Coping with Anxiety while living in Central Illinois
Jenn Bovee, LCSW, CRADC, CCHt
EMDR Trained
It can be difficult living in the midwest and coping with anxiety. Unlike living in a city like Chicago, where many people walk everywhere, coping with anxiety in Central Illinois looks and manifests differently. The anxiety itself shows up differently and therefore the solutions are going to look a bit different. Just like if we lived in South Carolina, where sunshine was plentiful, anxiety would definitely manifest differently versus living in the midwest where the sunshine is currently playing peekaboo. With the sun coming out once every 7 days it definitely has a negative impact on those of us attempting to cope with anxiety in Central Illinois.
Just to review, in case you are not sure whether or not you are living with anxiety, these are some of the common symptoms of anxiety:
Excessive worrying
Feeling agitated
Restlessness
Fatigue
Difficulty concentrating
Irritability
Tense muscles
Trouble falling or staying asleep
Panic attacks
Avoiding social situations
Irrational Fears
Increase in heart rate
This can be a lot to live with. And if you are constantly living with that anxiety voice in your head that’s telling you that you are not good enough or that people don’t like you or whatever your particular anxiety trigger is, it can be super overwhelming and suffocating. This makes coping with anxiety in Central Illinois even more important and it can become even more anxiety-producing. Through the remainder of this blog, I want to provide you with some easy and natural coping skills that you can do almost anywhere. Hopefully, some of these will even be fun for you to use!
Chewing Gum: It sounds super silly right? But it works! Chewing gum actually activates the vagus nerve which sends the message to your brain that you are socially connected. And it also lets your brain know that if you are socially connected you must be safe because you wouldn’t be socializing with people if it wasn’t emotionally or physically safe for you to do so! So chewing gum actually decreases anxiety. Singing does the same with a little tweak of the same mechanism.
Find a Calming Smell: Do you have that one smell that always makes you smile? For me, it’s anything citrus. It can be orange, lemon, or grapefruit. Anytime I smell those I always break out into a smile, I really just can’t help it. Find a smell that makes you feel safe and grounded and carry it around with you in a place that is easily accessible. When we are working with kids who are learning how to cope with anxiety in Central Illinois, we will often have their parents put essential oil on a cotton ball and put it in their pocket. Then, as your anxiety begins to climb, you just pull it out, smell it, and ground yourself.
Pull Out The Cartoons: One of my go-to techniques, when I’m teaching people how to cope with anxiety in Central Illinois, is to always identify the cartoon character that they just can’t take seriously. The one that always makes them laugh. The one that they just can’t even hear and keep a straight face. And every time the negative anxious chatter starts in their head, they have to hear it in that cartoon character’s voice. It’s a game-changer for people with anxiety. It puts a hard stop to anxiety running the show!
Self-Hypnosis: The ability to retrain the way your brain thinks and responds to stimuli is a powerful tool. For many people anxiety is simply a maladaptive coping pattern. When you recognize that you can rewire how your brain responds to stimuli it changes everything for you. And you have the power to do that in your own mind, whether you are doing that through meditation or self-hypnosis the results are still going to be powerful and beneficial.
Coping with anxiety in Central Illinois is something all of the staff at The Mental Wellness Center, Inc is super passionate about. We don’t believe that you deserve to needlessly suffer from anxiety when there are natural tools that we can teach you to cope with and lessen your anxiety. If you have needs that go beyond this blog and are interested in setting up an appointment with a therapist on staff please feel free to call us at 309-807-5077 or email us at info@TheMentalWellnessCenter.com.