When anxiety takes over our mind, the present loses importance and the future is filled with difficulties. One way to reduce this anxiety is to take care of yourself: feeding yourself and giving yourself what you deserve when you need it.
Written and verified by the psychologist GetPersonalGrowth.
Last update: February 18, 2022
The anxious mind is chaos and disorder; it extinguishes our potential and often leaves us in a state of weakness and distress. To take control and reduce the impact of anxiety, we need to find the strategy that best suits our personal characteristics. There is one that always works: take care of yourself. Support yourself, nourish yourself and listen to yourself as it should be.
In this article, let's see in detail what it means to take care of yourself.
Caging oneself in a state of mind in which worries and anxieties reside is immobilizing. The contradiction of this condition is that the more we feel blocked, the more resources and energy we would make our brain consume, making it difficult to rest. Sleep, in fact, fails to activate when we are anxious; he needs inner calm and silence in thoughts.
It is not easy to live with anxiety. Still, we often do. A situation that is often underestimated on our part. As the studies on this psychological reality indicate, in fact, even though anxiety is a treatable disorder, only 35% of people who suffer from it decide to seek help from a specialist.
There are people who constantly live with an anxious mind. By doing so they lose their quality of life, they extinguish their potential in the present and fill the future with anguish, even putting their health at risk. So let's try to understand what is the strategy that we should all put into practice on a daily basis.
When you are present, you can feel the spirit, the only awareness, in every creature and love it as yourself.
-Eckhart Tolle-
Taking care of yourself does not mean self-satisfaction, but compromising with yourself
Taking care of yourself, in a demanding world full of uncertainties, is essential. Often the concept of personal care is confused with something else. It is only since the 80s that mental health professionals begin to talk about the importance of leading a healthy life to reduce the impact of stress and anxiety.
In recent years, the advertising industry has not hesitated to embrace this concept, so much so that a wide range of self-care products have been launched on the market. This concept has been associated with products such as bath salts, creams, shampoos and food products created to make us feel good.
Psychology also pushes us to increase personal care through precise (and scientific) strategies.
What does it really mean to take care of yourself?
- Taking care of yourself is more than just pampering or self-congratulation. It means practicing behaviors that help us reduce discomfort, contradiction, fear, stress and more.
- It is calm. It is reaching a right inner balance in which to find energy without losing it.
- To reduce and control the anxious mind, you have to prepare a daily personal care plan. Something in itself very simple, but that few can complete. Well-being and attention to oneself require a series of activities and processes that we must carry out every day. It is not worth starting a routine today if we have already forgotten it tomorrow. Wellbeing takes time.
Furthermore, as is also explained in a study conducted by the University Queen's Kingston in Canada, personal care is made up of a set of activities to be carried out every day for a lifetime. By doing so, changes and the prevention of various diseases are promoted.
4 ways in which taking care of yourself helps to control the anxious mind
Pessimism, excessive worry, lack of control, psychological suffocation. The anatomy of the anxious mind can differ in some characteristics between one person and another, but in principle it is characterized by the same common factors.
So, before taking drugs and even before repeating the refrain that “this is how we are and we can't do anything about it”, it is worth pausing for a moment to reflect on the following strategies.
The daily practice of taking care of yourself can help us a lot. We give you some suggestions.
Our safe space to calm the anxious mind
A safe space is a place, a corner, an office, a sheltered space, a tree or a sofa in front of a window that can give us a feeling of calm. A comfort zone in which to take care of ourselves, at least a couple of times a day for 15 or 20 minutes. During this time, we will need to connect with ourselves to ask ourselves how we feel.
That safe space it will allow us to enjoy a moment of solitude in which to dialogue positively with ourselves. A space where we can deepen our concerns to convince ourselves that everything will go the right way. Where to get rid of anxieties and, more importantly, rationalize fears.
Plan moments of happiness
Happiness is well-being and satisfaction. It is being comfortable with yourself without thoughts or worries. To calm the anxious mind, we must therefore "plan" some activities during the day that allow us to feel good. The fundamental thing is that each of our days allows us to enjoy that hour or two in which to distract ourselves, to rest, positively stimulate our brain.
We simply have to do what we like, what is in tune with our passions and our personality (walking, taking a class, listening to music, going out with friends, etc.).
The channels of release
Anxiety also needs some outlet channel to release all accumulated energies and tensions. To do this, we can resort to relaxing practices such as yoga, mindfulness, a sport we like and also, why not, an artistic discipline.
Invest in health
Taking care of yourself also means health and commitment. Elementary aspects such as what we eat, how we eat it and what habits we have will affect our well-being in a positive or negative way. You have to make a plan and follow it.
Health is also prevention, which is why we must learn to listen to our body and mind. Let's not leave that physical discomfort or worry until tomorrow. We try to find an answer today and, if we can't, we ask for help. What is left aside can get worse. To conclude, always remember that living with an anxious mind is not living, but merely existing and surviving.
