I thought I would start this entry with my list of symptoms in the morning right after waking up but I don’t see the point. One of my key insights when it comes to battling anxiety is that my actions shouldn’t be a function of my feelings. Some days are tougher than others and for that I would have a plan B. By focusing on symptoms I feel like I give my already limited power away, power that’s much better used in sticking to the recovery plan.
Here is the toughest part of my mornings: the moment I wake up, my mind starts getting flooded with thoughts of how my life has gone all wrong and how many different ways I have been screwing up lately. This worsens the physical symptoms and keeps me in bed which in turn perpetuates the misery. For me, the key is to break the cycle, so I go on my phone and play motivational podcasts / inspirational music. It snaps me out of my head and stops the rumination and would usually be enough to get out of bed and go to the living room. I would then just “shake it out”, a trick I learnt from Barry Mcdonagh from Dare. This is state change at play, where I am leveraging my body to reorient my mind.
Anxiety makes the world go 10 times faster, it makes you impatient. And out of that comes frustration when things don’t roll the way we expect them to, which then turns to thoughts of low self esteem. I have found the willingness to move slowly to be a fundamental piece for me on mornings when my symptoms are really bad. So I try to take it slow, very slow. Like Neo looking at the bullet coming his way slow. Drinking glass of water has been doing wonders for me. It stops the heart burn and makes me feel refreshed. I would then brush my teeth and put my tea on stove. As I am waiting for the tea to boil I would slowly start dressing for my morning walk. Living in Toronto you are wearing three layers of clothing most of the year, which doesn’t really make it the easiest job for my cortisol addled system. I am glad that it has gotten easier overtime as I have learnt to accept that something as basic as this is going to be hard.
If I have managed to put on my clothes for the walk, the job’s almost done. I would then enjoy my tea and be on my merry way to forward ambulation. Okay, that’s just sounding fancy for no reason, I heard Dr. Huberman say its nerdspeak for walking forward and been dying to use it since. What better place to do than in my own blog, ha ha! Apparently it has all sorts of health benefits like liek regulating circadian rhythm, improving cognitive function etc. etc. The immediate benefit that I get is just waking up more and feeling more enrgized. After the walk, I have a hot shower and get started with my day.
I would like to highlight one thing, no where during this whole process I let my brain go on a free ride. I am constantly feeding it with messages that I want it to get like messages of positivity, hope, and optimism. Tthe brain is at it’s weakest at talking back to the distorted thoughts in the morning, so letting it go on a free roam almost always makes me worse and derails me from the plan.
So there goes my routine for dealing with morning anxiety and it’s been working very well. My mornings are not as dreadful as they used to be and it leaves me looking forward to the day more and more. Even on particularly bad mornings, I can usually cultivate a sense of control as the routine has become more habitual. So aside from the “short term” value of just getting out of bed and looking forward to the day, I feel like I am building more resilience and resilience is hope, if not anything else.
This whole shebang was inspired by a podcast by Drew Linsalata, founder of the Anxious truth, whose content has been instrumental in my recovery journey. Drew, I can’t thank you enough for convincing my monkey brain that I don’t need some grand herculean morning routine to recover.
I am a huge admirer of Dr. Andrew Huberman’s work. If you want to know the science of why things like going for a short walk in the morning has the effect that it has and other productivity tools based of neurobiology, he’s your guy.
I have woken up in a lot of pain many mornings. DARE and Barry’s audios have made me find a sense of groundedness. I’ve been a paid subscriber almost for a year now and can’t recommend it enough.