Making a Big Deal Out of the Little Things (And Rightfully So)

In my last blog post, I discussed how my anxiety worsened over the summer and outlined some of the steps I was taking to try to cope with my anxiety in a better way. It’s been over a month since that post, and even though there are still numerous times in a week when I feel slightly impeded by my anxiety, there have been little things I’ve recently been doing that I wasn’t able to do during the summer. These things may seem small, but they’re meaningful to me and I want to celebrate them.

Listening to new songs

Towards the end of the summer, I listened to the same few playlists nonstop. Certain songs became comforting and it helped to put them on when I started to feel anxious. Listening to anything new made me feel anxious. However, I’ve started to listen to new songs during the past few weeks! This feels like a big step forward because I’ve been making monthly playlists for the past three years of songs that I discover or listen to on repeat during that respective month, but since my anxiety got the best of me during July and August, I didn’t make playlists for those months. I’m finally listening to new songs, discovering new artists, and am going to make a September playlist!

Being able to sleep in the morning

Up until recently, I was waking up between 5 and 6 every morning and then wouldn’t be able to fall back to sleep because my anxious thoughts would be on a loop. This meant that I was taking 1-2 hour naps every afternoon, which started to mess up my sleep schedule even more. But in the past few weeks, there have only been a handful of mornings when this has happened! I’ve even been able to sleep in some mornings!

Eating breakfast and drinking coffee

Just having an appetite in general feels like a huge step forward. During the middle of August, I never felt hungry and would only be able to eat a few bites at a time. Also, I pretty much stopped drinking coffee in July and August because it made me feel even more anxious than I already was (I was really out here drinking decaf like a senior citizen). Being able to want food, make breakfast and coffee, and enjoy it all are activities I never thought would be such a big deal to me. There are still days when coffee definitely does not help my anxiety and times when I don’t have an appetite at all, but getting back into my normal routines has felt wonderful.

In dealing with anxiety, it’s easy to feel as if you’re not making any progress. And it’s easy to start to believe that you’ll always feel like this (and it doesn’t help that with anxiety, these thoughts just keep going around and around and around). But when you stop and realize you’re starting to feel like yourself again and like you're actually fighting and beating anxiety, you have to appreciate those little steps. So here’s me celebrating the little steps :)