I was always a child who was ‘ worried’ . From an early age I remember being anxious about not be collected from nursery or school. I worried about everything but my parents ‘put it down’ to being like my grandmother, who always ‘worried’.
Back in the 1980s there was zero provision for dealing with anxious children. So teenage years came and went and into adulthood I went. I would say I probably I haven’t had decent nights sleep since I was about 8. The nights spent awake , thinking , over thinking and worrying are countless. I remember being so anxious at work annual appraisals I would be on the verge of tears at every appraisal.
My anxiety is two pronged , it comes as over thinking at night resulting in poor sleep, over thinking the worst of situations where I am not in control and very often it is accompanied by nausea. Sometimes it is the nausea that alerts me I am anxious about something.
When I am anxious and in control of the situation that’s making me anxious I generally feeling like my heart is racing , and that there’s urgency to complete tasks so I can regain control. When I am not in control, that’s where the anxiety becomes stress and stress becomes anger or depression and that’s ugly.
It was only in my my thirties that I embarked in an change of lifestyle journey which included fitness and lifestyle coaching that I realised , that was I anxious , that I suffered from anxiety and that it was debilitating my existence .
How I have worked on combating my anxiety is a three part process.
1. Coaching which allowed me to explore my anxiety and it’s roots and helped me to address that head on with simple coaching tools.
2. Medication which has chemically helped me balance and enhance the chemicals in my brain to help my to feel calm
3 Fitness has helped me in rerouting nervous energy.
I do believe some need all three components to combat anxiety. Others don’t , but I believe that fitness and emotional well-being coaching play a
major role in the support of mental health conditions.
Everyones story is different - this was mine!