Organise your life to make it less anxiety filled.

Everybody has that anxious feeling when something doesn't happen when it should and  emotions run from frustration, anger to worry. After all everything in our society is done by agreements and when anything doesn't meet those agreements it's a bother. So  when things are disorganised we are bothered to the point of  being anxious.

Ultimately the only thing that any of us has control over is our reaction to something. It is also true that if it can happen it will happen so something is going to turn up during the day which wasn't part of the plan! I have never had a mental health event in my life corresponding to anxiety or anything else  although there have been many times when I have felt anxious. Our feelings are situationally dependent. I did music at school 56 years ago, got paid for playing in bands  and if you don't have anxiety doing that you are simply not gonna do it properly. So anxiety is an important life guiding principle and feeling .

This is why   a plan for organising each day is useful and at minimum some part of it will be achieved . That's important for those that have anxiety problems. My youngest son was diagnosed with anxiety quite a few years ago and I wasn't surprised that after the medicine  and  therapy   didn't work for him I had to think of something else. My  observations that people who organise their lives suffer less stress and anxiety kicked in, as did my reading about how animal therapy has been used with people in mental health institutions going right back to the Victorian era.  Even now people can go to places to look after animals to  reduce the severity of whatever mental health  problem they have.

 In consultation with my wife we reckoned that if our  lad gets   involved with a dog  it will organise his life  and his anxiety symptoms will reduce   . We were correct. On the first morning when my son had cleaned up the mess his Guide Dog Puppy from the Guide Dogs for the Blind had left in its cage I knew that things were going to be okay because he had got up at 5 AM. In the previous two years he had a job getting out of bed before 3 PM  .  My son organising his life around the routine of training a Guide Dog Puppy had allowed him to manage his mental health condition positively and the effect was permanent .

The practical effects of organising your life are so you can daily win something which reduces the  feelings of anxiety. With my son those effects were permanent. After that year of being a Puppy Walker for the Guide Dogs for the Blind he got a job. After a couple more years he bought his own house. He still has feelings of anxiety but they are much reduced precisely because of the long-term effect of proving to himself that something that helped him to organise his life positively affected how he responds to the feelings of anxiety. As he says, his job now organises his life and helps him to feel good everyday! 

 

Moving More for Our Mental Health

 

Moving More for Our Mental Health

By Paul Saunders-Priem

From birth you are overcoming the urge to be still. Think then move is the most basic human thing to do. This comes with a catch called choice which is where all the good stuff starts and the bad. I was walking in the hills years ago and chose to walk into a bog because it didn’t look like a bog! No matter what the choice though once the decision is made inertia is best overcome by simply taking the first steps. You’ve won! It might not be a big victory but it’s a win!

So now I’m moving. I look around but of course I’m thinking and best of all: feeling. No matter what mental ups and downs I have I’m on a higher plane than when I was not moving. A movement victory can bring negative feelings which are necessary because movement brings risk physical and mental. We always look when crossing a road. It’s obstacles all the way or steps up as I like to call them: opportunities to notice the movement achievement past present and future because no matter whether moving or not my mental state and the world around me is moving! We’re all on the living ride like it or not.

The decision to move is mental preparation for what comes next. No one knows what life puts in front of you big or little but after deciding to move that empowering feeling puts you in a good position to deal with it. I walked my family into a bog in the Pennines but stop and retreat came quickly because decision was forced on me and I was ready. Movement leads to mental awareness which brings more movement!

I’ve been a hiker most of my 67 years. I still urban ramble at least twice a week doing never less than 10 miles in total and 5 days of the week my movement is pacing around my backroom for exercise because you get stiff if you sit for too long, but even this limited activity with none of the outside stimulation of weather and scenery has a positive effect on thinking and feeling. I do this backroom pacing because I’m very engrossed in activities but the urge to move is always there pushed by my mind to take a break and coffee doesn’t move to me... I’ve got to do that myself! Coffee breaks are great movement points!

The move-rest rhythm always pushing us on the journey physical or mental is the natural organisation of life. You may feel good or bad but there it is: a problem, a potential, path or pleasure. Your mind is going to work on it. Moving that rhythm around through choice is the only freedom anyone has and the urge is always to feel better. So looking for better choices is our natural state. No one puts salt into coffee!

Getting on the move is choosing your problem not letting it choose you. Live your own rhythm. I’ve been physically handicapped (an injured arm from an accident) for over 60 years. I’ve never had a mental health problem because my inner life always has this focus on my damaged arm. It’s my permanent daily problem but it can be made better or worse. No choice here but healthy though, because people with mental health problems also have no choice. I’m no different from many other people. From typing to cooking for my family I always have to notice my physical handicap, like it or not. Just like life itself. But within my limitation I can live my own rhythm and if I want a better life: I have to.

So quality of movement is needed here. I can try various ways (movements) to adapt to my injured arm. Walks / exercise / movement is on a worse to better continuum and considering this alone is uplifting. You may feel like not being on the spectrum at all! But like it or lump it we all are so movement starts in the mind and not doing something about it feels like two failures: the one in the mind and the one your body hasn’t done.

The tension of choice always exists between getting going or not. No matter what problem I have it is there. So on top of what needs to be solved is that initial getting going problem. Inertia is a universal working against moving mentally and physically, whether it is a property of mental illness or in my case life itself. Whilst with my physical handicap I know I am different from those that are not, I draw a great strength knowing that I share with everyone the daily battle of deciding whether to get up and get going or not! What I call the universal grief or grin is always there!

Movement by walking is the number-one mood management tool. Any environment physical or mental is lived in up to a point and then it is time to do something else. I may not feel like doing that but walking as a habit is a way of life for me because I have been doing it since being a toddler where I escaped from the army compound I lived in in Hong Kong and wandered the city! It takes me into a new world which relieves the oppressive feeling that I need to make a change by doing something different. Walking does not have to be striding out in the hills or sprinting around the urban landscape it can simply be pacing in my own room.

All of what I have written is surrounded by time, and organising time within walking occurs whether an interval is set or not because eventually I will feel hungry or thirsty: the desire for coffee always lurks! Alongside walking is setting a time period which adds even more power and control over mood. Such goal setting at times to me seems almost petty and inconsequential but it is massively life enhancing. Goal setting is a form of hope. There are many little wins in daily life and I’ve found these wins built on a foundation of movement just make that daily struggle that bit better!