We are living in quite a frightening and uncertain time and it’s only normal for anxieties to feel heightened. It seemed like our world changed dramatically overnight. Coronavirus changed the way we live at an unimaginable rate and currently I can’t see an end in sight.

Humans have never been the best at dealing with uncertainty. Our brains tend to be wired in a way which equates the unknown to be the worst possible outcome you can think of. Even people who are generally calm and collected have been experiencing a wide range of negative emotions throughout this whole pandemic. A lot of this fear comes from feeling like we currently have no control over our own lives. So I wanted to share some things that have helped me calm down when I have been excessively worrying and overthinking.

---

1. TAKE A BREAK FROM THE NEWS

It seems like there’s no good news these days so it’s important to take a break from it sometimes. Personally, I really struggle with disconnecting from the news. I wake up and the first thing I do is check the latest trends on Twitter. It’s a really bad habit, I know! Whenever I feel the urge to read the news, I’m trying to pick up a book instead.

In the wise words of Matt Haig in his book ‘Notes on a Nervous Planet’, “There is no shame in not watching news. There is no shame in not going on Twitter. There is no shame in disconnecting.” 

The worst thing I do is set up news flashes on my phone. Whenever something ‘big’ happens, the BBC and The Guardian apps will send me notification alerts. Sometimes I genuinely find this helpful, but other times it can just make me feel uneasy. On days when you don’t feel mentally prepared for pop-ups of negative news, it’s best to turn these off.

2. SOCIAL MEDIA CLEANSE

In a world where our smartphones make us constantly available, it can be difficult to switch our minds off. Sometimes I’ll scroll through Twitter for some ‘mindless relaxation’. In reality this is usually not a relaxing time because half of my timeline is political. Even if I unfollow political accounts, I will still get political tweets showing up on my timelines when people I follow retweet or like them. Twitter isn’t all a dreary place. Most of the accounts I follow are theatre related or my friends that tweet about things that genuinely make me happy. But there’s really no way to filter out politics on Twitter.

Another issue with social media in general is that it makes you feel like you have to always be online. Receiving notifications of people trying to contact me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Messenger etc can be overwhelming. You sometimes feel as though you need to respond to everyone straight away, but it’s okay to take your time. A lot of people have been relying on communication through digital means because of coronavirus restrictions, but we can still get a social burnout from social contact that isn’t face to face.

Every so often I like to utilise ‘screen time’ on my iPhone. With this you can select specific apps and choose a time limit for them. Once this limit is reached, it will notify you that you’ve used up all your ‘screen time’ for that certain app. It’s a good way to try and control how much time you’re spending on social media.#

3. DISCOVERING NEW RECIPES

Whether it’s baking some sweet treats or cooking dinner, I’ve found making food can be a great distraction task. It’s actually really fun to be able to shake up your meal plans for the week. These past few months, I have often spent hours looking up some new recipes that I want to try. It has given me something to do and made my stomach happy at the same time. There are so many great food bloggers and vloggers out there with some really fun things to test out. So pick a cuisine and do some research into new food you could be trying!

4. YOGA

Yoga can be for everyone. You don’t need superhuman strength, flexibility and balance to do yoga (because I definitely don’t have these skills). You can find yoga poses suited to all levels of ability. I first tried out yoga when a doctor told me the reason I had bad neck pain was because my posture was terrible. I can confirm that if you do yoga regularly, it does help correct your posture!

But yoga is also really great for relieving stress and muscle tension, which I’m sure many people have built up over this year. I would highly recommend giving it a go. There are plenty of YouTube videos and apps out there that can get you started. I try to do a bit of yoga before bed. It’s a very calming activity!

5. KEEP IN TOUCH WITH FRIENDS & FAMILY

With all the different restrictions across the country about who you are allowed to see and who you aren’t, it’s important to keep in touch with the people we love. This year has been a very lonely time for many. I have been lucky to have two flatmates to have hunkered down with throughout all of this. But still, if you don’t talk to other people you’ll go mad! Facetime, Zoom quizzes, and Whatsapp have been my saviours this year. Even though I’m very introverted, humans are still social creatures and we crave a variety of social interaction.

6. JOURNALING

With all these jumbled up thoughts going on in my head, I’ve found journaling these past few months really therapeutic. I used to be really big on bullet journaling in the middle of doing my degree. It was a really great creative outlet to have when all my deadlines were getting on top of me. But for some reason I stopped before I graduated.

I’m hoping to get back into bullet journaling, but for now I’ve just been doing some basic journaling. Giving myself a prompt and then writing my thoughts down about it. I feel like this really helps to clarify your thoughts and how you feel about things. Sometimes we don’t know how we feel until we write it down.

What kind of things have you been doing over this past year to help with anxieties?