What can help with anxiety issues

Hello and first I would like to commend you for working to reach out and identify what you are working through and start the process of finding ways to cope and work through this. Sleep and anxiety go hand in hand with each other. When we go to bed with anxiety we get less restful sleep and wake up on edge, which triggers an increase in additional anxiety as the day goes on, and this can create a cycle that really leaves us feeling down and overwhelmed.

To address these kinds of struggles we work to address it from multiple directions. One of the first things that we can look at is creating a healthy nighttime routine that creates an environment for restful sleep. This routine can vary for each person, but there are common things that it has which really can help us. First working to just have some type of routine, letting our body get the signals that we are getting ready for rest will allow us to start to de-escalate earlier, rather than everything hitting us as we lie down at night. Less television/screen time as we get closer to sleep time, calming scents, a shower/bath are all things that allow our body and mind to be on the same page about a sleep time/schedule. 

Once we have a general routine identified, it can really help with those anxious worries to have a journal/notebook next to our beds. One of the reasons that we get those intrusive and hyperfixated thoughts is because there is something about it that our brain really wants us to remember, so in order to feel like we are going to remember in the morning, our brains tend to play these things on repeat. By the simple act of writing down these thoughts that are settling in our brains on repeat, we are creating this atmosphere where our mind knows that we are going to remember these things in the morning, so that we do not have to hyperfocus on them. While this does not 'fix' this situation overnight, when we create this pattern it allows us to move forward and not be in a place where our minds feel such a need to focus on these situations/things. 

The previous skills really work to help you to get healthier sleep, which is key, but also there is the need to look at those things that are triggering you to have some of these really elevated and anxious thoughts. There is a triggers worksheet that I am going to include a link to at the bottom of this, and it works to allow us to look at the different things in our lives that we are experiencing or have experienced in our lives and feel like we can differentiate the things that really are leading to a lot of the anxiety and stress that we are dealing with. We can also really start to see the things that are triggering us to have lower motivation for what we need to be doing in life. It can really allow you to be in a place where you can look at the things you have going on and feel more prepared to deal with them, because you are aware of what is triggering you. 

While this process is great to start understanding triggers, it can really be important that we have a therapy interaction at this point to really work through the triggers that we identify. We can really benefit from the support of someone that can help us to look at the things that we have experienced and work through them so that we can have a healthier understanding and better ways of coping.

Implementation of coping skills is really important as well. Having a plan on how to cope with the struggles and stressors as the appear is really healthy. Coping skills vary from person to person, just like the sleep routines, and working to find what is healthiest and works best for you is key. Breathing work is really healthy for anxiety, as we can calm our bodies down with healthy calm and slow breathing, our minds can slow down as well and we can be calmer and better able to think clearly in the situation that we are in. We also work to have distraction skills that allow us to just decrease our anxiety in the moment, ranging from calming music, calming scents, taking a walk outside, just getting out of the space physically and mentally that we are being triggered in. 

Having a good understanding of our triggers and coping skills allows us to better manage the anxiety that we are facing and helps us to be in a place where we can feel like we are motivated to move forward in life and create just a positive outlook on the life that we have and what direction we want to move forward in. I would encourage engaging in the therapy process, as working through anxiety can be a big task and having support along the way can really make a huge difference. 

https://www.therapistaid.com/therapy-worksheet/triggers