers (as I am equally challenging myself) to reflect on how we can manage our own anxiety proactively.

In the early hours a few days ago, I laid awake fretting over a number of tasks that I needed to sort out - some work, some personal; some within and some beyond my control. As is often the case, I then started to think about bigger, more complex, longer term challenges, and before I knew it, it was time to get up, and I had lost a whole night of sleep. I was tired and irritable the next day, and still hadn't managed to "fix" everything. By the end of the day, I started to realise that there was a chain reaction happening, and it seem to result in me putting more stress on myself, increasing my own anxiety. Here's an example of what I mean:

When we are young, we worry about finding love.

Once we meet the love of our life, we move in and start worrying about getting on the property ladder.

Once we get our first place, we worry about getting a bigger place so we can have kids.

Once we have kids and get a bigger place, we worry about affording the bills, so we take a more stressful job.

As the stressful job increase our income, we worry about funding the kids through university.

Once we've paid for the kids to get through university, we worry about paying off the mortgage.

Once the mortgage is paid off, we worry about affording a decent retirement.

When we retire, even if we have a good income, we worry about our health.

Then we die - and all the anxiety, stress, worry and depression stops.

We are conditioned by life to be stressed. So each time we fix something, our need for stress creates a new stress focus that replaces the previous stress driver.

Re-read that phrase a couple of times. Let it sink in. Could it be that we are addicted to stress, and we willingly (albeit subconsciously) seek out a constant stream of anxiety triggers in our life?

Our whole life is a series of worries. As we solve each major challenges, another major challenge takes its place, and the anxiety continues or increases. Modern life, clever marketing, peer pressure and our own drive to out-perform our parents sets us up for a life of high anxiety.

Of course, what we focus on in life is what we desire (for the most part), but as we come to the end of what has been a pretty terrible year for the world, I am certainly going to focus a little more on managing my own anxiety.

I still need to work hard to earn money to pay bills and build out my happy retirement. But is it worth a sleepless night because an airline hasn't sorted out my refund on all the cancelled flights? Another couple of weeks of waiting wont hurt. Instead, I will use the energy I waste on an annoying issue on something more enjoyable - planning a walk in the local forest this weekend with my husband is far better.

If you can find a little time, it's worth reflecting on the various worries that you face. Ask yourself how important each item is (they are not all equally important), and how much you can influence the outcome. Can you reclaim some of the energy you would otherwise use on your anxiety? Could you proactively reduce some of your anxiety by parking some of the items to fix for a future date? Learning to proactively manage your anxiety won't make life any easier, but by letting yourself have a little more control over what you focus on and when can work wonders for your mental health.