how I conquered my anxiety | techniques that actually worked

So yesterday was a bad day. When I was 20, I was diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder. And this didn't come out of the blue. As I got a bit older, I realised that I'd been struggling with anxiety for my whole life. I just hadn't had a name for it. And that came in many different forms. I struggled with emetophobia. I had a general fear of life. I couldn't deal with being in school. I was deeply afraid of trying new things. At some points I experienced so much social anxiety I couldn't even open my mouth. And if you've met me, you know. I love to talk. My default response was fear. And I didn't have the tools to manage it. In my adulthood, I have found my anxiety has improved massively. And this was no accident. I've had a lot of therapy. I got sober. And in this process, I have learnt how to manage this thing that was debilitating for so many years. And obviously I'm not infallible. I went to sleep last night really going through it. And so I thought, you know what? Today's a lovely day. I really want to film a video. Why don't we go on a little solo date? I'll go and get some lunch and we can sit down, maybe in like a park, and chat about how I've managed to overcome and manage my anxiety. So it's kind of a vlog, kind of leading by example, because I'm showing you like some of the ways I calm down and manage my emotional regularity. And then also hopefully just actually giving you like practical advice and tips, which I feel like for so many things around anxiety, people will say like, speak to a professional. And like that is actually really, really important and helpful. And don't get me wrong, like getting a diagnosis was so, so validating. But I ended up not trying the medication I was prescribed. I was too afraid to try the medication, which I think speaks volumes. And professional help is really important, but I can't give you that in a YouTube video. And that's a very vague offering. I'd much rather tell you how I have made some progress and hope that in a more practical sense that that can actually help. Lovely day. I'm excited. I'm going to pack a bag. I could also really do with a coffee. So let's go. I know it's boring, but sometimes the simple advice is the most effective. Just getting outside, getting some sun on your skin, if there is sun available, and going for a walk, all very effective for me, even though I hate that they work. I actually feel a bit insane, but I've just written some thank you cards for the people who took care of my dad when he was in the hospital in Putney, because they were so great. And I've been meaning to do it for about a month now, but I just haven't found the time. But I thought, yeah, today's the day. So yeah, I've written a few thank you cards. There's a thing in London now where some places say they do cold brew, but they're not actually doing cold brew. It's just an iced Americano. But I'm thrilled to report that It's Bagels do actually sell a cold brew. I'm a girl with a three-tasting-drinks kind of energy, so I brought this Hip Hop Living Soda Tropical Peach from home. And then our bagel is tuna fish salad. All right then. She's good. I'm so deeply content right now. I've had half. I'm going to save the other half for after. I feel so much better already. It's funny, isn't it? Ultimately, we're plants. Like, a little bit of food really does help. Back to anxiety. I've made a big list of things that helped. I'm going to go through them with you. Let's start with the, like, more general anxiety. I'm talking not situational. I'm talking the stuff that haunts you day to day. And for me, that involved a bit of work on shifting my mindset. Nothing like starting off with a real classic, but gratitude is very important for me. It really has reframed everything. I know it's cliche. I know you get that advice a lot and it annoys you, but it does work. And the way that I practically bring that into my life is I make a gratitude list every night. Or at least more nights than I don't. Obviously, I'm not perfect. It doesn't happen every single day. If you're starting from scratch and you've never actively tried to bring gratitude into your life before, I would, before bed, every night, list three things that you're grateful for. Just three. And do it every night for, like, a month. If a month's intimidating, try two weeks. You only need three things as well. You don't have to make these ornate, long lists, but it's just a great way to remind yourself of the good things in your life and to use the muscle so that when difficult things do happen and things that are incredibly challenging that you might not be grateful for in whole, it becomes a lot easier to pick out the parts that you are relieved are the case. I found that even in the most difficult things I've ever experienced, there are silver linings and there are, like, glimmers of hope. I've done a lot of work on improving my internal monologue and I'm nowhere near perfect yet. In fact, I'm not even good at it, but I have started to now acknowledge when I'm using the words I need to and I should in contexts where