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A lot of the time when people give advice intended to relieve anxiety, they suggest doing “relaxing” things like drawing, painting, knitting, taking a bubble bath, coloring in one of those zen coloring books, or watching glitter settle to the bottom of a jar.
This advice is always well-intentioned, and I’m not here to diss people who either give it or who benefit from it. But it has never, ever done shit for me, and this is because it goes about resolving anxiety in the completely wrong way.
THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO when suffering from anxiety is to do a “relaxing” thing that just enables your mind to dwell and obsess more on the thing that’s bothering you. You need to ESCAPE from the dwelling and the obsession in order to experience relief.
You can drive to a quiet farm, drive to the beach, drive to a park, or anywhere else, but as someone who has tried it all many, many times, trust me–it’s a waste of gas. You will just end up still sad and stressed, only with sand on your butt. You can’t physically escape your sadness. Your sadness is inside of you. To escape, you need to give your brain something to play with for a while until you can approach the issue with a healthier frame of mind.
People who have anxiety do not need more time to contemplate, because we will use it to contemplate how much we suck.
In fact, you could say that’s what anxiety is–hyper-contemplating. When we let our minds run free, they run straight into the thorn bushes. Our minds are already running, and they need to be controlled. They need to be given something to do, or they’ll destroy everything, just like an overactive husky dog ripping up all the furniture.
Therefore, I present to you:
–Go on a walk
–Watch a sunset, watch fish in an aquarium, watch glitter, etc.
–Go anywhere where the main activity is sitting and watching
–Draw, color, do anything that occupies the hands and not the mind
–Do yoga, jog, go fishing, or anything that lets you mentally drift
–Do literally ANYTHING that gives you great amounts of mental space to obsess and dwell on things.
–Do a crossword puzzle, Sudoku, or any other mind teaser game. Crosswords are the best.
–Write something. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Write the Top 10 Best Restaurants in My City. Rank celebrities according to Best Smile. Write some dumb Legolas fanfiction and rip it up when you’re done. It’s not for publication, it’s a relief exercise that only you will see.
–Read something, watch TV, or watch a movie–as long as it’s engrossing. Don’t watch anything which you can run as background noise (like, off the top of my head, Say Yes to The Dress.) As weird as it seems, American Horror Story actually helps me a lot, because it sucks me in.
–Masturbate. Yes, I’m serious. Your mind has to concentrate on the mini-movie it’s running. It can’t run Sexy Titillating Things and All The Things That are Bothering Me at the same time. (…I hope. If it can, then…ignore this one.)
–Do math problems—literally, google “algebra problems worksheet” and solve them. If you haven’t done math since 7th grade this will really help you. I don’t mean with math, I mean with the anxiety.
–Play a game or a sport with someone that requires great mental concentration. Working with 5 people to get a ball over a net is a challenge which will require your brain to turn off the Sadness Channel.
–Play a video game, as long as it’s not something like candy crush or Tetris that’s mindless.
–List the capitals of all the U.S. states
–List the capitals of all the European countries
–List all the shapes you can see. Or all the colors.
–List all the blonde celebrities you can think of.
–Pull up a random block of text and count all the As in it, or Es or whatever.
Now obviously, I am not a doctor. I am just an anxious person who has tried almost everything to help myself. I’ve finally realized that the stuff people recommend never works because this is a disorder that thrives on free time and free mental space. When I do the stuff I listed above, I can breathe again. And I hope it helps someone here too.
(Now this shouldn’t have to be said but if the “do nots” work for you then by all means do them. They’ve just never worked for me.)
This would’ve been great an hour ago
This is good advice for anxious peeps and peeps with anxious friends. Seems obvious now but I hadn’t thought about it this way before.
oh heck this is…really really useful advice.I wonder if it would also help when my brain does that ‘too fast can’t settle’ thing and flips from activity to activity at ludicrous speeds.I think I’ll try it next time. <3
Yeah. Do math, not art.
Unless you have my idiotic brain that would use less energy on algebra than on drawing plain background compositions.
(Not criticising, btw. Just trying to be hilarious. It’s a good post. )
I hate my curly hair so much I'll brush it for like an hour and itll he smooth as silk but in literally like one minute there's at least 10 knots wHY
ADFADGSFDGKSFG
I hate this, because almost no one knows it. No one tells kids with curly hair how to actually take care of their hair.
