You Need to Sleep More
I don’t think there’s a single anxiety fix that will work if you don’t sleep enough. It’s foundational. It’s so important to your health, you should schedule it. I’m not kidding. My calendar has 8 hours earmarked for sleep. I get an annoying notification
Be Alone Without Being Lonely
I believe solitude is critical for the mind. I try to work and think alone as often as I can (which isn’t often). Last year, my doctor told me that I needed some real solitude to reset myself – no family, no computer. He said, “Don’t let anyone talk
Test Your DNA
Did you know your doctor could test your DNA to find out which psychiatric drugs might work best on your anxiety? Now you do. Next time you see your doctor ask about DNA testing for medications [https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/10/17/766473930/dna-tests-for-psychiatric-drugs-are-controversial-but-some-insurers-are-covering] . It’s still
Meditate
Meditation has helped me more as an approach to reality than just an anxiety treatment. Oh, it can also work wonders on anxiety, but the scope of meditation is so much grander. But where to begin? It’s such a huge topic and to relay a practical tactic you could
Breathe
For about a year, I was able to stave off anxiety and IBS attacks (especially while driving) by pulling the hair out of my legs. Sounds weird, right? But it worked. Why? It was a pattern interrupt. We may get more into pattern interruption later this month, but what’s
Radical Acceptance
The first thing my Cognitive Behavioral Therapist taught me was the concept of “radical acceptance.” I simply had to accept whatever might happen and repeat over and over to myself, “Who the fuck cares?” It turns out that very few people give a fuck about anything outside of their own
Try Neurofeedback
This is where I am currently on my journey to decrease my anxiety [https://www.cjchilvers.com/blog/30-practical-tactics-to-decrease-your-anxiety-intro] — trying neurofeedback therapy. What’s neurofeedback therapy? It relies on the notion that positive feedback can train your brain to correct itself using audio-visual rewards. Practically speaking, it means you sit
30 Practical Tactics to Decrease Your Anxiety (Intro)
I am not a doctor. The first step in this journey is to seek medical attention if you suspect that anxiety, depression, or any other disorder is negatively affecting your life. Seriously. It’s easier than you think and it’s necessary. We’re talking about your health here. There’
Coming in November: 30 Practical Tactics to Decrease Your Anxiety
November is traditionally NaNoWriMo [https://nanowrimo.org] month, when writers try to write a novel in a month. Since I don’t do fiction (not yet anyway), I’m using November for something different and I'm hoping you'll join me. I’m going to post every
Do You "Take" Photographs or "Make" Photographs?
I use to default to writing “make” photographs, because of the endless rants I used to hear back in my darkroom days (the 90s). Of course, as photographers who took their craft seriously, we painstakingly “made” photographs, we didn’t just “take” them willy-nilly. It’s even in my book