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Body in Charge: Managing Anxiety by Managing Rest

October 21, 2018November 8, 2018meganmedinalpc

A tired mind is a restless mind, but, as many sufferers of anxiety know, a restless mind is a mind that resists sleep. It’s a problem that most people experience at some point in their lives, but for people who struggle with anxiety, it can be an endless cycle and one more thing to feel anxious about.

For some, it’s hard to fall asleep. For others, it’s hard to stay asleep. And for many who don’t notice it, they are able to sleep, but their brains never relax enough to achieve the deep, restorative sleep our minds and bodies need to be healthy. For a lot of people, it’s a frustrating mixture of the three.

For this final installment of the Body in Charge: Managing Anxiety series, I offer a few tips for tackling the most challenging anxiety trigger: catching that elusive good night’s rest.

Practice good sleep hygiene.
Do you have a set bed time and wake up time?
Is it dark and quiet?
Is the temperature comfortable?
Reinforce Sleep Boundaries
Are you assertive with yourself and others about respecting your rest time?
You should glow, not your devices.
Bright screens, including TVs, are too stimulating right before bed. Even with the “night mode” option turned on, staring at a glowing screen overstimulates the mind for hours after the device has been put away.
Resist the infinite scroll.
Put the phones and tablets away. Fixed staring at the endless supply of information retrieved by Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and news blogs activates our most anxious feeder emotions and behaviors: worry, insecurity, longing, jealousy, loss, paranoia, ambition, perfectionism, hypervigilance, and hypercontrol.
If you can’t sleep, rest.
Many people with sleep issues exacerbate their restlessness by worrying about their lack of sleep and trying to force it to happen. But sleep, like happiness, is a peripheral experience: It’s impossible to obtain if you look directly at it. Instead, designate sleep time as “rest time” and truly let yourself rest: stay in bed, lying down in the dark, with no distractions or stimulations, and give yourself permission think about things you enjoy or look forward to, or nothing at all. You might not be able to control whether you sleep, but you can control the quality of rest you get.
Incorporate other Managing Anxiety tips
Take an inventory of the stimulants and depressants you consume, practice regular deep breathing exercises, move your body, and stay hydrated. The daily consideration of your physical needs is not only mindful and self-compassionate, but will eventually relax the body and soothe the mind, increasing your chances for a good night’s sleep.

And if these tips don’t help or you need to enlist someone to hold you accountable to following them, you can always contact me for more help. I’m Megan, and you can contact me here, call 432-278-1617, or email meganmedina1217@gmail.com to schedule an appointment today.

Body in Charge: Managing Anxiety by Managing Hydration

October 18, 2018October 18, 2018meganmedinalpc

It might sound silly, but dehydration is one of the sneakiest physical states that affects our overall health and aggravates anxiety symptoms. Dehydration increases the likelihood of physical pain and discomfort, intensifies “brain fog,” and depletes our energy reserves, making us tired and weakened before the day is over.

That’s just when we don’t hydrate enough throughout the day, which most of us don’t. Add anxiety to the mix, and we increase the likelihood of dehydration. When we’re nervous or worried, we shake, we sweat, we breathe quickly and shallowly–even when we’re not aware of those subtle physical changes–thereby losing valuable water molecules to the air around us. To compound the problem, our preoccupations with our mental thoughts and worries cause us to neglect our physical, present experience, decreasing the likelihood that we’ll respond to subtle thirst cues and drink up.

Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to combat this pervasive dehydration problem by practicing mindful hydration techniques!

JUMPSTART YOUR DAY Start your morning with a great big glass of water.

MAKE IT ACCESSIBLE Keep a glass or bottle of water nearby you at all times.

MONITOR YOUR INTAKE Set a timer, or download an app that reminds you to monitor your hourly water consumption.

HUNGER CHECK Precede each meal with a glass of water.

BALANCE Drink a glass of water for every non-water beverage you consume.

REHYDRATE Follow every hike, workout, steaming shower, sweltering traffic jam, etc. with a glass of cool, refreshing water.

RESPOND TO EMOTIONAL CUES Soothe yourself after arguments, emotional outbursts, and worry storms with some mindful sips of H2O to return yourself back to your physical, present state.

Practicing these techniques has an added anti-anxiety benefit because it puts you in a more constant the state of physical self-care and mindfulness. Checking in with and caring for the body is the best antidote to mental anguish and anxiety. So bottoms up!

