When life feels out of control
This little piece is about you. About your anxiety and some of the things you can do to take charge when everything seems out of control.
Anxiety can be exhausting, it pervades your day and can bleach your life of joy. We live in a stressful age, full of ‘have tos’ ‘need tos’ and ‘shoulds’; We’re also surrounded by distractions, many of them of our own making. You may ‘have to’ finish that report or pick your child up from school, but do you ‘need to’ watch that TikTok video by some influencer that will leave you feeling you ‘should’ be wearing the latest fashion/makeup/hairstyle if you’re to be part of the in-set?
As for all of those choices – What shall I eat this evening? Chinese? Indian? Italian? Shall I cook, microwave a ready meal, or order in. Which of the 50 brands of toothpaste should I buy? – they inevitably lead to decision fatigue which steals your energy and feeds directly into anxiety.
A lot of our life has become purely habitual – the morning cappuccino on the way into work, the lunchtime sandwich from the deli round the corner, ‘doom scrolling’ on public transport on the way home – and it’s so easy to become disconnected from our own lives. I often think we are like Mr Duffy in James Joyce’s Dubliners, who ‘lived a short distance from his body’. It’s time to pay attention and reconnect!
Someone once said anxiety is the price we pay for imagination. The optimists among us will imagine the best outcomes, the less optimistic, the worst. It would be OK if we could just leave it there, but no, we continue to worry about those imagined outcomes – and that is anxiety.
Adjusting your life to reduce your anxiety
Perhaps the first thing to do is to build some moments of stillness and silence into your life. Without some spaces, its difficult to find any mental peace and quiet. In fact that stillness lives inside you, but anxiety gets in the way. So how do you get back in touch with it?
We were designed to experience the world through our senses. They guide us to the good things and save us from the bad – the luscious from the poisonous. But the noise and clutter of our lives has managed to estrange us from them.
The first thing you can do toward breaking the cycle is to become aware. Aware of everything around you. Turn off your music or your podcast, put your phone away and start with the world around you. Even if you walk to work along an urban street, you could notice the roof lines, or the colour of a door, or even a sturdy weed pushing through the pavement. Perhaps, instead of a blur, you’ll discover something lovely – or at least interesting!
You and your environment
Your environment has a massive effect on your emotional well-being. and there’s plenty of research comparing the effects of different environments – urban, green spaces, or water – on anxiety, health and general well being. It’s considered so important that the UK, the government aims to ensure that everyone lives within a 15 minute walk of a green or blue space.
🌿Connecting to nature
You don’t really need modern science to tell you that a walk in the woods makes you feel good, but research shows the physical effects of walking through woodland or by water, reduces activity in the brain’s stress centre and reduces heart rate for example.
🌿The wisdom of walking
The rhythm of walking itself mimics the heart beat and triggers a natural calming effect. That steady rhythmic pace restores mood and sharpens thinking – an antidote to the hurry of the every-day.
🌿For the love of trees
Woods and forests have a special ability to reduce feelings of stress and anxiety. Just the shape of trees, the colour and rustle of their leaves, and the invisible molecules they produce, boost our immunity and calm the shen – the heart’s spirit or mind. Even looking at pictures of trees has similar effects, though less dramatic.
Gardens, parks and ‘street trees’ are all an important part of ‘tree world’, so even if you live in the centre of a town or city, you probably get some exposure to the magic of trees – you just need to be aware of them. Acknowledge them, even touch them, make them part of you.
Bringing the outside in
So much for the wider world, but can you get those benefits inside your own home? The Japanese traditional way of living seamlessly blends the outside with the inside. The walls of traditional houses slide open and the surrounding terrace becomes part of the house. That doesn’t happen in modern city developments and it’s never been part of UK life, but you can at least…….
🌿Open your window
If you’re fortunate enough to live out of the city, you could start by opening the window and taking in the view. If you live in a town or city, maybe you have to ‘cheat’ with a green wall or a window box. The benefits far outweigh the effort involved.
🌿Houseplants – little green miracles
A few houseplants are essential. Spider plants, which are hard to kill for those of you without green fingers, actively clean the air and reduce cortisol levels. Other plants can help you sleep. Snake plant for example (also impossible to kill!) puts out oxygen at night.
And then there are bonsai. Harder to keep, but they become friends after a while, as we tend them. These tiny trees epitomise the idea of bringing nature inside.
So there you are. Off you go to bring the outside in!
🌿Colours of nature
Colours have a direct effect on our wellbeing and emotional state. Think about introducing the colours of nature into your home – even if it’s just a cushion, a throw, or a fresh towel in the bathroom. Blue brings a sense of peace and tranquility, while green is restful and harmonious.
🌿Scents of the world
The smells of the world have quite extraordinary effects on us. We don’t need to think about them, they connect directly with our emotional brain. Unlike anything else, a smell can summon a vivid memory of a day gone by or key us into the subtle change of seasons. As you walk about, try to become aware of the smells of the world around you – even the bad ones!
Essential oils are concentrated extracts of the natural scent molecules of plants. You can bring more of the outside in by using a few drops of a pure essential oil in a vapouriser, to add a sense of calm to your room. Lavender and Bergamot are good choices.
🌿Sounds of the world
Have you ever listended to the sea lapping against the shore, or suddenly become aware of the splashing of a fountain or the rustle of leaves in the breeze? All of these sounds are soothing to the soul instantly connecting us to the world we live in. One benefit of our technological age is that we can download an app to our phone or computer, lie back and let the sound of that ocean wash over us and carry away the stress – a great thing to do just before turning off the light and going to sleep.
🌿Help from acupuncture or Chinese herbs
Sometimes, when we’re stressed, or anxious, maybe not sleeping very well, with racing thoughts and worries, we need a little outside help to break the loop. I have been practising Chinese medicine for some 30 years and I can honestly recommend acupuncture to ‘calm the shen’ and help you feel more centred. There are also some wonderful traditional herbal prescriptions to ‘harmonise’ every aspect of you and bring you back to feeling ‘whole’.
Taoism, acupuncture and the calming of the ‘shen’
Taoism is the ancient Chinese philosophy that underpins the practice of Chinese medicine. It is a philosophy of balance and harmony,of cycles and change, both in the world, and in your mind and body. When things are working as they should, everything flows and you feel well: when something happens to disturb the flow you can become ill.
The Chinese view of how the body works is incredibly complex and intricate. It’s based on the concept of different energies that flow through various pathways and describes the relationship between all your bodily processes and the connections between your body, emotions and spirit.
In this tradition, your spirit, your consciousness, your ‘you-ness’ are governed by an all encompassing spirit called ‘shen’. Shen is said to live in the heart and be master of all your emotions – worry, fear, sorrow, anger and joy. In addition, it’s responsible for mental clarity, memory and connecting your inner being with the outer world.
When modern life, stressful eating patterns, or persistent worries disturb the Shen, your emotions will suffer. Conversely if any of your emotions are disturbed your shen becomes unsettled.
An acupuncturist or herbalist looks at the whole picture to identify what’s causing the problem and re-establish internal harmony and flow. An acupuncture treatment provides a calm safe space for you to let go of your worries – perhaps even fall asleep for a few moments, but whereas treatment will interrupt the anxiety loop, make you feel better, and better equipped to deal with your life issues, you absolutely have to address them too.
🌿One way to anchor our lives and make us less susceptible to being blown off course, is to introduce some gentle everyday rituals into our daily routine. I’m in the middle of writing a little guide to just that, so please come back and check it out when you have a moment.
