I've purchased a few books in an attempt to remain proactive in my quest toward a continuous recovery. One practice I learned about recently is that of mindfulness. To me, mindfulness means taking a breath and stopping all thoughts for a few seconds (because let's be honest, in an anxiety attack, stopping thoughts isn't the easiest) and taking in how my body is physically feeling.
I practiced this last night as I was awoken in the middle of the night with some anxiety about having a stomachache. I remembered to be mindful and I stopped my thoughts for only a second or two and in that moment of time, I paid attention to my body and how it felt. As it turned out, I did not have a stomachache, but rather it was my mind creating it.
Knowing it's my mind creating the feelings helps slightly in the fact that it gives me piece of mind knowing I, physically, am feeling OK. I am not going to be passing out or dying any time soon. So now I can breathe and focus on making this bout of anxiety go away so I can get some sleep.
I rarely sleep a whole night through because of these random anxiety attacks that wake me up. As of now, I have not researched what to do about this, as far as avoiding this sleep disruption or whether avoiding it is even possible. So for now, it's simply something I deal with.
I read an interesting thought that changes the outlook of anxiety attacks - Thinking of anxiety attacks as opportunities to practice overcoming anxiety. Interesting, isn't it? I like the idea of trying to see the silver living in anxiety attacks.
I feel like I've made a small step toward the right route in this continuous recovery by purchasing a book on dealing with healthy anxiety, specifically. Before, I read material on anxiety as a general concept. I've begun reading the book and we'll see how it goes and if I gain anything helpful from it.
So, for now, my current work-in-progress is practicing being mindful. I feel like being mindful is, like accepting anxiety, something that takes time and practice. I suppose each anxiety attack is my opportunity to learn being mindful.
LB
