Practicing Mindfulness Helps Control My Morning Anxiety
Dancing Elephants Book Project: Mindfulness
I wake up most mornings feeling anxious.
It’s usually not anything specific that I can put my finger on and yet, it can be quite distressing. However, I have learned to recognize the signs of an impending downward spiral and am prepared with resources from my emotional toolbox to mitigate it before it ruins my day.
Morning anxiety refers to waking up with feelings of stress and worry. The reason for this is biological namely the “stress hormone” otherwise known as cortisol.
Researchers have found that cortisol is highest in the first hour of waking for people with an increased level of anxiety and can be explained as follows: “When you wake up, the body is already in ‘fight or flight’ at the memory and thought of another anxiety-filled day ahead. Now cue negative thinking before the day has even begun, creating a repeating cycle of early morning dread.”
In my case, I don’t recall exactly when this mindset began because I was not in the habit of doing frequent check-ins with myself in the past.
But I do know that it has been around for a long time— from a youth fraught with dissension between parents who couldn’t see eye to eye, to experiencing perfection anxiety as a college student, to a codependent relationship that required a lot of walking on eggshells — no wonder my default setting upon waking is dread.
Joining a support group taught me a lot about checking in with my emotions to see how I was feeling and also about the different tools I could use to calm my mind down when anxiety tends to cloud my mind.
My 3 Go-to’s For Mitigating Morning Anxiety
Doing a 10-minute guided Meditation before starting my day: I started doing the Daily Calm meditation on the advice of my support group and though it took a while for me to make it a habit, it has done wonders for my mental health.
Here is a description of this guided meditation: “The Daily Calm is a unique mix of meditation and inspiration every day. A daily meditation practice helps with lessening anxiety, worry, and stress while enhancing self-esteem and self-acceptance. It also improves resilience against uncertainty and adversity.”
I particularly like the one on Letting Go because of the gentle reminders not to take things personally when dealing with difficult people — especially when they happen to be those close to you.
This has in turn helped deescalate my emotional response to the problem without getting overwhelmed by anxious thoughts.
Journaling: This is by far my favorite tool in my emotional toolbox. Writing is the way I catch all the chaotic thoughts running around in my head and put them down on paper. I found doing this not only to be empowering and cleansing but also helpful in changing my thoughts about an issue that is on my mind.
Here are some questions I use for self-reflection:
- How likely is it that this will happen? How do you know? Are you sure?
- If what you fear does occur, could it be less of a negative experience than you think it would be? Could it be neutral or even positive?
- Is there a way you could use your circumstances to create a better outcome? Could you use what you have available to make the best of the potential changes? Is there a change that could occur (or that you could create) that would be even better?
Five Finger Breathing Exercise: This is a tool I have at my fingertips whether I am at home or on the go. 5 finger breathing is a quick, easy-to-do exercise that can help restore calm by focusing on the breath.
In his article, psychiatrist and Director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Center Dr. Judson Brewer talks about the science of anxiety by comparing the prefrontal cortex of the brain to the RAM of a computer: “If your computer has a lot of RAM, you can run a bunch of programs at the same time. If it doesn’t have that much, it gets slower as you use up the space, signaled by the spinning wheel of “Hey, you are overtaxing me right now.” Eventually, it crashes if you keep pushing.”
The article suggests that mindful practices, like 5 finger breathing exercises, are an excellent way of getting the thinking brain back online.
References:
Anxiety Specialists of Atlanta
Daily Calm | 10 Minute Mindfulness Meditation | Be Present
I would like to thank the editors of the Dancing Elephant Press Lady Dr. Gabriella Korosi, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, Sharing Randomly