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So, uh … how ya feeling?
🥺
For obvious reasons, we’ve all been running at absolute emotional and cognitive capacity nonstop for what feels like an eternity, with little space to breathe and just relax. Which is understandable! Between an election that went unconcluded for days, a record-setting streak of Covid-19 cases, continuing economic uncertainty and everything else happening in the world (for example: It’s Monday! Rude!), it’s only natural that our brains are taxed to the limit.
So today, carve out some time to turn off your phone, step away from work, keep the TV off and give yourself the gift of truly intentional time for yourself. The longer you run at heightened stress, the worse both your physical and mental health will be, so it’s crucial to figure out ways to combat extended periods of stress. Here are a few ideas that could help.
Set appointments to worry
Whether it’s the election, the pandemic, the economy or something else altogether, 2020 is just the year of ambient anxiety. But spending your whole day worrying about everything is damaging to your long-term health, so one strategy is to schedule discrete parts of your day when — ideally, but maybe not always — you’ll get your worrying out of the way so you can move on, Dr. Jenny Taitz wrote in an article for Smarter Living last week.
Rather than recommending the impossible, “Don’t worry!” I prescribe 20 to 30 minutes of Dr. Borkovec’s concentrated worry time to my clients, encouraging them not to do this right before bed or first thing in the morning, especially if they tend to wake up with a sense of dread. Instead, my clients plan a more constructive time to either try a single session or two, 15-minute ones. If you have an array of worries, you can also set times for specific topics, such as financial stressors or health concerns, limiting your total worry time to half an hour.
During this specific time you’ve set aside for worrying, trying listing your worries and perhaps steps you might take to concretely deal with them. Or don’t, if that’s not helpful! The goal for this time of intentional worry is to sit and work through your anxieties for only a set amount of time, so that, with practice, you can learn not to let those anxieties flood your thoughts throughout the rest of your day.
