Anxiety: How Late Night Television Helped

[LorraineRoach]

Once in a while you do get some good information on late night television.

I am sure you have all stayed up late to watch the late late show or just could not sleep so you sat in front of the television to pass the time.

That is what I was doing and saw an infomercial on a stress elimination program.

I heard people talk about the very things I had been living with for many years.

Stress has been attributed to heart disease and even suicide.

Panic, stress and depression have been on the rise for years but now seem to be leaping ahead of cancer in its prevalence.

I was disturbed by this information and got to thinking about my own situation.

I realized that I had to be committed to eliminating these factors from my life.

Just wanting them to go away was not working for me and the more I tried to wish them away the more frustrated I got.

I was convinced at one point that there must be something wrong with me if I could not handle my life and do what I thought I should be able to do on my own.

I felt it was embarrassing to admit I was not as strong willed as I wanted to be. I now know that will has nothing to do with getting rid of anxiety and its partners.

It has taken many hours of research, countless articles as well as hundreds of conversations to even begin to study the effects of anxiety, stress, panic and depression.

I discovered that even people we think of as high achievers are suffering from depression.

There are many people who are living double lives because they hide their feelings and keep up false impressions for everyone around them.

The stress of doing this for years is what breaks down our immune system and can leave us susceptible to disease.

Our bodies are a working unit and we forget that all things are connected.

This is why living with a mind that deceives us with anxiety is so all consuming.

We do not take part in the lives of our family when we are daily bombarded with anxiety.

Suffering with this state of mind effects us socially and economically as well.

Until I sat down and thought about all the ways the anxiety had taken over my life I never realized that the quality of my life was being affected so greatly.

This television program I watched late at night got the wheels turning and helped me on the path to recovery.

I say recovery because you can reclaim your life and put anxiety behind you.

I look back and reflect on how life used to be when I did not know how to help myself and there is such a difference now.

It is never too late to get medical, spiritual and self-help.

Admitting to yourself that you need a change and recognizing the need to ask for help any way possible is how to begin the steps needed to end anxiety for good.

 

[Keara]

Reading this was helpful to me, especially the part about stress breaking down your immune system. I am getting sick all the time lately, and am getting cold sores one after another. I'm thinking it is my body telling me something is wrong, something needs to change. It's time to get to the bottom of this. Asking for help seems impossible right now, though.
Can I ask you what kind of help you have gotten, and do you think you are cured of this?

 

[LorraineRoach]

Stress and the Immune system

Reading this was helpful to me, especially the part about stress breaking down your immune system. I am getting sick all the time lately, and am getting cold sores one after another. I'm thinking it is my body telling me something is wrong, something needs to change. It's time to get to the bottom of this. Asking for help seems impossible right now, though.
Can I ask you what kind of help you have gotten, and do you think you are cured of this?

