Free Yourself from Anxiety (7 page)
Read Free Yourself from Anxiety Online
Authors: Emma Fletcher
Use your goal setting skills to make these changes.
Once you have a set of records for both your Anxiety and your food and drink intake then you can compare them. Look to see if there is a pattern.
Ask yourself:
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Is my Anxiety worst when my system is empty?
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Does my Anxiety go up after a caffeine-based drink, or after eating sweets or biscuits?
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Do I feel calmer after a meal?
For some people the link is very strong, and it can come as quite a shock to realise how much impact poor eating habits can have on Anxiety.
‘I’ve never felt that caffeine was a factor in my anxiety – I have tried cutting down and it made no difference, although I am aware of the effects if I have too much coffee.’
A
NDREW
‘I gave up caffeine and it helped me quite a lot.’
J
ULIE
‘I know I drink too much coffee. I started because I was on medication which made me tired. Now I am off the medication that made me so tired but drinking too much coffee has become a habit. Also took caffeine pills – I used to get very anxious around bedtime because of nightmares, so I wanted to keep awake. I overdosed on the pills and they made me feel sick, also anxiety increased because I was worried about getting sick and the fact that I had too much caffeine in my system.’
S
ARAH
‘I’ve never worried about caffeine, and I like the sugar in a coffee. If I’m out sometimes I have a coffee, I feel I need the sugar. You’ve got to find out what suits you.’
W
ENDY
Many anxious people resort to alcohol in the belief that it helps them cope with stressful situations. Unfortunately alcohol is a depressant, and therefore not helpful to Anxiety sufferers. Examine your records from the exercise above and be honest with yourself about the amount of alcohol you consume – could you, for instance, go a whole week without an alcoholic drink? If the answer is yes, then take alcohol out of your diet for a week just to prove that you can. Once you’ve done that, you can allow yourself occasional social drinks during your recovery.
If the answer is no, then it is time to seek help and to find a way to give up alcohol. This needs to be done before embarking on Anxiety recovery, because, unfortunately, alcohol used like this covers up the anxious feelings, and you need to be able to experience them, in a controlledway, in order to deal with them.
This is alsowhy you should never use alcohol to get you through an Anxiety provoking situation – you may feel pleased that you managed it, but, in fact, you learnt nothing and you may have started a very bad habit indeed.
As well as being bad for your general health, smoking has a bad effect on Anxiety – nicotine is a stimulant that actually raises Anxiety levels. However we all know that giving up smoking is a major project in its own right, and someone with very bad Anxiety may simply not feel up to the challenge. If you choose to work on your Anxiety first, promise
yourself that giving up cigarettes will be the next thing that you tackle. In the meantime, cut down as far as you possibly can and in particular never smoke on an empty stomach.
People who become addicted to prescription drugs can experience Anxiety symptoms when they try to withdraw from them. Tranquillisers (or benzodiazepines) are the most commons source of this difficulty. At one time they were prescribed without a full understanding of the side effects of long-term usage. In fact once your body becomes used to them, you can start to feel Anxiety symptoms while you are still taking them, and these can become worse as you try to withdraw from the drugs.
The answer is to withdraw gradually and with support from a trained professional. All of the techniques used for managing Anxiety will be useful, but you will have to allow the time for your body to get used to the reduction in your dosage. See Extra Information 3 for more on this.
If you are taking other prescription drugs check with your doctor about any side effects that might be causing you to feel anxious.
If you are addicted to street drugs this may well be a factor in your Anxiety, but your primary concern is to deal with the addiction problem. If you are a casual user and you have developed Anxiety, then it’s time to stop. Like alcohol, nicotine and caffeine, street drugs will either give you an energy burst that soon wears off, or mask the anxious feelings, making it impossible for you to work on them.
You need to be honest with yourself and decide if you need to deal with any drug problems before you start work on your Anxiety recovery. Use the following guidelines to help you decide:
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If you are a smoker, then you will be able to make progress with your Anxiety recovery.
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If you are using alcohol to blanket the anxious feelings, then you are unlikely to achieve any progress.
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If your problems are caused or made worse by prescription drugs, then you will be able to make progress, but expect it to be slow. You should check with your GP before starting self-help.
•
If you are using street drugs you should give them up before starting on Anxiety recovery.
Use the checklist below to assess your exposure to various drugs.
| Nicotine | Per day |
| Alcohol | Per day |
| | Per week |
| Prescription drugs | Per day |
| | Check with GP about side effects |
| Street drugs | Per day |
| | Per week |
‘I used to smoke, up to 50 a day. I thought it helped with anxiety but now know it doesn’t and I saw the effects on long-term smokers on the ward in hospital. I quit a year and a half ago, now feel healthier though still anxious but now I don’t have the added anxiety o
f
“needing a tab” (cigarette).’
‘I used to drink but very rarely do now, as I am calorie conscious. I know I get more irrational when I drink and can act impulsively.’