I don't actually need to do the thing. You'd be surprised at how many of these I shoulds and I need tos are actually not obligations at all. They're just expectations you're placing on yourself. And so working through that self-talk has been really, really helpful for me. Sorry, there's a full-on helicopter. Welcome to London. So weirdly, a big part of correcting the self-talk is not actually correcting it, it's just acknowledging when your language, your internal monologue's language is actually being a bit detrimental to yourself and placing unrealistic expectations on yourself. Maybe not even unrealistic, just high-pressure expectations. So for example, I always say to myself, I really need to read a book a month because I do a month-end review on my Substack and I say, I need, I need to do this. Do I need to do it? Or is it just something that I would like to do that I feel like I am a failure if I don't do? If I can read a book a month, that's great, but there's no point letting that contribute to my internal anxiety monologue. When there's a task that feels monumental, just think about the first or second step. That's all I want you to think about. I'm sorry about the helicopter, but I have a feeling he's sticking around. So when there's a task on my to-do list that feels monumental, that is something that causes me large amounts of stress and anxiety, I just focus on writing down and acknowledging the first two tasks. So for example, learning to drive felt like an absolute mountain to climb. It felt very overwhelming and anxiety-inducing because I have never been very comfortable in cars and I was very overwhelmed at the prospect of getting started. So I just said to myself, okay, just do the first two steps. And I wrote down what I thought the first two steps were, which was to book my theory test and to book my first driving lesson. And the pre-step of that was even just to inquire about a driving lesson. So I just booked my theory test and inquired about a driving lesson. For me, that's a much more manageable approach than trying to plan out every step because one, you don't know what every step is going to be. That's you trying to exercise control to control the situation to make yourself feel better, or at least that is in my case. But yeah, it's just not the vibe. And I also reminded myself that it was absolutely fine if I wanted to switch to automatic. I could just start learning manual and then see how it goes. Reframing it as just trying it was much easier for me. I find great benefit in bringing myself back into like the wider context really regularly. I know this doesn't work for everyone, sometimes it feels a bit nihilistic, but I find it really helpful to remember that the world doesn't revolve around me. I'm one of seven billion people on this earth and really we're just like ants. It's kind of like SimCity. And again, I find that context helpful when you are thinking about something bad that you've done or something that you regret. Are you the worst person in the entire world or do good people make mistakes all the time? And what would a good person do to rectify that mistake now? If you're a spiraller, try and ground yourself in reality by acknowledging your thoughts as they come through and identifying whether they are facts or predictions. When we were in ICU with my dad, he was on a ventilator and sometimes he would, I don't know, like kind of like start convulsing a bit and in the panic I would think he was having a seizure, but actually he was just coughing and just needed some assistance. I need to differentiate here where the assumption is versus where the fact is and what I actually know to be true. And it stopped me from going down an absolute rabbit hole of assumptions. I just had to move because some people sat in the park right next to me under my tree and I just felt a bit awkward. Oh yeah, I was saying about spiralling. Yeah, for me, like I just have to ground myself in exactly what I know right now, the facts, trying to find out the rest of the facts and not letting myself run away with potential evolutions of the situation. I was bad for it in school as well, like, you know, I felt like that exam went badly so I'm definitely going to fail and then I'm not going to get into university and it's all going to go wrong. That is simply not a helpful way of thinking when you don't even know how you did in the exam. I'd say a big part of that as well is just learning not to dwell. Which is hard and just takes practice, like be kind with yourself. Exposure therapy can actually be super, super helpful. I am not recommending this, this particular scenario, do not do what I did, but I had really, really bad emetophobia when I was younger and one of the ways, one of the things that really helped was actually being sick when I was drunk because I was kind of out of it and kind of numb. It was like a measured way of being exposed to this thing that I found really, really challenging in a like quite dissociated state. Obviously, that is a very specific example and, you know, we can see how that worked out for me. But actually, that was a great benefit of my