For years I have dealt with severe anxiety. As many people know anxiety comes with a lot of health related issues. For me my anxiety caused severe insomnia, where I would go a maximum of 7 to 8 days with little to no sleep at all. It also caused me to break out in hives. The funny thing about that is sometimes I wouldn't realize my anxiety was bubbling up until my hives would start, then when my hives start I have to remind my self to breathe and calm down. Typically in ways such as those described below, inhaling as the objects increase in size and exhaling as they decrease.

 

Image Credit: Monsters & Critics

Why Blog About It?.... 

What made me want to start this blog was due to how easy it is to forget all the techniques I've learned over the years to manage my anxiety. This world causes a lot of stress, life itself is stressful and sometimes we forget as were going about our daily lives how to manage those stress and anxiety levels. However to let you know a little of where my stress and anxiety come from here's a brief history of what I have gone through the past 5 years of my life (which has been where my anxiety has peaked). 

Where my Anxiety Comes From...

My junior year of high school my Dad was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. For those of you who don't know. Nearly every person diagnosed with pancreatic cancer dies within a couple of months of diagnosis. Luckily my Dad lived much longer than the estimated time the doctors had given him, he was given two months however lived two years. Throughout those two years I had continued going to school and took care of him 24/7. Instead of just being his daughter I also became his primary care taker. He ended up passing away halfway through my first year of college. Since then there has been a lot of his things to go through. As well as other unexpected life changing events (of which maybe some day I will share publicly however haven't gotten there yet). With everything that has gone on I had to find ways to manage the anxiety and stress that came along with these events

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What I hope for you....

With this blog I hope the ways I deal with stressful situations, as well as anxiety in general, help you to deal with your personal stress and anxiety.  In the meantime, here are some websites that may help you to analyze why you may be feeling anxious or stress and help to manage it.
Website number 1: Player2  This website is a fun way of helping you to realize what is causing you stress or anxiety, and in a silly way helps you to deal with it.
Website Number 2: Stress Analyst This website takes a more serious note off of the first website I had given. This one looks at ways to analyze your specific stress and anxiety, and gives you solutions to these problems.