Tag: Anxiety

What To Do When You’re Feeling Anxious

Anxiety can creep up at any moment. For me it usually happens when I’m trying to fall asleep. My chest will start to tighten, my heart races and it honestly feels like little spiders are crawling in my heart. It’s not a fun feeling. It’s taken me a year to get a handle on my anxiety, and by no means am I cured. I still get that creepy crawly feeling every once in a while but not nearly as bad as I used to get. These are tips that I like to do when I’m feeling anxious to help with those feelings.

  1. Take a deep breath. This might sound simple but taking a few deep breaths really helps to calm down your nervous system.
  2. Try meditating. This is definitely something I need to do more often but meditation can really help. I love the app Headspace, because I find the guys voice to be very soothing.
  3. Go for a walk. Getting outside in the fresh air and taking a walk can help you to relax.
  4. Talk to someone. When I’m feeling super anxious, I’ll text my best friend or give my parents a call. Talk to someone you trust, who won’t judge you when you’re having these anxious thoughts. The worst person to talk to is the one who tells you to “just get over it”. Anxiety is not something you can “just get over”.
  5. Try CDB. I enjoy using a CBD vape, my favorite is lavender flavored and you can get it here.
  6. Exercise. This is one of those things you might not do in the moment, but exercising regularly can help combat those anxious feelings.
  7. Music. Listen to your favorite song, or watch a music video. I find music to be very therapeutic.
  8. Therapy. I think EVERYONE can use therapy. I actually love going to therapy and I think people should feel encouraged to talk about their feelings more.
  9. Medication. I’m not a doctor, so please go see a doctor if you wanting to learn more about medication. But for me, medication has been a game changer with my anxiety.
  10. Just know that it will pass. When you’re feeling anxious, it sometimes seems like you will feel like this way forever. But try to remind yourself, that this feeling will pass.

If you guys have any tips on what you do when you’re feeling anxious, let me know in the comments below!

Mental Health Awareness Month

Hi guys! It’s been a while. I really wanted to post something because May is Mental Health Awareness Month. As some of you may know, I suffer from anxiety (and occasionally depression). It’s something that’s somewhat new to me, and I shared my experience here. Mental Health has always had a negative stigma attached to it. People are afraid to talk about it because they’re afraid people will judge them, or think they are weak. I really want to share my experience with it because I want to break away from that stigma. Anxiety doesn’t make me weak, it doesn’t make me any less than…it’s just a part of who I am.

Recently, Chrissy Teigan just opened up about her struggle with post-partum depression. Selena Gomez, Shawn Mendes, Demi Lovato and many other celebrities have come forward with their own stories about their struggle with mental health. The truth is, people might look like they are living their best life on Instagram but you really don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. Everyone has struggles in their lives, some more than others. For me the past year and a half, my struggle has been with anxiety and depression. With the help of family, friends and some medication I’m in a much better place that I was a year ago. But the truth is, some days are just hard.

I want to share more posts with you this month about how to help deal with your own mental health journey and give you tips and advice that has worked for me. The more open we all are about the struggles we face, the less stigma is attached. You might not feel comfortable sharing your own journey, but just know that you are not alone. If any of you have dealt with anxiety or depression or any other mental health issue, I want you to know that you have a friend right here.

For now, I’m sending you all some love. <3

What Anxiety Looks Like

What Anxiety Looks LikeI’m sitting down on my couch right now with a green juice (so LA I know) trying to figure out where to even start with this post. I’ve been wanting to write this post for months, but I wasn’t sure if I should write about something I hadn’t conquered yet. But as I thought more and more about it, I really want to write this post for you. For that person that’s going through the same things I am. For that person that is unsure what the heck is going on with their minds and body. I want to write this for you.

So let’s start at the beginning. Growing up I was always a social person. I was the girl that was always making plans with people, going to parties (if you knew me in college then it was throwing the parties). I’ve always been a planner, but I wouldn’t consider myself type A. I’m messy and disorganized but I always wanted to know what was going to happen. I would have never considered myself an anxious person. That was until last year.

