The Nerdist Way_ How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life) - Chris Hardwick [25]
A few rad examples are:
Heart palpitations, trouble breathing, dizziness, blurred vision, feeling “foggy” brained, tremors, muscle twitches, electric zaps, confusion, indecision, tightness in the chest, fear of losing your mind, fear of passing out in public, floatiness, nausea, tightness in the head, ear pressure . . .
The list goes on! Hooray! Unfortunately, these symptoms are broad enough that they share common space with the worst diseases and disorders you can think of, which is why I IMPLORE you, as someone who is now committed to mental health, DO NOT SELF-DIAGNOSE ONLINE. [see sidebar immediately!]
THE WEB: A HYPOCHONDRIAC’S LIFEBLOOD
Please do me a favor. We’re friends now, right? OK, good. NEVER go online to self-diagnose. EVER. Don’t fucking do it. You might as well just ask Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to kick you in the solar plexus. Sites like WebMD should just change their name to Enjoy YourCancer.com. There is simply too much symptomatic crossover to make the Internet a place for the untrained Nerd to get accurate information. Even if you’re trying to find out why your cheek itches, you’ll end up on some kind of British message board with a handful of people talking about how their itchy cheeks led to face cancer. And you’ll be convinced you have it. I mean, you ALSO have an itchy cheek. How could it NOT be cancer??? Mainly because you can find out anything about anything on the web, and you stumbled upon the five people in the world who have it. If you think you have a problem, go see a trained physician. You might be a lot of things, but unless you are a trained physician, YOU ARE NOT A TRAINED PHYSICIAN. If your car starts rattling, you don’t spend hours in front of your computer reading about how the engine will probably fall out because that happened to one guy once. You get slightly irritated and make an appointment with a mechanic. If you think something is really wrong, go to a doctor. You will see only the worst things online and build a case in your head that you are dying. You’re not. You will be OK. You’re just too damn creative for your own good!
Anxiety finds much of its strength in rooting itself in your past or future. “I should have done A.” “What if B happens?” A good trick for me was forcing myself to be present. Get out of the nonphysical strata of the other two tenses and live in the present one. Sit wherever you are and notice five things in the room. Study their color, their shape. Do they have a smell? What is it? Experience your surroundings in real time. Do this for fifteen minutes (or longer if you want). This accomplishes two things: (1) It pulls you into the present, and (2) it throws your focus into the external world and out of your internal one.
THE DREADED COOLDOWN
I can tell you from my experience that, as busy as I am, I think I work too much. In trying to accomplish piles of things, try to avoid my mistake. Work is a great anxiety escape for me. It throws my focus onto something else. But guess when I have the most anxiety? During periods when I slow down. Have you ever worked out in the morning (or done something unusually physical), then gone about your day and then only started to notice the muscle twitches when you’re lying in bed that night? That’s your nervous system finally dealing with the toll you took on it. When you’re resting, your body can devote attention to those overworked areas. I think the same is true with emotional taxation. You never notice how stressed you are while in battle, but then all of the shit you went through has to process sooner or later. I think the best thing to do is not to keep running from it (like I’m so skilled at doing) but rather to let your body deal with it while remembering that it’s all just part of the cycle.
The good news for you is that anxiety is not fatal, even though it makes you think it