​​​​Anxiety and Alchemy

Your anxiety toolkit

We are all anxious all of the time, and it is evolution's fault. 

Animals feel anxiety when they are in immediate danger - it actives their fight, flight, freeze or fawn response. They do one of those things, escape the danger, then very quickly calm down.

We are not actually in immediate danger very often, thank goodness. But we have created civilisations in which we might not be in danger, but it is still challenging to survive. We don't forage throughout the day to eat and build our own shelters wherever we happen to be. This would have been hard work, no doubt, but we had some direct control and agency over our survival. Now we spend 37+ hours a week at a job (that frequently seems to serve no greater purpose) to make money to pay for food and shelter. Most of us could find ourselves unemployed at any time (or our business ventures fail) and without the means to provide ourselves with food and shelter.

This - along with overcrowding, noise from vehicles (which our bodies DO regard as immediate danger), and the breakdown of the feeling of community - means we always feel like we might be at the edge of a cliff we can't see.

Sometimes there is not a lot we can do about our physical surroundings to overcome this daily stress.

Routines can help, like meditation, bubble baths, spending time with others (so we feel we have support if something happens). Playing music can block out some of the noise of our urban environments.

But there are a lot of resources available on the internet to help you understand and overcome these sources of stress.

I will add resources as I come across them so this becomes a "living" toolkit.

First up is something a little different.

I've always described myself as having a low-level anxiety disorder. If I'm awake, I'm waiting for the shoe to drop; if I'm asleep, my dreams are unhinged.

But I have also started to think of myself as having undiagnosed ADHD. Thank you, YouTube, which must have worked that out before I did (probably because I watch 30 seconds of any given video) and started serving up videos on "why you might be ADHD".

This is a great channel and I've really appreciated the approach to mental health issues and this one really surprised me. If your anxiety manifests within your ADHD, you may need a different approach to calming your nervous system.

Check out more videos by this creator @TherapyinaNutshell

I am going to let someone else introduce you to my next YouTube therapy star. I can't choose just one of Kimberly's videos to share with you, so here is the link to her channel and to the left you'll see the interview that put her on my radar.

@YourAnxietyToolkit with Kimberly Quinlan

Not to be left out, the NHS also has a page on anxiety.

Every Mind Matters

This is one my Mom shared, an episode of NPR's podcast Life Kit:

Life Kit on NPR One

If you struggle with anxiety, ADHD, or distracting thoughts, meditation can be challenging. Guided meditation gives you something to focus on which is more engaging than your breath or counting "1" over and over. This is a really nice body scan meditation.

If you like that and want something longer, yoga nidra might be for you. My favourite kind of yoga involves lying down and gently relaxing every inch of your body. I've come up with a very slight variation that I talk myself through, but this is my favourite YouTube version. Click on the box to play on YouTube.

I've also created some short videos to step you into pranayama which can help with anxiety.

Until next time, fly safely.

The Alchemist