Body in Charge: Managing Anxiety by Moving the Body

October 12, 2018October 17, 2018meganmedinalpc

For this month’s Body in Charge: Managing Anxiety series, I’ve been sharing tips on how to manage anxiety symptoms by cutting down on stimulant substances and practicing mindful breathing techniques. Today’s tip might not be as simple sounding as the previous two; in fact, it’s something many of us struggle with anyway.

Anxiety tip #3: Move your body

Mental tension isn’t exclusively housed in the brain. When our minds are feeling tense and overwhelmed, those feelings often transfer to our muscles, particularly the muscles in the shoulders, neck, back, and jaws. Perhaps you’ve noticed this at the end of a stressful day when your jaws feel tight, and your shoulders have become your earrings, and you find yourself unconsciously rubbing your neck and temples. Or maybe you didn’t notice your own tension, but the tension is so apparent that people keep asking you if something is wrong. It’s just another fascinating example of how inextricably linked out minds and bodies are to one another.

The danger with this kind of tension–besides it being really, really uncomfortable–is that it sets the stage for an anxiety attack. Perpetually tense upper body muscles are one of the primary causes of tension headaches, shallow breathing, and constricted blood vessels… all early warning signs for an anxiety attack.

When experiencing any kind of muscle tension, many people automatically turn to pain pills like acetaminophen or NSAIDs, or alcohol or other drugs, but while those interventions might relieve the symptoms, they are temporary, have dangerous side-effects when used too often, and they won’t address the underlying cause of the muscle tension. The healthiest, and most effective strategy is to release that muscle tension through movement.

Stretch your jaws daily.
Here, do it with me right now: Open your jaws really, really wide… like Shark-From-Jaws wide. I know, it looks weird, and it feels pretty weird, too, and maybe your family is looking at you like you’re weird. (Okay, you can close your jaw now.) For some people, doing that exercise for the first time is shocking because they had no idea how much tension they carry in their jaws. The jaws are one of the first body parts we tense up when we’re stressed, and the first body signal other people subconsciously notice about us, but the last body part we pay attention to.Stretching your jaws daily–perhaps after brushing your teeth, or driving your car (even though it might weird out the person driving next to you)–will not only help you keep the jaw relaxed and flexible, but it will also help you keep tabs on your overall muscle tension. It’s like yoga, but for your face!
Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR)
It may sound paradoxical, but incorporating short bursts physical tension in the muscles leads to a relaxation effect in the same muscles. A prime example: Sitting where you are, scrunch up your shoulders toward your ears as tightly as you can for a few seconds. Now release. Repeat. And release. You might feel a light tingling sensation from waking and warming up the muscles in your neck and upper back. That’s the benefit of regular PMR.Now, repeat the same exercise but for every part of your body, working your way from your head to your toes. Hold each contraction for 3-5 seconds, and remember to breathe: inhale on the contraction, exhale on the release.
Go for a walk (or jog, or mix it up!)
Free, readily-available, and easy for many of us to do, regular walking outdoors is one of the best things you can do for your physical and mental health. You can even bring along a friend, a hyperactive pet, or mix it up by adding short bursts of jogging.
Free exercise videos on YouTube
YouTube isn’t just a receptacle for conspiracy theories and makeup tips; it’s also a treasure vault of free and diverse exercise videos. There’s salsa dancing lessons, 10-minute boot camp routines, pregnancy yoga, and even my latest favorite: hip hop step aerobics. Anything you can imagine is there, and you can even filter results by style, length of time, and instructor. You can do a 10-minute tai chi video one day, and a 50-minute calisthenics video the next. You might actually discover a workout style you truly enjoy!
Turn on your favorite song and dance.
Some people say true happiness is to dance like no one is watching, but you could test that theory by trying it in the privacy of your own home. Not only will it get you moving, breathing, and exerting that physical tension, but you’ll also get an additional mood boost from listening to music you love.
Have sex.
This is a tip that often gets taken for granted, but if you have a ready and willing partner (and you’re not betraying someone else in the process, which would only cause you more stress in the long run), go for it!
Lift heavy stuff, move furniture, clean behind the fridge, just do something!
Simply incorporating movement into your daily life, and giving yourself opportunities to contract and relax those tense muscles will prime your body for the physical effects of anxiety and, ultimately, decrease the frequency and severity of full-on anxiety attacks.

