I’m 25 years old and my anxiety first started when I was doing my degree aged around 18, my first memory of experiencing anxiety was getting on a bus stuffed full of students my age, walking down the isle of the bus and sitting down. My heart started to race, I came over in a hot sweat and felt like I couldn’t breathe, I got off two stops after and walked home to spend the day in bed.
My mum was always really understanding and I could communicate my concerns with her about it, but I didn’t tell anyone else until years later because I didn’t understand why I felt like this, but also because at the time seven years ago, mental health wasn’t really spoken about openly for fear of being judged.
I’m happy to say I don’t suffer with anxiety often now, it comes randomly in waves when i’m stressed, nervous, feeling self conscious or in big crowds of people. I’m not ashamed to speak about it and I hope anyone reading this who can relate knows they are not alone, and its MUCH more common than you realise, people just don’t open up for fear of being judged for it.
Unless you’ve experienced anxiety its hard to explain for others to understand, you hear people say ‘Don’t worry’ or ‘You’ve got nothing to be anxious about’ as if those words make it magically go away. I’m unaware of any medication or remedy that can reduce or stop anxiety but I am 100% sure the tips below helped me massively.
5 things I changed about my lifestyle that helped with my anxiety:
1. Changed my diet – Until I was around 18 I was really picky with food and only ate things like chicken nuggets, rice, tuna, broccoli, toast, chocolate and store bought pizza.. that’s pretty much it. I was still having some good food sources but I wasn’t getting a variety of nutrients/vitamins, was under-eating and not exercising at all (I think this really contributed to my constant headaches, low moods and feeling lethargic all the time)
– To my mums delight I started cooking for myself to experiment with food, I looked up recipes on Pinterest: Salmon & vegetables, turkey burgers with protein seasoning, protein pancakes, fruit bowls, overnight oats etc. I also probably only drank about one or two glasses of water a day, and didn’t change this much until a couple of years later, to improve my hydration I bought myself a 1.5L bottle and drank one of these a day, this helped a lot because I could see exactly how much of it I had drank and how much more I needed to drink. It then got easier to drink more, the more I was hydrated. I now drink between 3-5L of water a day.
2. Started exercising – Everyone starts as a beginner, when I first started in the gym I completely avoided the weights section (Being all male dominated and not knowing what the fuck I was doing scared me) I walked or ran on the treadmill for about 20-30 minutes, did some stretching and then went home. As I started to be consistent with turning up to the gym, I eventually gathered enough courage to give the weight section a go, everything felt SO heavy but I watched what other people were doing on the machines/weights and spoke to personal trainers for advice. I had learnt basics from researching exercises on Youtube and when Instagram started to kick off a LOT of my inspiration came from women like: Cass Martin, Stephanie Sanzo, Hattie Boydle, Dana Bailey, Hanna Oberg, Denise Moberg, Lauren Simpson, Nikki Blackketter etc.
– Who you follow, learn about and view constantly on social media all contributes to your habits, motivation and energy. These women uplifted other women, spread motivation to lift weights and be strong and THIS is what inspired me and pushed me though any anxiety.
– I was there to improve and work on myself, and I wasn’t going to let anything stop me.
3. Learnt to say NO to events, gatherings or anything else I didn’t want to do – This took me a long time and I don’t recommend you shut yourself away, because I do think 9/10 times you should socialise and enjoy yourself, but ONLY on your terms.
- Kept myself accountable – There were days I didn’t want to exercise but I told myself, go straight from work and do 20 minutes, that’s better than nothing. I’d show up, start, and feel great that I had managed to turn up and usually ended up doing a full session. I then felt motivated, inspired and proud of myself for pushing past my excuses – Sometimes its only as hard as getting through the door, once you’ve done that you’ve already achieved something by showing up.
- Made myself feel comfortable, confident and uplifted – Wore clothes that made me feel comfortable and confident and got bluetooth headphones so they didn’t get in the way of my session. I created an upbeat playlist and went at times when the gym wasn’t as busy such as before work in the morning or on a Sunday.
Regret is the worst feeling in the world and I push myself past my insecurities, anxiety or bad days because I KNOW I can do better and I know that once I start to make small steps towards improving my lifestyle, physical and mental health, i’ll feel great and my overall happiness will be improved.
Everything you do revolves around how you feel inside, look after your body and mind to feel your best and have the best quality of life.
Read my blog on ‘5 tips for self care and mental health.’ for more tips on this subject!
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