Last August I had four friends from both college and home visit me for a weekend. Everything was going great, we were having fun running around LA, going to the beach, eating out etc. Everything was great until after dinner I got home and I tried to take a power nap before going out that night. As I laid down, I started to feel like I couldn’t breath. Panic set in and I started to have a full blown panic attack. I grabbed one of my roommates (the one I usually counted on during crisis mode) and started freaking out. What was going on? I felt like I was dying. Was I dying? Am I having a heart attack? I honestly didn’t know what was going on. Finally after few minutes of a super intense panic attack I started to feel a little better. My friends tried to distract me and after a couple of hours, I was able to get back to normal.

As the days went on after that, I started to think more and more about my panic attacks. Becoming fearful of it happening again. And sure enough, it did. My panic attacks started happening more frequently but soon they just started to feel like an overwhelming feeling of anxiety. My chest felt tight, I had trouble breathing. It started to get to the point where anytime I would be out to eat, I would start to feel a panic attack coming on, so I couldn’t eat. And if ya’ll know me, you know I love to eat. I couldn’t sleep at night, I started waking up every few hours feeling like something was wrong. I had never felt that kind of pain before. I was unable to sleep for about two weeks, I couldn’t eat – I ended up losing 10+ pounds in a couple of weeks, I wasn’t able to focus at work. Everything made me feel panicked. I would spend hours a day crying to myself, or my dad or boyfriend. There were nights where I would wake my boyfriend up in the middle of the night just hysterically crying because something was wrong, and I didn’t know why. My symptoms started to get so bad that my dad literally flew out to LA from NY to take care of me. (ps: thank you dad, you seriously are the best dad ever.) I honestly thought I was going to have to be hospitalized because I didn’t think I could go through the pain any longer. Not eating, not sleeping, constantly feeling like you’re going to die seriously takes a huge toll on you. I didn’t know what it was but something in my body just felt wrong.

I was seeing a therapist, a psychiatrist, my primary care doctor, a gastro, pretty much everyone I could get my hands on I saw. Something had to be wrong with me. What I was feeling was not normal. Every doctor came back with the same diagnosis…you have anxiety.

But what was causing my anxiety? It started when I had friends visiting, friends whom I love and were so excited to see. I was in the beginning stages of a new relationship with a great guy, I had a great job, I had friends I was hanging out with constantly. Everything seemed perfect. Everything except my anxiety. To be honest I’ve spent the past 10 months in therapy trying to figure out what caused this. And sure, there were definitely triggers, but there was also a chemical imbalance in my brain. Because of that I went on medication. I was prescribed a low dose of an SSRI and to be honest I was scared shitless to start taking it. I didn’t want to be “that crazy girl” or be seen as weak or incompetent. But to be honest what really helped was talking to my friends, my boyfriend and even my boss. I was surprised to find out that I wasn’t the only person that’s ever gone through this. Many people that I knew personally, that I never would have imagined them having gone through what I went through told me “yeah, I’ve been on meds before and it helped.” I can do a whole other post of what my experience on meds were like, just let me know in the comments below if that is something you guys would be interested in.

I started taking my meds, I went home to stay with my parents for about a week and I just continued trying to take it a day at a time. Slowly…really slowly things started to get better. Eventually I was able to start eating again, and sleeping again and things just started to feel a little bit more normal.

I still suffer from anxiety and it’s been a tough 9 months for me. I’ve had a lot of changes going on, I went through a breakup, I moved out of my apartment, I lost some friends. There are good days and there are bad days. I still have some of those terrible days where I feel so anxious it feels like I’m having a heart attack. But there are things I do to try to calm myself down. Nothing has been as bad as that first month dealing with anxiety has been. I’m still on the medication, I’m still in therapy and it’s a slow journey but I’m hopeful that one day I’ll look back at it and just realized how it’s helped me to grow.

I want to continue sharing my journey with you guys and have this be a resource for anyone that is going through anxiety or depression. Unfortunately it’s a wide spread issue that not many people like talking about. But I want to be there for you. This has been my personal journey dealing with anxiety. Not everyone’s experience with anxiety will look the same as mine. No matter what you are going through, whatever pain you are feeling; that pain is real. And I want to let you know that I understand that pain, however different it may look. I know this is a super deep topic and my blog has been very light and fun and I still want to show you guys those elements as well, but I also want to open it up with the truth. And the truth is, I have anxiety.