addiction recovery

If your stress levels have been escalating by the day, you can support your mind and body by taking a news break. Ceasing to obsessively focus upon and share the latest news is one of the most important things you can do right now.

The media is a (fear) carrier, and compulsively seeking out the latest headlines can trigger anxiety, even if you are unaware of the effects. Chronic stress and anxiety compromises your immune system, which will make you more vulnerable, should you actually encounter the virus. Must I do the math for you? Good. I’m a words woman.

Whether you’re watching the news on TV, reading online or soaking up the fear broadcast on your social media pages, you are choosing to take unnecessary hits on your nervous system. The more you do this, the more your nervous system will become accustomed to the state of high alert.

How Behaviors Become Compulsive And Addictive

Have you found yourself checking the news without even meaning to? Or already tried to cut back and found it difficult or impossible to do so? Once your nervous system has acclimated to anxiety, you will unconsciously seek out hits of fear-based stimulation.

This is a simplified explanation for how behaviors can turn into compulsive ones, which in turn can develop into addictions.

Don’t use an illusory need to stay informed of every single development as an excuse to feed your body the opposite of what it needs right now. You’ll hear what you actually need to. It will be impossible not to.

Sharing Spreads Fear

If you are going to ignore this suggestion, at least stop sharing the news, unless it directly impacts someone who needs to know it at that moment. The person you are about to text may already be self-medicating their own fear with a second bag of Double Stuf Oreos. They don’t need yours as well.

If you are choosing to circulate stressful news on social media, ask yourself why. If your answer is that you’re trying to educate people to stay at home, know that by jolting the nervous systems of those who see your post, you are playing your part in the spread, in a different way. Can you find another way to get your message across?

If not, you are playing hot potato with your fear. There are much better ways to contend with it. I’ll share the best I know this month.

It Works!

A client shared with me today that although she was originally resistant to my suggestion, she took a new break for two days and her anxiety decreased significantly. So if you are feeling anxious or depressed, I highly recommend cutting back or taking a full break for a couple of days and see how you feel.

Comment below or share your experiences on our Corona Calm page. It’s a great time for unity, community, hope and inspiration: https://www.facebook.com/groups/clearyourfear/

For the next posts, which will share ways to contend with your fear and boost your emotional and physical health, subscribe to Love Without Traffic or join our Facebook page: http:/https://www.facebook.com/lovewithouttraffic//

I wish you all health, peace and as much ease as possible. I’m here for you. Love, Nancy

With physical and emotional challenges alike, many of us are programmed to power through, instead of asking for help. Whether our resistance is due to a belief that needing help is a weakness or that we’ll burden the person we ask, stubborn determination to figure things out on our own, or any other reason we choose to struggle, it’s a limiting habit. I can think of no better time to break it.

I used to love to figure minor website tech stuff out on my own; successfully figuring out basic CSS code when this is not one of my skill sets provided a feeling of accomplishment. But people need emotional support now, not three years from now when my site looks the way I want it to. And while trying to correct minor glitches today, I created major ones. So I finally cried uncle.

Asking for help led to better results than I could have imagined. I learned that the subscriber plugin I spent three hours trying to fix was actually working – what wasn’t working was my subscriber welcome email. My list of 20 ways to stay calm and strengthen your immune system was quite possibly the driest and most verbose thing I’d ever written. If someone had sent that to me, I would have stopped reading after two sentences. Or syllables.

Many people have at least a little more time on their hands now and are happy to help. Some even have an abundance of time, and only lack a clue what to do with it. If you ask for help, you might serve them as much as yourself.

And if it’s emotional support you’re holding back from, please reach out. Now’s the time to drop our resistance and ask for whatever type of support we need.

If someone doesn’t have the time or energy to give it, they can say no. Most people want to help, especially now. And each of us is perfectly equipped to do that, in our own special ways.

Let’s give ourselves and one another that chance. Asking for help doesn’t make us weak; that’s an old belief that does not serve us. It’s actually one of the strongest and bravest, not to mention smartest, things we can do.

Tag: addiction recovery (Page 2 of 3)

It’s Okay To Ask For Help

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