You can’t treat curly hair like straight hair and expect the same results! You can’t! It doesn’t work! Curly hair gets its own routine!
Okay, look, here’s the deal.
Your curls are… curls. They are MEANT to go together into a GROUP. They are not like straight hair which just hands out in one big… thing. Curls have groups.
By BRUSHING it, you are splitting those good-curl groups into separate strands, which, on their own, are STILL trying their goddamned best to curl, but now that they are away from their friends, they are only clinging haphazardly to each other as best as they can and creating tangles!
Here’s what brushed curly hair looks like:
Here’s what well-treated curly hair that has CURL-FRIENDS is supposed to look like (curl size may vary):
See how the curl is NOT only one strand of hair? It’s a whole group!
You know how you get those nice curls?
Okay, here’s the deal - you sit down. You look at this chart. Figure out your type of curl. (guesstimate)
And now you go to this website and you read about what curly hair actually needs to thrive, and you change your routine, and you promise me that you will NEVER disappoint your curls like that again!!!!
1) Curly hair is damaged by heat, lack of moisture, and sulfates in shampoo.
- No blowdrying - use a cotton towel or t-shirt to scrunch your hair and get extra moisture out, and allow to air-dry
- Turn down the shower temp while washing hair. I mean it.
- Try to find a better shampoo.
2) Curly hair NEEDS moisture, and it NEEDS leave-in conditioner.
- Use lots of conditioner.
- Use leave-in conditioner
- Try to use water spray over chemical setting sprays.
3) Curly hair does not need to be brushed, only combed with a wide-tooth comb.
- Comb the hair through with your fingers while in the shower and detangle while you have conditioner in.
- Comb again with a wide-toothed comb after the shower if needed
- If you need to, use a twist of some sort to keep hair out of the way, but don’t squeeze it too much - give it room to breathe!
More tips from smarter people probably exist but that’s the basic stuff.
PLEASE be nice to your curly hair.
I really needed this
Too late. Is there a way to get the curls back together once youve brushed them out for many years or is shaving it all off and letting it regrow the only way? I think we all need to know.
You are not stupid. You are not ugly. You are not worthless. You are not weak. You are not a burden. Your mental illness is lying to you.
Fuck.
Also:
No you’re not bothering me. (Yes I’m serious.)
You’re not dumb.
You have great ideas.
Your smile isn’t ugly.
Neither is your laugh.
Yes people love you. No they’re not lying. Yes really.
YOU ARE NOT BOTHERING ME.
You don’t need to apologize, I actually AM very interested in our conversation.
YOU DON”T NEED TO APOLOGIZE FOR EXISTING.
in addition: yes i love you and your existence
Uhm… I really fucking needed to see this.
Yes, I am happy to hear from you.
You look nice today.
No, you aren’t being annoying.
Tell me more about the things you like, I’m interested in what you have to say.
If you changed your mind and can’t handle going out, we can hang out at home instead, I really don’t mind and I’m not mad at you.
Yes, I am really honestly happy that you’re here!
I think you’re pretty great actually.
Stan Wayman, A lesbian couple strolling through the woods after their wedding, 1950s.
this is really the most romantic image i’ve ever seen
A historic reminder that lesbians did not wait for legal recognition to call each other wives and to hold ceremonies celebrating our marriages.
Sometimes people hit a place in their life where things are going really well. They like their job and are able to be productive at it; they have energy after work to pursue the relationships and activities they enjoy; they’re taking good care of themselves and rarely get sick or have flareups of their chronic health problems; stuff is basically working out. Then a small thing about their routine changes and suddenly they’re barely keeping their head above water.
(This happens to me all the time; it’s approximately my dominant experience of working full-time.)
I think one thing that’s going on here is that there are a bunch of small parts of our daily routine which are doing really important work for our wellbeing. Our commute involves a ten-minute walk along the waterfront and the walking and fresh air are great for our wellbeing (or, alternately, our commute involves no walking and this makes it way more frictionless because walking sucks for us). Our water heater is really good and so we can take half-hour hot showers, which are a critical part of our decompression/recovery time. We sit with our back to the wall so we don’t have to worry about looking productive at work as long as the work all gets done. The store down the street is open really late so late runs for groceries are possible. Our roommate is a chef and so the kitchen is always clean and well-stocked.
