Why hello there! I’m going to brush off the fact that I blogged almost everyday in January and then stopped for 3 months. Life happened and I got lazy.
ANYWAY. After conquering (even if temporarily) some lingering anxiety I have been dealing with, I decided that it was time to share a few apps and techniques that I found helpful when my heart was racing. My anxiety almost always woke me up an hour or two before I needed to wake up. Because of this, I found that getting up immediately instead of trying to convince myself that I could somehow fall back asleep was the way to go. I found that laying there did absolutely nothing for me and almost always made me feel worse. The BEST thing I found for this early morning anxiety was going for a walk. I would throw on a sweatshirt and Buddy and I would walk a mile every morning. By the time I got back home from the walk I felt much better.
I also found that deep breathing was extremely helpful. You can obviously deep breath without using an app, but I found that having something coaching me helped quite a bit. It gives you something to focus on. You could either just use a stopwatch app on your phone or the Breathe2Relax app. You can adjust your inhale and exhale times and make it work for you. I have also enjoyed using DeepCalm; Rain, Rain; and Relax M. If that is not enough for you and you really need some sort of guided relaxation, I have had good luck with Guided Mind. Guided mind (free version) has guided meditations on different topics. I have used many of them and really think they help if you dealing with serious anxiety. Depending on how you feeling, watching or listening to something on Netflix may also help. I found that listening to documentaries or BBC shows made me feel better (dork city over here). Also, I have found that taking melatonin is awesome. I don’t take it all the time, but it really does help you fall asleep and stay asleep.
What are your tips and tricks to keep anxiety at bay?