Stress & Anxiety- How to be Positively Calm

With stress awareness day creeping up on 2nd November, I thought I’d talk about a bit of my story.

At one point I used to tell everyone I was a stress magnet. I seemed to like causing myself stress out of nothing…
but of course those were the days deep in my anxiety disorder, and I was on edge 24/7, permanently stressed about the tiniest things, and if anything didn’t go to plan, I’d go into meltdown mode.

These days, I live a fairly stress free life, despite now being a multi business owner. Would it be fair to say I learnt not to care?… Sort of?

I’m a super empath. I’ve been accused of “interfering” many times as a young adult, when to me I just probably cared “too much”. Other peoples’ problems became my problems, and a few times in my 20s I would feel like I was falling down an anxious hole of despair, because one of my friends was losing their way, and I felt helpless but also like I had to do everything I could no matter what happened to my own health.

I wasn’t diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder until I was 27, but that didn’t stop me to think “how can I sort myself out” – I took that as “you’re stuck like that forever” and got myself stuck in even more situations with “friends” in the subsequent years. The last time was in 2016.

What changed? I got pregnant. I found something else to stress about! All the million and one things that could go wrong with being pregnant.
As my baby grew into a toddler, I wasn’t as stressed, but I think that was down to the fact I was so stressed before that I’d become an empty shell and didn’t know what to feel anymore.

Lockdown was the pivotal point for me. I discovered self development, and over the next couple of years I went from an empty anxious and stressed shell, to a full of energy, multi passionate successful business owner!

What did I learn?

That in order to be less stressed, I needed resilience. Learn to not fight back, but to not respond at all. Being head of a large gaming community taught me that I could still be put in stressful situations, but it also taught me that the best way to handle stress, is to take a step back from a situation. Breathe deeply, evaluate the situation from “outside the box”. Most of the time it’s the person who’s attacking, not you. If you need to deal with a situation, take it apart.

Ask for backup or support if needed. If you have that network around you, you can put your heads together and come up with a solution. If it’s just you, then consider journaling your thoughts. Put down how you feel. Can you reframe your thoughts into positives?

Some would say sleep on it, but I can never sleep on an argument. If it’s not resolvable on the face of it, then I make peace with it in my mind, so I can have a chance to get some decent sleep. Because we all know the body functions much better when it’s had enough sleep.

I often have people coming to me asking me how to calm after anxiety/stress. I’m an advocate for self-care through my business, so my advice for instant relief is have a relaxing pamper session, listen to music (or play the piano if you can 😉 ), or of course I have the option to relax with the husband for a gaming session. And then there’s the reading, journaling, yoga and reiki in my own personal space too.
The main tip is find something *else* to do. Get your mind away from the situation. Go for a walk in nature. Get your head clear, then come back to the situation with a fresh mind.

And if you still can’t work it out, don’t forget you can always ask for support/help too!

To find out more about my story:

https://amzn.to/3PH7RAM

About the Author

Jen Griffiths – Network She Diamond Member – a professional pianist, private piano tutor, independent Tropic Ambassador, Co-Chair of Nintendo Players UK, Co-Founder of Nintendo North Wales, an author, and a podcaster.

https://tropicpianistgamer.co.uk