FOSNO, or the Fear of Saying No, is no laughing matter.
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A lot of us prepare for inevitable inconveniences in most areas of our lives; we keep spare tires, we have flashlights for when the electricity goes out, and the most accident-prone (or just prepared) among us tend to own first aid kits. But most of us don’t prepare for the inevitable emotional inconveniences of life: “bad moods,” including sadness, anxiety, and anger.
That’s why it can be a great idea to create a “bad mood menu.”
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Not a lot of people know this about me, but I once took an eight-week class about how to cope with chronic pain. The class was run by a hospital, and everything they taught was based in science. I was attending because I had hit my head, and it had led to a slew of health problems, a lot of which entailed chronic pain. That class ended up not only reducing my pain, but also left me feeling happier and more peaceful in general.
One of the tools I learned in the class was intended to decrease stress, anxiety, and depression, and it was the simplest, most elegant nightly activity that I’d never heard of before. So, I thought I’d share it with you. If you have five minutes to spare each night, you can totally do this in bed on your phone (I know, I know, we’re not supposed to be on our phones before bed, but do what you gotta do), or write it in a notebook if you prefer.
Here’s the exercise. Feel free to write down the answers to these wherever it’s convenient for you, and do your best to do this every night.
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Life can feel so much safer and more comfortable when we’re living in black and white, so our brains tend to cope with uncertain situations by thinking in more black and white terms.
But unfortunately, living in black and white often robs us of the ability to see our reality accurately. And seeing our reality as we wish it were as opposed to how it actually is often leads us to behave in ways that aren’t likely to get us the things we really want, like safety, security, and connection.
So how can we shift our thinking to become more comfortable living in the gray space? I’ve come up with some specific tips.
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If you’ve started feeling odd as we come up upon the one-year-anniversary since a lot of us started quarantining, it’s not just you. You might just be experiencing just one or a few of these things, but some things you may notice are:
Sleep problems
Strange or unpleasant dreams
Irritability
A feeling of restlessness
Feelings of sadness, anger, guilt, and/or anxiety without a clear cause
Flare ups of chronic health issues
Does any of that sound like what your last few days or weeks have been like? If so, then you might be having a trauma anniversary.
If you’re feeling like you’re struggling a little more than usual right now, you’re not alone.
As of writing this article, a lot of us are feeling burnt out from about a year of masking up, social distancing, and avoiding social gatherings.
Fortunately, there’s actually a physiological shortcut to calming down when you’re feeling anxious or angry.
It’s called the vagus nerve.
The vagus nerve helps bring your body back to homeostasis after it’s freaked out.
The nerve runs throughout your body and controls a ton of body functions, like digestion, blood vessel dilation/contraction, heart rate, breathing, and more.
So, when you activate your vagus nerve, you get your digestion to speed up and your heart rate to slow down.
The good news is that there are some neat (and possibly surprising) shortcuts to stimulating your vagus nerve!
This week, I’m thinking about the above quote I found via psychologist and author Nedra Tawwab.
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Whether you’re spending the holidays with family, with friends, or with yourself this year, your celebrations probably won’t live up to the impossibly wholesome fireside gatherings that the media depicts as the norm. Well, the good news is that no matter how many pictures of glistening ham you see on Instagram, nobody else’s holiday is going to be perfect, either. So, we’ve come up with some tips for making the most out of your holidays, whatever they look like.
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Hey,
So you tried to be vulnerable in some way, whether it was telling someone how you felt, or asking for what you wanted or needed, or sharing about yourself in a way that felt like “too much,” or otherwise extending an invitation to someone to join you in being a little more human together. And for whatever reason, in some way, it didn’t go as well as you’d hoped. And maybe right now, you feel some combination of disappointed, sad, hurt, invalidated, anxious, hopeless, worthless, angry, frustrated, and/or other feelings you didn't sign up for.