Suddenly I feel like an unqualified shrink 🙂
Well I used to be a constant worrier and it did me no good. 75% of the images playing inside my head never happened. As for now no man with fangs appeared out of nothing, bite my neck and turn me into a Twilight phenomenon.
Nope. Not yet, and this is frustrating! I had been worried sick (for it to happen.)
Coming back to the topic, I am assuming each and everyone of us has been in a situation that we have been worried sick. We start sweating, our fragile little heart pumping, we can’t think straight, we start imagining things (normally bad, bad stuff; our only son has been kidnapped by the terrorist for he is late 10 minutes), we can’t seem to catch our breath and butterflies flying in our stomach.
What’s that all about? What’s the big deal that made us feel so miserable, so stressed, so incredibly scared of life?
I don’t think we could resolve anything with worry.
I could list down many things, starting from shrinking bank account, credit card payments, bills, increasing responsibility at work place, public speaking, wrinkles and aging, Mother-in-laws, husband and his extra curricular activities, boasting neighbors and relatives, children related problems; presence and absence of them, unemployment, retirement, death, hereditary or spreading diseases, lack or too many holidays, mortgage, car, singledom, marriage, widowhood, the list is endless.
This little sickness called worry could carry us to our deathbed as early as possible. With excessive palpitations, high blood pressure, lack of sleep, immune system disturbed and keeping at it for years to come, you can easily worry yourself to death.
Are you worried now?
So I am recommending you several suggestions. You can try and see if it’s working. If not, still we face the same ending 🙂 As Peter Pan said, Death is just another new adventure.
1) Meditate.
Surely you’re heard about meditating. The basic thing you need to understand is that meditation is learning how to breathe properly. You might think that it’s ridiculous to learn to do something you do every second of your everyday. Even babies do it brilliantly on the first second of their lives but notice when you’re worried you can’t catch your breath?
So breathe. Take a lungful of fresh air and keep it in for 10 seconds. Repeat this at least 10 times. Better still if you could bend and your hands barely touching your toes and slowly while inhaling you raise your hands up towards the ceiling while standing on your toes, just like what the kindergartens do.
Scream while exhale.
If you’re shy you can do it somewhere far from human (maybe Pluto), or sound-proofed room or vacant public toilet but I can tell you it’s nice.
If you prefer a low profile meditation then you can just do simple yoga or just sit and affirm a positive phrase in your head over and over again.
“I radiate love and happiness”
“I have means to travel around the World, whenever I want to”
“I am successful in whatever I do”
2) Exercise
One of the hormone affecting worry is adrenaline so it would be nice to start a regime and use that excess of energy by exercising. When you exercise you feel good, and you are channeling your energy in a positive way.
You don’t have to be up and running at 5 AM everyday. A brisk walk around the neighborhood is fine too.
Better than sitting still and worry, right?
3) Control your anxiety. Think positive.
This is what usually happen. You received a news, say that your husband is cheating on you or you failed a paper or you’re selected to attend an important interview or you missed a deadline or your son is not yet back from tuition or your salary will be a week late than usual this month, etc and the first thing you do is?
Worry.
Examine your head. It starts to picture the happenings that will probably not take place.
You think about the bitch that dares to steal your husband from you, what will happen to you if your husband leaves you, your children, what will the neighbors say, what will the future hold, you picture yourself working again paying bills for the beautiful car that you can’t afford alone. You cry.
You immediately picture endless hours of lecture, jeers from friends who passed the exam, the juniors mocking you because you failed an easy paper, the money, the shame, the examiners who doesn’t like your brilliant ideas, the chances of you failing again next exam. You cry.
You saw your future ahead of you. You saw the interviewers mocking your accent, your shoes, your clothes, you picture yourself failing to answer the questions and they laughing at you, you tell yourself you don’t actually deserve that job, that many deserving people would turn up that day with better CV, that you would get lost and arrive late. You cry.
You know the drill. This is not the first time you have these images. Stop this at once. You will do just fine. Most of it doesn’t even happen, so why waste your time worrying?
4) Food.
Don’t take too much caffeine if you want to sleep well (for some people the effect is worse than the rest. Some doesn’t have any at all) I have noticed that my heart beats faster with caffeine, palpitations and excessive sweating, even on night time so people like me should avoid caffeine after 4 PM.
Or you will worry why you can’t sleep all night long and it’s irritating.
Try good quality chocolates for calming effect. It has been said that eating chocolates will give you the same effect when you are falling in love, as it releases the same chemical.
So eat chocolates, it’s rather cheaper than being in love 😛
5) NO.
Maybe you’re not used to say NO to anyone, especially the ones you knew but saying NO does help to reduce your worry.
Notice that Asian culture doesn’t say NO very well and saying it, is considered as rude and taboo in certain culture so we bare all the necessities of too many YESes for the sake of No-NO reputation.
Say you really have too much on your plate or you are not into a co-worker while the rest of your colleagues try their best to set you up with him or you can’t seem to join the batch’s next reunion, anything of the sort, you can always say NO, rather than worry or invent little white lies.
My advise; say NO and shut up. They don’t need your excuses and besides, if they knew it, don’t give them reason to poke holes in it.
6) Help
If everything gets out of hands, get help. I know a good place and good people where you can pour your heart out.
See http://www.befrienders.org.my/
You can either call them or write them an email. They provide good advise and good ears for free.
For professional help, you can always seek treatment from a qualified psychiatrist (they charge you RM600++ per consultation) and their services are listed online.
7) Accept and learn from experience.
Not being perfect is not a problem. We worried too much of our beautiful image in the eyes of other people that we forgot that we came to this Earth individually and we too would die in separate coffins, no matter what they think about us.
It’ o.k to be wrong. You can’t be right all your life.
Say you failed to get a job you always wanted. Don’t beat yourself for it. Remember, before this you are alive and well without that particular job, so not having that job this time doesn’t effect you anyway. You are still the same old person. It may give you some extra money and you are devastated because you didn’t get that opportunity.
See, you are getting ahead your yourself. You are already imagining things that you don’t own yet. So why worried because of imaginary extra bucks? You will survive. You’re o.k before and you’re o.k now. You can’t be unemployed all your life. You will somehow go out and face another meeting with some random interviewers and this time you might get it. Learn from the last lesson, you will get it eventually.
There is always another chance, another light, another day. Somebody somewhere would say YES.
So smile and don’t worry, as what worries you, masters you 🙂
[bisa] 