Thinking about the past is a major cause of anxiety. Ruminating over past situations, conversations, things we did or did not do or say, and anything else that has already happened can be incredibly anxiety-provoking. When we don't let go of the past, the mind can run wild and make problems and difficulties grow. Reliving thoughts and feelings can keep us anxious, stressed, and stuck. However, the past does have a place in reducing anxiety. When you look to the past to identify things that have gone well and cultivate gratitude for what is good in your life, you take steps to reduce anxiety.

Yesterday, I woke up in the middle of the night with bad dreams. The dreams were such that I was unable to fall asleep for the rest of the night (it was 4:00 A.M. when I initially woke up) and spent much of the rest of the day in a negative state of mind. Because this tends to happen frequently, I want to take the time to discuss it in a bit more detail.

In a recent post, I discussed how anxiety impacts how I experience the passage of time. This is a huge topic to tackle, and so I didn’t even attempt to tackle it all–I focused exclusively on artificially depriving myself of sleep to make time appear to move slower. In this post, I want to focus on other ways time plays into my reactions to anxiety.

I don’t know if I am unique in this respect, but I feel like I am more sensitive to the passage of time than others. How I experience the passage of time plays fairly heavily into how I respond to anxiety. In this post, I want to spend a bit of time discussing how time and anxiety intersect for me.

Anxiety and being tired is common, and I’ve also noticed that anxiety can mess with your sleep patterns in weird ways. Sometimes, it’s impossible to get to sleep when you’re anxious – this makes sense, given that your mind is probably racing like crazy. But on the other hand, sometimes, if you’re anxious, you just can’t stay awake – this also makes sense because anxiety can make even the mundane seem overwhelming, and sleeping is a way to filter all that out. For me, there’s no telling when anxiety will cause me to be tired or lose sleep – recently, I’ve been going through a bout of always feeling tired, so I wanted to talk about that.

In still-limited ways, society is finally beginning to reopen and emerge from the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, which, surprisingly, is a source of increased anxiety for many people. Shouldn't we all be relieved and happy? Is it normal to feel continued or even heightened anxiety? It is indeed normal to have a host of mixed feelings, including anxiety, as COVID-19 rules change. Here's why, plus five tips to deal with it.

I am now living alone, and almost every one of my family members and friends do not live close to me anymore. For that reason, I am used to doing almost everything by myself, because I have no other choice. But being alone by necessity has made me forget that just being in the presence of another person can be a great source of anxiety relief, and helping with flight anxiety is but part of the story.

Often, the most profoundly helpful methods to combat anxiety are also the easiest to do. In that spirit, I want to discuss what is perhaps the easiest of all the easy methods: the simple act of recognizing the integrity and worth of other people.

Relationships of all types are important in our lives, but as positive as it is to have a connection with someone, relationships can also be incredibly anxiety-provoking. Choosing what we pay attention to can go a long way toward reducing anxiety in relationships. 

Those who read this blog may remember that it was a little over a year ago that I lost my apartment, almost all my possessions, and nearly my life in a massive fire. In the year since the fire, I have tried my best to return my life to some degree of normalcy. This has proved to be much more difficult than I could have imagined. Having never had to come to terms with a traumatic experience such as this, I’ve learned that the aftereffects of such traumas can be surprisingly unexpected.