In what ways does anxiety effect your life?

As you begin to address the effect that anxiety/stress have over your life, I encourage you to start by listing different arenas of your life and how they are effected.

For instance

Family

Friendships

Health

Work

Spirituality

Then clarify the ways that stress and anxiety effect those different arenas of your life. For instance

Family- I no longer go to many of son's soccer games because the stress is too great.
Health- I have acid reflux that is contributed by my stress.
Friendships- I am embarrassed by somethings and I can't face it therefore. I don't call my friend anymore.
Work- I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop as if everything I do is wrong.
Spirituality- I am unable to feel a sense of connection and peace in my life.

This is not a way of putting salt in the wound but as a way of taking an honest inventory of yourself. Then lets begin to work on recapturing some of the aspects of life that you feel are compromised or lost as a result of stress and anxiety. When anxiety and stress are at there worst there are very few pockets of refuge but as we get better those pockets multiply. So it is important to see where we are and take a snapshot so we can see progress as it happens. Anxiety Resolver the smartphone app is designed to help point you towards assessing and identifying improvements along the way. Feelings are often difficult to assess they are not logical by nature so if that is your measuring stick we are setting ourselves up to miss some of the improvements that maybe happening, but it is fundamental to look at everything. Paying attention to ourselves assessing where we are at and then doing more work to continue to break the patterns. So make a list which you could do and then monitor in the journal section of the Anxiety Resolver app or just in a journal of your own. Stop yourself in the midst of these patterns of behavior or interaction and try to identify something that you can do different. For Instance

Family- I could get some exercise because that helps me to feel less anxious and then call my friend who i know goes to all the games and sit with them.
Health- I can learn to journal about all of my anxieties develop new ways of working through anxiety instead of accumulating it and then allowing it to take a toll on my health.
Friendships- Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill? Often anxiety causes us to make things worse than they are and we view ourselves and situations in a critical way. It would be important to start a conversation with the friend that you have been avoiding, possibly wading into the waters with a message on facebook or a text.
Work- I must list all of the things that I have accomplished in each given day or week, work is constantly moving so I have to make sure to give myself credit where credit is do.
Spirituality- Stepping back from everything in life is an important step so I have to find a pocket or set time aside to not thing about everything that I have to do- possibly starting with listening to relaxing music on Anxiety Resolver, or looking at pictures of my family.

None of these are the solution but momentum is important even if it comes in small successes. Anxiety makes everything seem the same, but its not so seeing stressors in different ways and beginning to problem solve will break Anxiety down and help you to resolve your anxiety.

Second Tutorial on "how to use Anxiety Resolver" coming this week

visit  anxietyresolverapp.com

Anxiety Resolver by Recovering Hope Project, LLC.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/anxiety-resolver/id777678167?mt=8

Local social worker creates 'Anxiety Resolver' app - Local News - Herald-Standard

Local social worker creates 'Anxiety Resolver' app - Local News - Herald-Standard

How Flappy Birds can help with anxiety!

I was introduced a couple of weeks ago by my son to Flappy Birds, typically I can set games aside. But with Flappy Birds I was instantly hooked and I knew it. I get frustrated as to how this seemingly easy game was proving me wrong over and over again. So I have to seen through my time playing parallels to life and the management of anxiety.

1. That perception is very important, sometimes we perceive things as being easier than they are and other times more difficult. In the case of flappy birds I underestimated the complexity of the game therefore thinking that it must be something wrong with me. Fortunately this is just a game that I can turn off- ha ha, but in other aspects of life it's not that easy. But sometimes we psych ourselves out by believing that things are more difficult than they are.

2. You have to focus on you first, not what's ahead. I failed miserably focusing on how to get over the next obstacle, over and over again trying to fit myself through that seemingly large space.

3. That sometimes wanting to break my record even though I am only on the second tube, brings me to messing it up and dying. My anxiety is "gotta break my record" "gotta get to my record and beyond", "gotta catchup with the kid's records". These thoughts get me no where because they prevent we from focusing on the right now and what I am capable of doing in the present. So I have learned to modify by seeing progress in groups of 10. Manageable and measurable steps.

4. That  if you allow the ups and downs to control you that you are more likely to fail. But if you just focus  maintaining a comfortable pace within yourself that you will succeed in managing anxiety.

Here are a couple of thoughts about how we successfully manage anxiety, if you would like more idea check out

anxietyresolverapp.com
Or
Purchase the app at

Anxiety Resolver by Recovering Hope Project, LLC

HTTPS://itunes.apple.com/us/app/anxiety-resolver/id777678167?mt=8

Observer-Reporter | Waynesburg social worker develops anxiety app

Observer-Reporter | Waynesburg social worker develops anxiety app