Most people know that incorporating a combination of some of these techniques into their daily lives will improve their physical health, but they often don’t realize how much they also positively impact mental health. And, as an added bonus, by moving more, you’re also breathing more, helping you add in the other component for mental health!

Body in Charge: Manage Anxiety by Managing Your Breath

October 9, 2018meganmedinalpc

Yesterday, for my Body in Charge: Managing Anxiety series, I wrote about how cutting down on stimulant substances can improve anxiety symptoms. In today’s post, I’ll offer an even simpler strategy: breathe.

Because the mind and body are inextricably linked, they must work together as one. This is why, when our minds are hyperactivated with worry, our bodies tend to mimic the problem with hyperactivated physical symptoms: shallow breathing, overheatingA, rapid pulse, etc, even when we’re physically healthy. While it is sometimes difficult to control the mind when anxiety hits, it’s fairly simple to control the body through breathing, making it one of the most effective interventions in anxiety research.

It takes practice, but what many of my clients have discovered is that if they practice deep breathing during an anxiety episode, the body has no choice but to calm down, and the mind has no choice but to follow. Oxygenated blood and expanded airways will slow down the pulse, and help soothe a troubled mind and body,

And don’t just use it as an intervention! Deep breathing techniques work best when practiced regularly to decrease the severity of anxiety symptoms and ultimately prevent them! Try some of the following activities for a week or two and see if you notice a difference:

Begin and end each day with a set of 10 long, deep breaths, holding the breath for a few seconds between inhalation and exhalation.
Practice yoga breathing, or deep belly breathing, by inhaling air into the bottom of the lungs, so the belly poofs out when the lungs are full. (This takes practice!)
When doing physical activity, check in with the body regularly to make sure you are breathing deeply.
If you have an office job, or spend lots of time in front of the computer, set a timer to take frequent breaks so you can pause, sit back, and take a deep breath at regular intervals.
Download a guided meditation app so you can take short lessons about breathing and mindfulness. (Some apps have meditations as short as 3 minutes, but you might find yourself wanting to do more!)
Try a yoga or tai chi video on YouTube. They’re free, you don’t even need a mat, and the practice of slow movements coordinated with breathing will help you develop the habit of deep breathing.

All of these above activities are simple, effective, and proven ways to settle an anxious mind and body. And not only that, but they also work to improve your own sense of physical fitness and wellness.

Body in Charge: Managing Anxiety by Managing Substances

October 8, 2018October 17, 2018meganmedinalpc

Caffeine, pseudoephedrine, nicotine, even chocolate could be making your anxiety worse.

With Starbucks on every corner, pseudoephedrine in every allergy medication, and energy drinks becoming one of the most popular beverages in the US, stimulant consumption among most demographics in the US is at an all-time high. Most people talk about their reliance on these substances as if it’s a nutritional need: “I can’t even move until I’ve had my coffee,” is something we’ve all heard before. With stimulant consumption so normalized it’s no wonder anxiety rates have sky-rocketed in recent years.

Most people are so accustomed to the physiological effects of stimulants (raised pulse rate, shallow breathing, muscle tension, rapid thinking, etc.) that they hardly notice the them, and rarely consider their compounded effects. Hours, days, even weeks and months of stimulant consumption can accumulate until heightened activation of the body’s nervous system becomes the norm. Add in a few extra worries, and you’ve got the perfect habitat for a full-blown panic attack.

When a client comes to me with complaints about anxiety, one of the first things I assess is their level of stimulant consumption. Many times, after cutting out (or at least cutting down) the following items, they find their anxiety attacks disappear!

These are some of the things to decrease, or cut out of your system before any therapy for anxiety will be effective:

Caffeine (coffee, teas, energy drinks, chocolate, especially if taken after lunch)
Pseudoephedrine (often in cold and allergy products that have ‘D’ in the name, i.e. Allegra D)
Sugar
Some dietary supplements for mood or weight loss (often have caffeine or herbal stimulants)
Ritalin, Adderall or other stimulants for ADD/ADHD (consult your doctor if this is prescribed. Your doctor may have other suggestions if you share your concerns about your anxiety symptoms.)
Nicotine (cigarrettes, e-cigs such as Juuls, gums)
Alcohol (a depressant, not a stimulant, alcohol can affect deep sleep REM cycles, making a person feel more tired, anxious, and depressed than they would be with some good night’s rest)

Cut out or cut down these substances, and you might see your anxiety symptoms decrease or disappear completely!