Showing posts with label relaxation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relaxation. Show all posts
Friday, 18 March 2011
Cooling down in the sun...
OMG. It is quite amazing. I have been so relaxed this week despite being away from home. I did not stress once about anything apart from this morning when I had a minor freak out about all the housework I would have to do when I return home today. Who cares?! It can wait until tomorrow after karate. Also I did get overly concerned about the colour of my skin as I am quite fair skinned and the colour was a rather alarming shade of red but I soon rationalised that it always happens before fading within hours which it has now. It is almost as though I am one of those "normal" people who think that going away is relaxing and is actually the whole point of a holiday rather than an OCD persons who thinks it's the perfect way to torcher yourself for a week about everything and anything that pops into your mind. Wow! I am trying to think of how I have managed to be so anxiety free right now. Could it be down to learning to question my fears and rationalise them? And how long will this feeling of relaxation last? Back to work on Tuesday...
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
So far so good
Well I am quite surprised. I expect to be even more anxious than usual when I go on holiday and find it hard to enjoy myself but not at all this time. When things are unfamiliar my anxiety seems to increase although I am now thinking that that is offset by the fact that I don't have any responsibilities to stress about while I am away and nothing is expected of me. Hurray! I can tackle the responsibilities when I get home and am hoping to keep up the progress of late but for now I really am enjoying a bit of sun and relaxation. :0)
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Rollercoaster
Well where to begin? Since my last blog on 2nd November things have gone from bad to worse to better to pretty fantastic.
After the incident with my wrist my anxiety continued into the following week and by the Tuesday I decided to add a days holiday to either side of my already booked days off on the Friday and Monday giving me six days of rest. This rest, I did not get. I have spoken before of going away causing stress. Well I had planned to go to visit my parents 200 miles away from the Friday to Sunday. This only added to my anxiety, causing my overall stress levels and tiredness to increase so much so that on Saturday my OCD caused me to replay words over and over in my mind making me disappear further into my own little world of stress. By the time I got home on Sunday evening I felt as though I had not even really seen my parents because I had not properly been present with them. As you can imagine, this was really upsetting. My next two days off were not much better and as time went on I began to realise that my relaxing time off had been anything but.
Back to work on Wednesday, I just tried to get back to normal, whatever that is. Still feeling stressed and even more tired, I felt as though the intense anxiety was lasting for an eternity and was feeling really down. I began to think the feeling would never go. Needing to take some action I started repeating to myself some mantras such as “swap anxiety for confidence” and “swap negativity for positivity”. I have found that if I repeat such things to myself enough times and really take them on board and mean them then they do begin to work. It takes some self-discipline to retrain the mind this way but is well worth it. The following weekend I went to my Karate lesson, which was the last one before the Championships on 20th November. In my anxious state the lesson was really nerve wracking for me because I knew that I had to practice hard and do well. Also, I feared that the next week my anxiety would be really intense because of the competition coming up. On Sunday I spent the day with my brother, sister-in-law and their lovely new baby which brightened me up a little. Then something strange happened. After I got home and had dinner my anxiety seemed to fade and was then completely gone within a short space of time. Last week each day I went pretty much anxiety free, very, very tired but not at all anxious. I kept thinking, how odd! Even with the competition looming I was not nervous. It was as though an off switch had been pressed. I wish I knew how to locate the off switch!
On Friday the day before the competition I was feeling the beginnings of a few nerves but not much really. I was just exhausted. On the day, yesterday, I was nervous but only typically, nothing too severe thankfully. And guess what?! Not expecting to get very far as I am a beginner and have never entered any kind of competition before, I got through to the finals and won a bronze medal. I am so happy. Not wishing to be boastful but I feel as though I have done really well and been quite brave to be honest because it’s not easy doing this kind of thing especially in front of approx. 300 people. I am still a little “high” from the whole thing and feel I now need to practice relaxation techniques because of the excitement rather than anxiety. I don’t know, if it’s not one thing it’s another!
After the incident with my wrist my anxiety continued into the following week and by the Tuesday I decided to add a days holiday to either side of my already booked days off on the Friday and Monday giving me six days of rest. This rest, I did not get. I have spoken before of going away causing stress. Well I had planned to go to visit my parents 200 miles away from the Friday to Sunday. This only added to my anxiety, causing my overall stress levels and tiredness to increase so much so that on Saturday my OCD caused me to replay words over and over in my mind making me disappear further into my own little world of stress. By the time I got home on Sunday evening I felt as though I had not even really seen my parents because I had not properly been present with them. As you can imagine, this was really upsetting. My next two days off were not much better and as time went on I began to realise that my relaxing time off had been anything but.
Back to work on Wednesday, I just tried to get back to normal, whatever that is. Still feeling stressed and even more tired, I felt as though the intense anxiety was lasting for an eternity and was feeling really down. I began to think the feeling would never go. Needing to take some action I started repeating to myself some mantras such as “swap anxiety for confidence” and “swap negativity for positivity”. I have found that if I repeat such things to myself enough times and really take them on board and mean them then they do begin to work. It takes some self-discipline to retrain the mind this way but is well worth it. The following weekend I went to my Karate lesson, which was the last one before the Championships on 20th November. In my anxious state the lesson was really nerve wracking for me because I knew that I had to practice hard and do well. Also, I feared that the next week my anxiety would be really intense because of the competition coming up. On Sunday I spent the day with my brother, sister-in-law and their lovely new baby which brightened me up a little. Then something strange happened. After I got home and had dinner my anxiety seemed to fade and was then completely gone within a short space of time. Last week each day I went pretty much anxiety free, very, very tired but not at all anxious. I kept thinking, how odd! Even with the competition looming I was not nervous. It was as though an off switch had been pressed. I wish I knew how to locate the off switch!
On Friday the day before the competition I was feeling the beginnings of a few nerves but not much really. I was just exhausted. On the day, yesterday, I was nervous but only typically, nothing too severe thankfully. And guess what?! Not expecting to get very far as I am a beginner and have never entered any kind of competition before, I got through to the finals and won a bronze medal. I am so happy. Not wishing to be boastful but I feel as though I have done really well and been quite brave to be honest because it’s not easy doing this kind of thing especially in front of approx. 300 people. I am still a little “high” from the whole thing and feel I now need to practice relaxation techniques because of the excitement rather than anxiety. I don’t know, if it’s not one thing it’s another!
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