This is not the first time I’ve talked about my cat affecting my mental health on this blog, and it will not be the last. I’ve struggled with writer's block as of late, but writing about my cat is very easy because he makes me feel happy, and I feel that there’s so much I can talk about regarding him. He is probably the thing that helps me the most when I am feeling down because he is always there for me.

When I am anxious, sometimes it is very difficult for me to do a lot of productive things. While I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing, as taking care of one’s mental health should always take priority, in hindsight, it can be easy to regret the time you had to take away from your passions to better look after yourself.

I’ve written for this blog for a few years, and in that time, I’ve given a lot of advice for what I think are good strategies for keeping one’s anxiety under control. For that reason, It would be easy for anyone reading this to label me an “expert,” even though I don’t have the academic credentials to be labeled as such.

Quite likely, you are well aware that self-care is vital for mental health, physical health, overall wellbeing, and quality of life. If you live with anxiety, though, it's also quite likely that practicing self-care in any way feels not just difficult but almost wrong somehow. Anxiety loudly tells us that self-care may be fine in theory or is good for other people but that it isn't something you can do, should do, or even deserve to do. Anxiety is wrong. Read on to discover the effects of anxiety that get in the way of self-care and to pick up some tips for self-care despite anxiety.

Anxiety has a lot to do with activity in the brain. Anxiety also has a lot to do with activity in the gut. The health of our gut plays a significant role in our mood, anxiety levels, and overall mental health and wellbeing. This means that one effective way to help anxiety is to take good care of the gut and the gut-brain axis. Read on to discover why, and learn four ways to reduce anxiety through your digestive system.

It's important to shift your self-talk when you're anxious because anxiety can (and usually does) make us painfully hard on ourselves. Any type of anxiety typically brings harsh self-judgments in the form of labels and negative self-talk. Often, it occurs so automatically and frequently that we almost get used to it and come to accept it as truth.

Being a cat owner, whenever I have to be away for an extended period of time, I have to arrange for someone to feed him. Every time I do that, without fail, I worry about him. It’s especially prominent during the few days before I have to leave him. It can often adversely impact my mental state for several days, so in this post, I want to explore why this may be the case.

An anxiety flare-up is an unexpected return of anxiety after you thought you had worked through it. Anxiety never fully disappears from anyone's life, but you may have been sailing through your life, unburdened by constant anxious thoughts and feelings and doing things you want to do, when seemingly out of the blue, anxiety jumps into your path and tries to control you again. Despite how it may feel, it's not a sign that you're doomed to a life of high anxiety. When you gain a broader perspective on what an anxiety flare-up is, you can take steps to handle it and move forward again.

I don’t know how many people feel limited by anxiety, but if I were to make a bet, I would say that quite a few people are impacted by the limitations of anxiety. So, I figured a post is recommended. When I am anxious, I find that there are certain things that I am unable to do because they are too mentally taxing. I’m not talking about things that I’m uncomfortable doing anyway – these are things that I love doing, things that I would ordinarily spend a lot of time doing if I wasn’t anxious. This post is about those things.

As explored in a previous post, health stress and health anxiety can be exhausting and burdensome. Our health is a vital component of our lives, and when something isn't right, whether it's a chronic condition or an acute, short-lived experience, it is natural to experience anxiety and stress because of it. Here's how to gain the upper hand on health stress and anxiety.