‘I smoked cannabis when I was 15 but have not touched it since I was 16. It made me more paranoid and anxious though I didn’t realise it at the time.’
S
ARAH
‘I do smoke, when I gave it up I got colds all the time. When I had anxiety badly I never drank at all, my mother used to say “what do you want to drink for, it does you no good at all”, but now I like one drink in the evening.’
W
ENDY
Sleep can become a major worry for people with Anxiety. Some people find it hard to get enough sleep because their mind is racing and their body on full alert. Others are so exhausted from the constant tension of Anxiety that they sleep for much longer than they normally would.
These are sleep problems which can be dealt with as part of your Anxiety recovery programme. There are also sleep disorders, such as sleep apnoea, which need medical help. If you suspect that you have a sleep disorder, then you should talk to your doctor. If you’re not sure you could try the self-help methods that we suggest first and see if they help.
As with most aspects of Anxiety, sleep problems can form a vicious circle.
Tension and worry can affect the amount or quality of sleep you get, but lack of sleep in turn reduces your energy and ability to cope the following day. This builds up more Anxiety, making for another bad night, and so on. Also, with certain types of Anxiety, worry about not sleeping itself becomes part of the problem.
Similarly, dozing on the couch all day and sleeping through the night can actually leave you feeling lethargic and without any energy, so that you want to do the same thing the next day. Worrying that you aren’t strong enough to stay awake all day only adds to the problem.
We tend to think in terms of eight hours a night, but this is only a rough guide, and people vary in their sleep needs. We are programmed to sleep
when it is dark and to be active when it is daylight, so we may sleep more in winter. Also some activities are more tiring than others, so that we sleep more some nights than others.
Start by keeping a sleep diary for a couple of weeks – use your notebook to record when you sleep, and how long for.
Make a note if you take a long time to get to sleep, if you wake up frequently during the night, if you wake up in the early hours and can’t get back to sleep.
Make a note of the times you sleep during the day, even if it’s only a cat nap.
Once you have a record of your sleep over a period of time you can examine it to see if there is a pattern. If you are worried about lack of sleep, check to see that this really is the case – you may be surprised at how much sleep you’re getting.
Since you are already keeping an Anxiety diary you can compare the two and see if there is a connection. Do you sleep less after a bad day for Anxiety, or does the exhaustion mean that you sleep more?
When you are lying awake, are you troubled by anxious thoughts and/or physical symptoms of Anxiety? Do you have dreams or nightmares? Do you have some good nights and some bad, and are they connected to anything which has happened in the day? Or to the weather, temperature in the bedroom, time you go to bed, what you have eaten or drunk before bedtime?
If you are troubled by anxious thoughts, either while you are settling down to sleep, or when you wake during the night, you will need to
devise a strategy for dealing with them. In Part Three you will learn how Anxiety affects your thinking, and learn some techniques for reducing anxious thoughts. In the meantime, put the rest of the sleep programme in place so that you start to form good habits. The next step is to see what changes you can make to improve matters. It’s largely a question of training yourself and, of course, being patient while you wait for the changes to take effect. Use the checklist below to make sure you’ve done as much as possible.
Make sure your bedroom is as comfortable and peaceful as possible. Don’t use the room for anything else – remove any TVs, computers and other distractions.
Make sure the room is at the right temperature for you, and is well ventilated – open the window during the day to let fresh air in.
Make sure the bed is comfortable, with clean warm bedding and a supportive mattress. (If you can’t afford a new mattress, try putting a board under the old one.)
Make sure the room is dark enough for you – if the curtains or blinds let in light, then add linings or buy blackout blinds. If you prefer a little light that’s fine.
Decide how long you need to sleep for, and add a little time for your preferred before sleep activity (reading, sex, relaxation etc). Tell yourself that is all the time you will spend in bed.
Have a wind-down period of at least half an hour before you get ready for bed. Complete any chores or tasks, let phone calls go to voicemail and spend the time with some relaxing activity.
Do not have a heavy meal within three hours of going to bed (make your supper something light). Avoid drinks containing caffeine and alcohol.
If you can’t get to sleep within 30 minutes of going to bed or of waking up in the night, don’t stay in bed – get up and go into another room and do something calming and relaxing until you feel sleepy.
If you are sleeping a lot, consider reducing the amount of sleep you have during the day. Do this slowly and allow yourself to get used to each reduction. Also try going to bed later and getting up earlier.
‘When I’m very anxious I can’t get to sleep because of the thoughts going round and round.’
A
NDREA
‘I’ve always slept well. I do feel anxious when I wake up though.’
A
NDREW
‘When I’m anxious I don’t sleep at all, and if I do fall asleep I get terrible nightmares.’
J
ULIE
‘I don’t suffer from insomnia, when I’m anxious I tend to sleep too much.’
P
EN
‘I still get nightmares but I am getting better, not so scared of them. I don’t take sleeping pills. I try not to drink too much coffee at night. Exercising helps with my sleeping.’
S
ARAH
‘I wake up if I’m anxious.’
W
ENDY