Hi :
Getting cold sores is definitley a sign of stress. I believe the virus that causes the sores is a relative to the chicken pox virus. That is how it was explained to me in the past.
I am sure that you have read up on cold sores or if you have not ,then just do a search on the web and see what you can learn about them from the different sites.
Having said that , cold sores can be transmitted to others when they are in a breakout stage.
I have had 2 in my life and both times I was going through severe stress. I didn't know why I got them but the stress seemed to be the factor in my case.
If you can speak to a doctor or you know someone who has medical training,even at the pharmacy you can get help with some topical cream to put on the area as soon as you feel a tingling at the site of the cold sore.
These creams can lessen the severity and duration when you get an outbreak.
I have had success with this way of nipping it in the bud so to speak.
Stress is the worst thing we go through as humans I think because it manifests itself as so many other things.
I work at recovering from stress every day. You get to know your own stress triggers and just how you are feeling inside. Knowing the feelings helps me to talk to myself about the stress I am feeling and I know that I am stronger than anything my mind can bring on..
I tell myself that the stress won't last and I look at each situation on it's own .
Find a way that suits you to deal with stress. For example.... Go away from the situation and do something else,even if it is in another room or sit in your car and listen to the radio.
Learn some yoga breathing techniques.
Write down some positive thoughts and read them morning and night . These two times of day are when our brain is most suseptable to ideas.
Keep a journal of your day and once a week or month(you decide) look back on what you wrote to get an idea of what is going on in you life and look at the patterns.
There is work to be done when eliminating stress and as I said , I work at it every day. My own personal methods are easier now as I have practiced them so much. It was difficult to start but I figured what did I have to lose except the stress.
If something does not seem to be working for me I try something else
Read on ways to build confidence and improve self esteem. Educating ourselves is a good way to an understanding of stress and its related factors.
I know it is a task that looks and feels like it is too much work but start the road to recovery on a day when you are feeling bettter and take it a little at a time.
I say it is like taking baby steps and we had to learn how to crawl before we could walk. Babies don't give up if they fall on their behinds because if they did.... all of us would never have learned how to walk.
My son says that if we knew how to do something already then we would already be doing it ..... so we are not born knowing how to do everything and it is O.K. if we don't know something.
Ask for help and you will be surprized at how your kids or friends etc. will be there for you.
If you do not get help from the first person you ask then ask someone else and so on.
You are a good person and do not forget that fact.
Know this to be true and tell yourself everyday that this is a fact.
The more we tell ourselves something ,the more true it becomes.
Just as we put negative talk in our brains time after time and we believe the negative stuff we tell ourselves . We can do the same in reverse and fill our heads with good and productive positive thoughts.
The negative thoughts have been going into your mind for sometime no doubt.
When you notice yourself getting the negative input from all the outside sources CHOOSE to not listen and remember the good thoughts you want in your head instead and think of them.
KICK OUT the negative. Picture yourself actually kicking out the negative.
I look at it in my mind as a ball that I want to kick far away.
It is a funny concept but humor helps to get you to see things in a different more relaxed way. Laughing at yourself is a good stress reliever. Even if you laugh inside yourself,you know what is going on.
The things we do in our minds are done there so nobody even has to realize what techniques we are using. That is the beauty of using your own thoughts for reconditioning the thought patterns.
It takes practice and it can be challenging but so worth the effort.
I have to work at getting more positive thoughts in and push out the negative ones when they come along. There have been years of trauma and abuse to get past and I am a lot better than I was 5 months ago.
Lets take it slow as I said and give yourself permission to learn and backslide if that happens .
You will learn and everything you can do for yourself is a help.
I hope this is of some help to you and gives you something to think about.
Take care and write back if you want to.
Lorraine R.

 

[Keara]

Lorraine: thank you for this reply, there is a lot of really good advice there that I will try. I think I will read it everyday for a while so it will sink in.

When you said " you are a good person and do not forget that fact" I teared up a bit, that is the hardest part for me I think. I only feel like a good person when I am with my children. Outside I compare myself to others too much. I feel like the weird one that no one wants to talk to.

Which I understand, I mean it is hard for me to talk to people usually. It takes me a long time to feel comfortable talking to people. Some people don't bother with me at all. Some try but sometimes I take to long to say anything and they just get fed up and leave me alone I guess. Which is sometimes what I want, but then I get lonely...I don't know what I want sometimes. But I do understand why people would want to leave me alone, or think I'm a snob or something. It makes sense, I am the one with the problem.

But then some people are really easy to talk to and I feel comfortable, but I still worry about saying the wrong thing. And sometimes I feel comfortable and like someone, than they will look at me the wrong way or say something I don't like and I start feeling tense around them again. I feel like the relationship has been ruined.

I have so many things to get over. I tend to think that people are either perfectly good or really bad, which is why it hurts me so much if someone I actually like is mean to me in some way. And also why I have trouble forgiving people.

I like your advice about picturing myself kicking out the negative. I've never heard that one before, I think it will be useful. Thanks again for your help, you have no idea how much it means to me.

 

[LorraineRoach]

Hi There

Hello Keara: Hope all is well with you these days.
I am still on the journey to end anxiety in my own life. I have good and so so days but I keep looking forward and tell myself that I am a work in progress and nobody is perfect. I like to take the pressure off of myself and let myself have set backs as well as gains in my struggle to recover from panic,depression and anxiety.
I have doubts sometimes about how things are going but I keep writing stuff down in my journals and read the words over from time to time. This helps me keep track of my progress as well as my setbacks and then perhaps I can understand the things that cause me distress and I can focus on those things for awhile and really take notice of what I said and the words I used and how I described what was going on at the time. Looking back can help me plan for the next time I get in a similar situation or have feelings like I wrote about and I will be able to help myself to understand my life. We always think we will really remember an experience but I have found that writing these things down is so much easier and I then have a record of events from the past. It is away I am coming to know the triggers that set off some of my bad days. Having the desire to help yourself and talking to others and writing in journals are a few simple techniques that can help over time. You did not get anxious overnight so give yourself time to work through the process and work on the plan that you have decided to try. Remember that you can change your methods whenever you decide. Desires, the things you decide to do and take action with your plan however slowly or quickly you choose will get results.

Take care and believe in the fact that you can make a difference in your own life. Do it at your own pace and keep moving forward even if you think it is a slow process. It is your own choice how you want to proceed.
We are in this together and there are thousands like us who are working through their own anxiety

Lorraine