Life is ten percent what you experience and ninety percent how you respond to it.

— Dorothy M. Neddermeyer.

Recently a beautiful soul confessed to me that they were suffering from anxiety. I was shocked by the news because I couldn’t see it. They are making strides in their career; their children are performing above average and they have a marriage that anyone would hope for. Then they continued to say: “I get very overwhelmed when I have too many things to do. Like shopping with a large grocery list… it becomes too much to handle, I forget things and I just feel drained.”  Anxiety is your body’s natural response to stress: intense, excessive, and persistent worry and fear. Hearing “I suffer from anxiety” automatically made me think they needed professional help and their life would be changed, but that wasn’t the case at all. It was just an opportunity to implement changes in their life in order to function at an optimal level. Truth is, I too experienced feeling overwhelmed and drained by certain tasks and situations. I decided for My Mental Health I will recognize what triggers my anxiety and how to reduce the effect it has on my life.

We have all fallen victim to the unmistakable life-altering pit in the stomach feeling that stress can cause. For some, there are activities, people, or places that automatically trigger this emotional rollercoaster. The majority of the time we are experiencing things by ourselves without a safety net or someone to guide us through it. When anxiety is building at work, I am blessed to have my husband to talk with. There are instances that I think he might judge me for letting material things or the lack of them stress me out and I choose to handle it internally. Once you have recognized the cause of your anxiety, it is important to devise a plan of action. It’s usually easiest to reach out to someone close to help work through your struggle. Unfortunately, not everyone is going to understand your feelings or emotions and provide the empathy you need. That doesn’t make them a bad person—they just need better understanding. For you, that means you need to explore alternate avenues to aid you in the navigation of this emotional highway and steer you to peace. There is yoga, support groups, meditation, therapist and much more. Do some research and find what works best for you.

It took me 6 months to apply for a home loan because the thought of being denied caused me crippling anxiety. Even after being approved, I am plagued with worry and doubt that we won’t find a house by May. I literally check Realator.com every two hours in fear that I might miss a house being posted and then boom—it’s already under contract. Today, I meditated to reduce my level of anxiety and the effect it was having on my mental health.  Don’t let anxiety get the best of you. We all experience it in different forms and degrees. Understanding the who, what, when, where and more importantly— how did I react. We don’t always have control of when things happen in life, but you can be better prepared to handle it. In this instance, it was best to scale back large amounts of work to break it up into smaller tasks. Therapists are really good at helping people identify and concur their fears.