It’s useful to think of these things as load-bearing. They’re not just nice - they’re part of your mental architecture, they’re part of what you’re using to thrive. And when they change, life can abruptly get much harder or sometimes just collapse on you entirely. And this is usually unexpected, because it’s hard to notice which parts of your environment and routine are load bearing. I often only notice in hindsight. “Oh,” I say to myself after months of fatigue, “having my own private space was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a scary drop in weight, “being able to keep nutrition shakes next to my bed and drink them in bed was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a sudden struggle to maintain my work productivity, “a quiet corner with my back to the wall was load-bearing.”
When you know what’s important to you, you can fight for it, or at least be equipped to notice right away if it goes and some of your ability to thrive goes with it. When you don’t, or when you’re thinking of all these things as ‘nice things about my life’ rather than ‘load-bearing bits of my flourishing as a person’, you’re not likely to notice the strain created when they vanish until you’re really, really hurting.
Almost two weeks after reading this, and I’m still kind of blown away at what a ridiculously fruitful definition this is. Like I had no idea that load bearing things were a thing that needed to have a word for them, but now I’m like holy shit I’m so glad that there’s now a word I can use to refer to this really important class of Thing.
This is astounding. Load-bearing. Forget spoons, this concept is wonderful. I’m going to update my Spear Theory with this.
Hey, reminder that one of the reasons humanity has been able to flourish is because we formed societies and helped support each other. Complete independence and self reliance is a myth to try to get you to buy more things. Please reach out. Please connect yourself. There is no reason you have to do things alone.
This is some truth laid down right here boy.
Am I the only one whose internet addiction started with my parents not letting me fucking go anywhere
This but I also had no friends so I wouldn’t have anywhere to go if I was allowed
this is a thing! danah boyd is a researcher who has been studying social media for over a decade and in her 2014 book it’s complicated she argues that teenage social media “addiction” (which she also contends is like…..not actually a thing) is a result of the fact that “today’s teenagers have less freedom to wander than any previous generation” because “parents argue that these restrictions are necessary in an increasingly dangerous society, even though the data suggest that contemporary youth face fewer dangers than they did twenty years ago.”
as a result, teenagers are reclaiming these lost social spaces (which their parents and grandparents had in the form of mall hangouts, drive-in theaters, after school parking lots, etc) by using social media, where they can continue to “engage in crucial aspects of maturation: self-presentation, managing social relationships, and developing an understanding of the world around them,” aka stuff that teens are Supposed to be doing
sometimes i just sit and think about ways a genie can grant wishes.
Benjamin Kelly, the district secretary for Representative Shawn Harrison, reportedly liked a tweet that referred to González as a “brown bald lesbian girl.” (Kelly has since been fired.)
González is not deterred. She’s taking calls from Demi Lovato; speaking with Anderson Cooper on live television. Overnight, she’s turned into the face of gun control, and her being a brown bald bisexual woman is not a deficit, as some might decide–instead, an incredible talisman that seems to indicate the kind of power those of us deemed powerless truly have. That despite the Trumps of the world telling minorities how worthless we are, over and over again; that QPOCs and women are not even low priority but instead targets, we will not recoil while sheepishly raising white flags.
Emma González is the portrait of empowerment, and she’s inspiring a movement that includes us all; one that is not asking for, but demanding a safety that is no longer promised or assured by current administration. And as she continues her advocacy into the March For Our Lives on March 24, it appears the NRA might have finally mets its match in a teenage girl.
brunch is gay culture because none of us are awake before 10 am
except farm gays. these are the most powerful gays and I dare not fuck with them
my mum is a farm gay, she came out, left my dad, moved to a tiny little podunk farming town, found the only other gay in the village, the waitress at the diner, she gave her her number and now they’re engaged. she truly is the most powerful gay. a brave lesbian.
an inspiration.
furry noodles vs smooth noodles
this is literally how i dance
This went from “wow that’s pretty neat” to “WTF ITS ALIVE” real quick
she did that
Workout For Daily Life
Reblogging for the neck pain ones… whoa Nelly, do I ever get the most killer neck pains.
