If you’re feeling anxious as of late, you aren’t to be blamed. It takes only the strongest people to move through times like this totally unaffected, and even then, we wonder how strength can be defined. However, while empathizing with people the world over and considering just how crazy things have gotten is important, it’s also important to tend to your own feelings and mental health.

Note that some emotions are normal, and not an indication of bad mental health. If you feel scared, or unhappy, or worried about the prevalence of Covid-19, that’s normal. You’re not dysfunctional for feeling that way. However, it’s when these emotions become unmanageable that we need to take a second look and consider just how to settle them, soothe them, and process them.

If you feel that you’ve developed anxiety over the recent months, and have trouble going out because of it, odds are you’re also in need of help. Don’t feel that this is a character failing – it truly isn’t. If you can focus on putting your best foot forward, you’ll no doubt be in the right place. Let us help you from there:

Considering Causes

What causes do you have to feel anxious? Of course, that can be a silly question to pose. It could be that your anxiety is just generated by variables outside of your control. You may be quite sensitive to going outside, or be dealing with past trauma, or it may just be an individual quirk of your personality. If you ‘fix’ the ‘error’ and don’t see relief, it can be quite easy to think you’re beyond hope. Furthermore, the question also assumes that there’s something you’re doing wrong.

However, sometimes causes we do have control over can affect our anxiety levels throughout the day. For instance, might it be that you’re just not getting enough sleep, or drinking way too much caffeine during the day, or you are under the watch of a terribly controlling parent or partner. That might be something to consider. Could you find a way out of a toxic social group, or focus on your health, or meditate, or go outside each day to fight your agoraphobic symptoms?

If you feel that this is beyond your control, it’s important to:

Reaching Out To Professional Help

Anxiety isn’t a personality flaw. Far from it actually, because while it can be debilitating, it gives you the opportunity to manage something difficult and feel pride in that. There’s nothing like recovering from anxious symptoms and learning breathing techniques to help you in this direction. Of course, that’s a silver lining and not a benefit, but t’s important to know that even if you are crippled with anxiety – there’s always hope.

Reaching out to professional help can help you understand that. They have seen hundreds, if not thousands of patients with anxiety. Sometimes, they may grant you medication to deal with that, or they may help you enroll into a CBT course, or they may grant you the option of talk therapy. All of this can help. When an olive branch is extended in this form, it’s important to take it.

Anxiety can often serve as a multi-headed beast that requires soothing and a multi-pronged strategy to defeat it. A professional can help you learn those strategies. They’ve seen it all before.

Finding Your Release

Anxiety can sometimes be a cause of stress that has been unattended for quite some while. It can be worth dealing with this. For instance, do you wake up and get in your car, all ready for work within moments? Or do you take the time to meditate, or do a few press-ups and sit-ups, and eat a good, nutritional breakfast before heading there? Could PenguinCBD products help?

Stress can come to us and stay with us through a variety of means. If you’re not careful about managing it, it can overpower you. One of the most common ways for it to express itself (aside from emotional outbursts and anger) is anxiety. So, finding your release can be important. If that means speaking to your HR department about how you’ve been struggling as of late, you may be able to take a sick day from work to tend to your mental health,  or you may be referred to a better environment where you can be taken care of.

Anxiety can come about naturally (especially in unknown situations) but too much of it is never unprecedented, or without cause. Sometimes finding your release can help you manage this while you focus on the actual issues to hand, or work through improving your life with your specialist help.

Accepting It

It’s also important to understand that anxiety isn’t always a terrible thing. Sometimes, it’s a very natural response to the world we live in today. Let’s think about it. Note – if you’re reading this in an anxious mood, we would like to offer a trigger warning. But just thing – we live in a world where a pandemic is sweeping globally. We have devices in our pockets that can speak to anyone else in ownership of a similar device around the world. There is civil unrest along racial and political lines like we haven’t experienced in decades. Even going outside, in an urban area, can feel quite unnatural due to its disconnect from nature. Some people may currently be struggling with employment, or debt, or a range of other issues.

Sometimes, over-pathologizing anxiety can make it worse. If you realize that this is natural, yet it can be soothed, and look for healthier ways of living, then you’re more likely to accept and even understand your anxiety, seeing it as a friend there to warn you, and slowly process those emotions more easily. This can be much healthier than taking a combative approach, and there’s nothing new-age or overtly spiritual about thinking this way.

With this advice, we hope you can more easily settle your anxiety – even in fractious times.