How Anxiety & Depression Has A Negative Impact On Our Mornings.
It's 7am in the morning, the alarm goes off and you force yourself out of bed. Most days, that's how it is for me, the alarm is my daughter who wakes me up at 7ish in the morning to help open the bedroom door so that she can go downstairs to play with her little brother and have breakfast. Most days, in fact all the time, she wakes up with a beautiful smile on her face and goes "Morning Daddy, open the door please?". It must be so wonderful waking up without a care in the world, having a good night's rest and starting her day happy. I haven't had one of those in a long time, waking up feeling fresh and happy that is. I usually wake up feeling like I haven't slept enough, my body is full of aches, I'd have a headache and I just wouldn't want to get out of bed. All these feelings and physical symptoms are derived from anxiety and depression or sometimes just a poor night's rest. Always having anxious thoughts before bed about how I was going to feel in the morning when I wake up or if I was even going to wake up at all. Yes, it's either a negative thought or the end for me apparently.
I've gotten lazy and unmotivated with the way I start my days and its been for quite awhile now, so I have decided that I should change the way I start my mornings so that I'd feel fresher, less depressed and probably less anxious.So today instead of my usual, opening the door for my daughter to head downstairs and just being a zombie-ish creature, I gave her a nice big hug and smiled at her wishing her a good morning, telling her that I loved her. Went back to bed for a couple more hours because it's Saturday and about 2 hours later, my wife came up into the bedroom and woke me up, all guns blazing, singing at the top of her lungs, urging me to get up and have some fun today.
I was sluggish getting up, took me about ten to fifteen minutes to get out of bed, got into the shower and did the usual. But today I decided that things should be different! Try something new so that maybe I could get out of this little "hellish" feeling I feel most mornings. So we both put on our sports attire, even my daughter wanted in so we dressed her up as well and we headed to the park which is about 5 minutes away from home. While she jogged, me and my daughter walked under the hot but beautiful sunlight which I've missed (Its the monsoon season now in Singapore). Took my shirt off and soaked as much Vitamin D as I could from the sun. Brought my little girl to the playground which she loves so much and than we headed home shortly after. By than I wasn't feeling too bad, a little more cheerful than my usual self. I turned on my TV and went on youtube and decided to do some Yoga in my living room, It was actually pretty tiring and I learnt that I had the flexibility of a stick dipped in cement. Yoga was good but unfortunately I couldn't do much of the breathing techniques due to a blocked nose (Morning sinus problems).
About an hour after yoga, I started getting niggling chest pains, slight breathlessness and a complete feel of unease, the anxiety monster had arrived. It came together with a gloomy weather, it's raining cats and dogs out there and all while I am home alone, kind of makes me feel rather down.
So, it is 3.39pm, its football day, my team has a match today and I honestly want to play so badly yet I am so afraid. Yes, afraid that football would induce my anxiety and give me a bad panic attack and I'd have an even more terrible day than I already am. My thoughts are all over the place with lots of "what IFS" and they are as negative as can be. It's coming up with all sorts of excuses as to why I shouldn't play today, my mind keeps reminding me that the doctor told me I had a 1% chance of just suddenly collapsing and dying. But than I remembered what my uncle said, "Instead of looking at that 1%, what else can it mean?" We conversed and he told me, "Look Danesh, if you have a 1% chance of collapsing, it also means you have a 99% chance of living." As easy as it sounded, to me it was like a eureka moment! Because when you are as anxious a person as I am, that thought doesn't easily come to mind, just the irrational ones.
Today, I see myself in a different light. Yes I might have failed in making myself feel better this morning but at least this time round, I did try something different and I am going to try and try again, everyday, until I feel better. This is a marathon not a 100 meter dash, it is going to take quite a while to reach the finishing line, lots of mental focus and changes. There will be lots of negative thoughts of giving up, but there will be the positives as well. Things can only get better if we try to do something about it instead of just moping around doing nothing at all in hopes that something changes.
Remember, you are never alone.
Danesh Ettore Laino
I've gotten lazy and unmotivated with the way I start my days and its been for quite awhile now, so I have decided that I should change the way I start my mornings so that I'd feel fresher, less depressed and probably less anxious.So today instead of my usual, opening the door for my daughter to head downstairs and just being a zombie-ish creature, I gave her a nice big hug and smiled at her wishing her a good morning, telling her that I loved her. Went back to bed for a couple more hours because it's Saturday and about 2 hours later, my wife came up into the bedroom and woke me up, all guns blazing, singing at the top of her lungs, urging me to get up and have some fun today.
I was sluggish getting up, took me about ten to fifteen minutes to get out of bed, got into the shower and did the usual. But today I decided that things should be different! Try something new so that maybe I could get out of this little "hellish" feeling I feel most mornings. So we both put on our sports attire, even my daughter wanted in so we dressed her up as well and we headed to the park which is about 5 minutes away from home. While she jogged, me and my daughter walked under the hot but beautiful sunlight which I've missed (Its the monsoon season now in Singapore). Took my shirt off and soaked as much Vitamin D as I could from the sun. Brought my little girl to the playground which she loves so much and than we headed home shortly after. By than I wasn't feeling too bad, a little more cheerful than my usual self. I turned on my TV and went on youtube and decided to do some Yoga in my living room, It was actually pretty tiring and I learnt that I had the flexibility of a stick dipped in cement. Yoga was good but unfortunately I couldn't do much of the breathing techniques due to a blocked nose (Morning sinus problems).
About an hour after yoga, I started getting niggling chest pains, slight breathlessness and a complete feel of unease, the anxiety monster had arrived. It came together with a gloomy weather, it's raining cats and dogs out there and all while I am home alone, kind of makes me feel rather down.
So, it is 3.39pm, its football day, my team has a match today and I honestly want to play so badly yet I am so afraid. Yes, afraid that football would induce my anxiety and give me a bad panic attack and I'd have an even more terrible day than I already am. My thoughts are all over the place with lots of "what IFS" and they are as negative as can be. It's coming up with all sorts of excuses as to why I shouldn't play today, my mind keeps reminding me that the doctor told me I had a 1% chance of just suddenly collapsing and dying. But than I remembered what my uncle said, "Instead of looking at that 1%, what else can it mean?" We conversed and he told me, "Look Danesh, if you have a 1% chance of collapsing, it also means you have a 99% chance of living." As easy as it sounded, to me it was like a eureka moment! Because when you are as anxious a person as I am, that thought doesn't easily come to mind, just the irrational ones.
Today, I see myself in a different light. Yes I might have failed in making myself feel better this morning but at least this time round, I did try something different and I am going to try and try again, everyday, until I feel better. This is a marathon not a 100 meter dash, it is going to take quite a while to reach the finishing line, lots of mental focus and changes. There will be lots of negative thoughts of giving up, but there will be the positives as well. Things can only get better if we try to do something about it instead of just moping around doing nothing at all in hopes that something changes.
Remember, you are never alone.
Danesh Ettore Laino