Anxiety & Me

Tea and Biscuits, Gin and Tonic, Breast Cancer & Anxiety, seriously girls I just don’t think you can have one without having the other.    I actually hate Anxiety, I’ve been trying to remember what I was like in my pre BC days, honestly I can’t remember being as anxey as I am these days.

Usually I’m fine in the morning I wake up happy out ready to face my day and do my thing, I find for me it’s the minute my head hits the pillow, I start to get a really uneasy feeling.  The only way I can describe it, is it’s like a vibe that something bad is going to happen.  It doesn’t always relate to me and my health it can be anything almost like I am pre-empting the worst case scenario in every scenario.

I have been trying to figure out when it started and I can pin point that it was when I was going through Radiation, which was probably the easiest part of my treatment, at that stage I had been told I was getting radiation for preventative measures and that my chemo had been a success.  All the news that I was getting at this time was only good.    But it was around this time I think the reality of my diagnosis hit me, it was then the “what if” cloud started to form over my head.

I go through stages, sometimes it’s worse than others.  Since Christmas I’ve definitely been more anxious than I had been in a long time.  I think that was down to getting the flu, last week I was back at the doctor with another sinus infection, being on antibiotics and not feeling 100% just interfered with me going to the gym and eating properly I was feeling just really miserable.

I don’t think anxiety makes me a weak person it’s just another aspect to who I am, definitely triggered by the first-hand experience I’ve had that anything can happen in life good or bad and everything can change in a split-second.

How does it affects my life, well I always say I have a fuzzy head, I find it really difficult to focus at times. It makes me very distracted.  I’m probably not the best for sleeping either as when my head hits the pillow my mind races.   Being honest most of the time I’m in really good form this is just a niggle that I could really be doing without.   I also find I don’t eat as healthy as I should when I am feeling anxey and that turns into a vicious cycle of feeling crap.

There are things I do to help me cope better.   My number one weapon in my fight against anxiety is to exercise regularly, I find after I’ve done a good session in the gym I feel so much better and it helps me sleep, so instead of lying awake fretting I’m ready to nod off.

Feeding my body with nutritious healthy food helps, I find if I am drinking lots of water and eating good food it really does improve things.  When I am feeling extra anxey and distracted I find I don’t prepare my foods as I should and I tend to grab convenience foods, I never let this behaviour last too long because I know how beneficial a balanced diet is and after a few days of eating healthy I reap the benefits.

Guided meditations are also brilliant I find they distract my mind.

Focusing on the NOW, this is really important, I always bring myself back to that, I think about the moment I am living in, I do my checklist – Am I healthy ? YES  Is my son healthy? YES , there is more on my list but I won’t bore you with them all.  When I do this I find it calms me down and gives me a more balanced perspective.  What is it they say about FEAR its False Evidence Appearing Real.

So what was the point of this rambling post, well I guess it’s to let you know you are not alone if you are feeling full of anxiety.  I don’t think my anxiety is going anywhere fast but I have discovered there are ways I can dull it out, after beating Breast Cancer which was very very real I am not going to let Anxiety about stuff that hasn’t happen beat me.