I received an anxiety question over the weekend from a person that I have been working with.  Being that it is a very common question, I thought it would make for a good topic to discuss;

Why are some days good, and then some days bad?

Anxiety recovery is not a straight line.  Even if your effort was consistent day in and day out, your levels of anxiety would still fluctuate from day to day.  In any given day we will experience higher & lower levels.  Within a week or a month, we can expect many highs and lows – referred to as: “peaks & valleys”.

There is no short answer as to why this happens.  There are many factors that affect our levels of anxiety.  But whatever it is, it’s ok!  And this is the hard part for people to accept.  We want to believe that recovery is a straight line going up, where every day we are slightly better than the previous day.  We want to be “cured” as quickly as possible, so when we feel worse than the day before we get discouraged.

When we are having a more difficult day, we have to accept it as part of the process.  Do not try to rationalize it, or understand it in any way.  Just accept it, stick to your efforts and see what tomorrow brings.

Sometimes there are obvious reasons for higher levels of anxiety.  And sometimes there is not.  Besides our own personal triggers that we need to identify and be aware of, there are also other times when we will feel higher levels of anxiety.  They are H.A.L.T.S.S.;

• Hungry
• Angry
• Lonely
• Tired
• Stressed
• Sick

Whenever our bodies are in a weakened state physically, mentally or emotionally, we will feel higher levels of anxiety.

The reason for this is that anxiety is part of our self-defense mechanism.  It assesses danger in an effort to keep us safe.  When we are not in tip-top shape, our anxiety becomes heightened to help compensate for this.  This is natural and true for all human beings.  The problem is for people with anxiety disorders because we are sensitized to these feelings, that once they start we keep adding additional thoughts to them.

Being aware of what is going on in our lives is very important.  We need to Expect (Point #1) higher levels if we have a bad nights sleep.  Or if we skipped a meal.

This is also the reason why we should help minimize opportunities for anxiety by getting enough sleep, eating properly and in general just taking care of ourselves.  There will be plenty of things in our lives we cannot control, so we should pay attention to the things we can.