Morning Anxiety

Welcome to This Daring Adventure podcast, where we work on bridging the gap between where we are and where we want to be in order to live a bigger and bolder life. In this podcast, we will provide inspiration, tips, and skills you need to make your life the adventure you want it to be. Here's your host mindset mentor, and life coach Trista Guertin.

Hey everybody! Welcome back to This Daring Adventure.

This is Episode 76 on Morning Anxiety.

I wanted to do this episode today Because I was walking on Saturday morning and I had woken up with a lot of thoughts racing through my mind, a lot of anxious thoughts, worries, doubts, fears about the rest of the year and transitioning into next year, my work, my coaching, my life. And I realized that this happens to me. It depends on what's going on in my life, obviously, and I do catch myself from time to time Getting caught in these thought loops and a lot of worry. And I realized as I was walking that this is probably common for a lot of people.

And when I returned from my walk, I landed up Googling morning anxiety to see if it's a thing. And it turns out it's a thing. It's not an official diagnosis, but it is something that quite commonly happens, particularly because of cortisol, the stress hormone is naturally higher right before we wake up in the morning.

So if I'm already stressed and already a little bit anxious about things or haven't slept well, chances are when I wake up in the morning, my cortisol is going to be a little bit higher. I'm going to be feeling a little more anxious and then I get all these thought loops racing through my mind for the next few hours. I was thinking about how I deal with it and I know for myself that just in general I'm better able to manage everything when I am meditating regularly and last week I had a bad cold and then I had a migraine for two days So I really hadn't kept up my meditation practice.

By Saturday morning I think, it had all accumulated and I hadn't been managing my mind and meditating on a daily basis. I think it, it all just caught up with me. Then what I realized is the best way to deal with anxiety, or any emotion, is to allow it and to process it. I also find that from time to time I get very frustrated or irritated and processing and allowing my emotions is also very helpful in that regard.

And what that looks like is just having that awareness, catching myself and what's going on, noticing that I'm having all of these negative thoughts on a loop over and over again, worry, fear, doubt things about the future that I can't really control right now, and that will probably never happen. And just this anxious feeling in me, which sort of presents itself as jittery. It doesn't really occur in my stomach per se, but I feel it a lot in my shoulders and my chest and it's this nervous energy. And. sitting with that and just allowing it to be there, breathing into it and focusing my mind on the sensations that are going on in my body helps to allow it to move through me.

And I'm not resisting it. I'm not holding onto it because what you resist persists and If I can sit with it for a few moments, sometimes it's literally just a moment or two. It really does start to dissipate and it does start to decrease.

Other times I need to catch my mind as well and refocus my brain on what I want to focus on. I need to take back control. When my mind is going through a checklist of All my worries and doubts and fears and things that could go wrong, I know I'm not managing my mind. I am letting my primitive part of my brain, which is like a toddler with a knife, as my coach says, then it takes control and things just go into the ditch.

And so this ditch is, I like to think about, when I'm not managing my mind, it just goes off onto its own and just rolls around in the ditch and it's not helpful and it's off course. I need to bring it back and I need to refocus it on what I do want to focus on and what I do have control and power over. And that helps also to decrease the anxiety levels. it's normal if this is something that you experience as well. obviously if it is extremely intense, if you're dealing with situations that you feel are out of control, then you need to get help and support from professionals that can help you to manage it and to give you the help you need.

But, if like myself, you just have this low grade anxiety that comes up from time to time, as I said, it can be helpful to meditate on a regular basis or tap, the emotional freedom technique. Tapping sessions can be very helpful in managing your emotions as well. And then exercise, getting a good night's sleep, avoiding caffeine, avoiding screens before bed and first thing in the morning when you wake up, can be really helpful. getting some yoga in or a quick walk may help. Deep breathing exercises are also extremely powerful. If you journal to process your thoughts, get your thoughts down on paper, set your intentions for the day. Very helpful. visualization, guiding yourself through a visualization exercise to imagine a calm day, seeing yourself in a state of calm and peace instead of just allowing yourself to run up and into the anxiety. It can help if you do some of these self care exercises on a regular basis, and I do really notice a difference when I don't do those for myself.

As I mentioned, last week I wasn't meditating, and by Saturday, I had felt the effects from it. So morning anxiety, waking up feeling anxious or stressed, maybe feeling dread, nervous or unease just as you wake up or shortly thereafter is very normal. You may be experiencing rapid heartbeat, tension in your muscles, restlessness, worrying about the day ahead, having difficulty concentrating. Sometimes maybe anxiety can present in your stomach or different parts of your body.

And this is normal. This doesn't mean that anything has gone wrong so much as It can be managed and it can be addressed and it doesn't have to overtake you or your day and just making sure that you are taking care of yourself on a daily basis can really help to decrease it and reduce. it presenting itself in the morning, keeping your cortisol levels slightly lower so that when you experience that morning spike before you wake up, it may not have as much of an impact.

I do highly recommend learning to process and allow your emotions, because regardless whether it's anxiety in the morning, or stress or grief. It doesn't matter what it is, but to learn how to allow it and feel it and understand that it's not going to harm you and processing it in a way so that it does decrease, it does dissipate, it doesn't persist and you don't adopt any negative coping mechanisms. is such a powerful way to move through your life.

And it is key to building the life that you want, creating the future that you truly want, becoming the person that you want to become.

Once you learn how to manage those emotions, you really do have the keys to the universe, along with the thought work, the mind management, the mindset that we do is two key components of that and literally are the keys to the universe have a huge impact on me and my life.

I'm happy to teach those to you in a coaching session or in my new six week jumpstart to building a better relationship with yourself.

There is a session on mindset and emotional flexibility where I will cover some of these issues. But be aware that morning anxiety is normal. Nothing has gone wrong. You can allow for it, be aware of what's going on, and then practice some of the techniques, some of the self care techniques that I've outlined in this episode in order to decrease it and to move through your day a little bit more calmly.

All right, if you're interested in learning more about my six week jumpstart program, or my three month get unstuck program, you can get on my calendar in the show notes and book a consultation. I would love to meet you and speak to you about those programs.

I'm very excited about both of them. I think they are really great introductions to the tools and the skills that I teach in coaching. And they do have a significant impact on you and your day to day life and in creating the future that you want.

So do get on my calendar and let's talk and I look forward to seeing you there.

Have a great week, everybody.

Take care. Bye bye.

Thank you for listening to This Daring Adventure podcast with your host Trista Guertin.

We hope you enjoyed the tips and conversations on how to get excited about life again.

As always, you can head to tristaguertin.com for additional resources and to book a one on one coaching session.

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