Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello. Does anyone else find it nearly, no actually, absolutely impossible to relax? I've tried so many things. Baths, Meditation, TV, comedy, music... Anything to just allow a person to 'wind down' Meditation originally I thought was working. But now by far I know meditation to be the worst thing for me. It makes so extremely aware of every breath and heartbeat that I actually just become anxious and end up with something called 'air hunger' where I end up trying to take deep breaths when I clearly don't really need it. And then when I can't take as a deep a breath as I feel I needed I then think it's because I can't breathe and thus the anxiety continues in its cycle. I find this to be the case with almost any 'relaxing' thing. I become way too aware of my breath and heartbeat. It's just with meditation it's intensified. I don't even relax in my sleep! I often wake up from anxiety dreams where I've clearly been hyperventilating in my sleep from the dream. How can I ever relax?
I've been wondering a lot about this recently.
I can achieve a state of contentedness easy enough, and I don't suffer anxiety in the way you describe, but the thinking and analysing doesn't stop. The top thing for me is fell running. I really do go into a state of switched off and bliss. Nothing else compares..
Reading works really well for me. And I do well lying in the sun! I'm starting to explore sports more like scrambling, winter moutaineering, kayaking things like fell running that aren't competetive, you can do with someone, are about A to B, and require full presence. Craft works but I find it really really hard to get going. I find it much easier to "relax" in bed than on the sofa. I've never understood how you can relax in the bath!
Otherwise I find it hard to relax and not to be purposeful, or thinking.
Yea, it can feel you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. I do try to keep it in mind.
I only recently 'remembered' how I'm more empathic than most. When this hit me, it made sense why I was carrying so pain anxiety and so much pain. I am reasonably certain that I'm not just carrying my own uncertainty/pain/worries and whatnot but a whole chunk of other people's -and not just the folks I know, I feel like I'm carrying the pain of half a nation to a degree.
Realising that has helped a bit in the last two days. I don't think it's a cure for the anxiety but I'm going to try and remember, the next time my anxiety levels super-spike, that a proportion of the worry is possibly not all of my own.
I don't know if that'll help either of us but I'll track how I'm feeling, with this in mind, over the next week or two.
yea, I fidget a lot. Holding things in my hand, spinning it, stretching or whatever the object allows. I find it helps me concentrate on something more, which does help with the anxiety stuff. But it's always there niggling me. I become hyper-aware how weird my heartbeats are (I have a heart condition) and I seem to find it really hard to tune it out.
I think I a more empathic than 'average' but it often doesn't look that way because of my lack of ability to cope, communicate well enough. But, yes, I seem to absorb peoples negative emotions. And feel great relief though don't empathise to the scale I do with negative emotions when a person is 'okay' or 'good' just a massive sigh of relief.
I have a lot of trouble relaxing stimming or holding something to fidget with is what I normally do.
"Does anyone else find it nearly, no actually, absolutely impossible to relax?"
I've not found it easy/very possible to relax. It sounds like your anxiety is higher than mine has been getting but the similarity is in how constant the anxiety is.
My anxiety has gone down when I've been in the company of others, however, this has been a rare occurrence this year.
I can lower my anxiety through watching films (and watching baseball has helped lately). It doesn't prevent the anxiety and I can still get twitchy and anxious whilst watching, but it does lower the anxiety compared to if I weren't engaged.
Silence feels deafening this year so I put music on when I'm doing things like making food, eating it, moving from one room to another. Distracting or drowning out some of the anxiety.
One question. Are quite an empathic person? (as in a bit more than the average person)