relationship with booze was that I am now much less phased by sick. I'm definitely not healed, but it definitely helped. And on that topic, do not be afraid to get professional help and to go on medications. They're there for a reason. If your baseline is just that you can't handle, you know, the level of anxiety in your day to day and it feels, you know, there's no amount of mindset change or thinking that could help it to the point where you can manage the day to day, then absolutely consider medication and speak to your doctor. And I know that CBT gets a bad rap, at least in the UK it does. But honestly, if you're offered six free sessions, you may as well try it. Even if you just take one nugget of information away from it that's helpful for you, that could really change your life. Just being open to it basically, I think is really good. The next one seems really obvious, but it was just absolutely not obvious to me, which is take a look at your lifestyle and just assess on a very neutral level if anything could be contributing to your anxiety. When I got diagnosed, my anxiety was at its absolute worst. And that was in part due to the fact I was drinking like three to four coffees a day and then drinking heavily in the evening and like repeating that cycle over and over. There were many more factors at play, but that was definitely not helping. If there is stuff that you can manage or change, then be open to that. My life improved drastically when I went down to two coffees a day and I drank my first one after I'd eaten breakfast. And for me personally, quitting booze was the best thing I've ever done for my anxiety because I would often black out and I wouldn't remember what I'd done the next day. I found it just immensely anxiety inducing. So removing that entirely from my life really did make a positive difference for me. So you know, some of this advice is a bit like, oh, it's not that deep. It's not that deep. But some things and some situations are that deep. And I have also, this year particularly, and when I got sober, really practiced how to deal with things that are in fact very challenging and anxiety inducing. And these are some of the things that have helped me in those moments of severe situational anxiety. When I just cannot shake my anxiety and it's keeping me up at night, which is kind of how my anxiety functions these days, I use rituals. I have learned a tapping routine that one of my previous therapists taught me. I will see if I can leave a link below towards two tapping routines, but they are proven or like a technique that's used to manage anxiety in the moment and especially prevent panic attacks. And I also do breathing exercises. My breathing exercise of choice is breathing in for four counts, holding for four counts, and then breathing out for six. When your body notices that your out-breath is longer than your in-breath, it thinks you're no longer in danger and is able to like slow the rest of your body down to match it. That's probably not the exact explanation for what is going on, but it's, you know, it's what I got. God, the wind is winding. When my anxiety is particularly bad at night, I use Headspace's sleep casts on the app. This is not sponsored. I have just used them for probably like seven years now, and I find them immensely helpful. They're these calming stories. They last 45 minutes. They start with a wind down and a breathing exercise and then go into these lovely little stories set in different places. There's one called Cat Marina that I really like. There's one set in a hammam, which I love. And you're just a wallflower sitting down or walking through the area and observing all the people and the animals and what's going on. I think Headspace is great value for money as well because they have so many meditations on there. I use them less, but the sleep casts I use all the time, particularly when I'm stewing on something at night. I have a thought exercise that I do that I find very helpful, which is can I deal with any of this right now? Can I resolve this situation in this moment or can I do anything which will help it, especially at midnight or 1am when I'm having these cyclical thoughts? The answer is no, not right now. This is an unresolvable situation. What this usually results in is me making a note on my phone of something that I need to do in the morning or something I don't want to forget to do in the week. So it's assessing the things that you can change right in that moment and accepting the things that you cannot change and working on that acceptance and the fact that you're not in control of every element of the situation, I think is really important. And the bits that you are in control of, great. You can do something about when everyone wakes up at 9am. Once I've done that thought exercise and accepted what cannot be changed right in this moment, I then visualize myself dropping it, like just putting it down. It doesn't always work, but sometimes it helps. I feel like it's probably the equivalent of like prayer for religious people of just like giving it over to God. But there is no God in my opinion. Sorry. You can believe what you want to believe. I fully endorse it. But basically, I visualize myself putting down the big rock of anxiety. In that vein, you can't control things. You can't control everything at all. You can only control your response to stuff. So an example of this is, let's say someone around me says that they feel like they're going to be sick. It's not their job to move out of my way. It is my job to get up and find a space away from them and to be helpful where I can be. But I understand that my limits as someone who is phobic means that I'll be a lot less helpful if I'm around that person as they're sick. But you know, I can go and get paper towels or something like that. But you know, I'm responsible for my response and that might be sometimes removing myself. For like these long periods of drawn out anxiety, which I think kind of bleeds into stuff like grief, you know, let's say you've had a relationship breakdown or something like that. It's really helpful to over time build a list of activities that calm you down and just have it as a note on your phone, because usually when you're having that kind of ongoing anxiety, I tend to get into a scroll hole. I tend to lean into like quite unhealthy behaviours just to, you know, make me what I think might make me feel better. So like maybe online shopping or like, again, putting pressure on myself, making big plans for some reason like soothes my anxiety, but doesn't actually help. So having an ongoing list of things on my phone that help, for example, films that I can watch that calm me down. Oh my God, I've got so much stuff on my arm. That's so gross. TV shows, again, that calm you down, foods you eat that make you feel better. For me, like making a cup of tea really, really helps. And it's a tiny thing. Putting my slippers on makes me feel so much better in just the moment. Or like brushing my teeth or having a shower or going for a walk. But usually there's probably specific things that you associate with making you feel calmer. Definitely lean into those. If I've had a really difficult visit with my dad, I just crave getting home, having a cup of tea and just sitting on the sofa and watching like Princess Diaries 2. And that's absolutely fine. And I'm glad I know that about myself. As a final note, I will say that you can handle anything for 12 hours that would horrify you if you had to do it for a lifetime. You can withstand more than you realise over a short period, if that's a day or a couple of days. And in those acute moments, it really helps to remind myself of that. You are going to have really anxiety inducing times in your life, whether you struggle with anxiety or not, it is just a part of life. And it really helps me to remind myself that as a positive, an overall positive, net positive about life, things are always changing. And thus, factually, you are not going to feel like this forever. In those moments, I try not to hypothesise about the future. I try to stay very present in the here and now and just remember that this too shall pass. Got a real side part going on right now. It's giving Indy sleaze. For me, like having a why of why I am trying to overcome my anxiety was really helpful. Like I see how debilitating some people in my family find their anxiety and how much it shapes their entire worldview. And I just don't want that to happen to me. You can't unlearn stuff because once you've learned it, you've learned it. But I can like not fight it, but I can challenge it and prove to myself that I'm not bound by this concept of myself that I've had previously. And that's not an all at once thing either. I'd say that I've really made progress with my anxiety over the past three years. Anyway, I'm going to finish my bagel and I think go home. Time to get up. Bought a blackcurrant sorbet ice cream. It melted faster than I could eat it. It's got all over my hands. Really good, though. I think it's from a brand called Romeo. You might notice I've changed. I am in gym wear. Please enjoy our laundry in the back because I'm going to work out. I booked it before I checked the weather forecast for today. Luckily, it's indoors, but I am actually too hot to function right now. I've no idea how I'm going to do it, but I know it'll make me feel better. I know it will help my anxiety. I can always have a cold shower. If we have to do here, I will be complaining. Jack has made us a lovely dinner. I'm so tired. I'm wrecked from this class. Oh, the table looks nice, though. You should see. How nice is that? Sorry, but how good does that look? The chicken did not come out how I planned for it, but it's all fine. I think I'm going to round this video off here because I'm just so unbelievably pooped. But thank you for joining me on this little exploration into my anxiety and what's helped. I hope it has in turn helped you. Thank you so much for watching. Please subscribe if you're new and you like a little vlog. I make a lot of them. Subscribe to the Substack if you want to see more of me. If you want to hang out and like the video as well, because it helps in the algorithm. Thank you so much. I will see you in my next one. Big love.