Anxiety hub
Welcome to our anxiety hub dedicated to helping
you to banish those energy-sapping feelings
of day-to-day anxiety
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You'll find info about some of the most common reasons for anxiety and importantly hints & tips about how you can look to improve how you feel day-to-day
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You'll also find our founder's story about his own
lived-experience of anxiety
So what is anxiety?
Anxiety is when you worry too much about things & events in your future. Sometimes this can be very real things like whether you'll successfully finish that important project at work.
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Lots of times however, people feel anxiety about less definite things. You may have constant doubts about whether you are smart enough, whether you're emotionally strong tough, or
if you're good enough to
start a romantic relationship.
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Most, if not all the time a person's anxiety stems from things or events in the person's past. A common example is
an upsetting event or
unhealthy series of events
in a person's childhood or teenage years. But this is not always the case, events experienced in a person's adulthood can be just
as unsettling.
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An important distinction to keep in mind: anxiety is different to stress as you may not feel better as things in your life begin to improve. The root of your anxiety needs
tackling to bring about
long term improvement
Want to banish your anxiety? Keep reading
But, please remember
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Everyone is different. It's hard to generalise about these things as there are 101 reasons sitting behind why you and others experience feelings of anxiety
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If you feel that you are struggling to manage your feelings of anxiety by yourself, please don't suffer in silence. Help is available. Please seek the help of a suitably qualified medical practitioner
nowME founder's own story
of tackling feelings of anxiety
Like many people, I lived silently for many years with increasing feelings of anxiety. It was only when this anxiety escalated into panic attacks that I developed the courage to take action. As you might have found yourself, the very act of facing up to
your anxiety & then taking the leap to speak to someone about it is a mountain to climb
in & of itself. We live in a world where
the taboo around mental unwellness is still
alive & well.
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Although I received some help from my
NHS Doctor, I ultimately had to dig into my own pocket to pay for a number of sessions with a private therapist. I was able to
afford this, but for many, well, this may
not be possible.
My personal reasons for suffering anxiety were deep-rooted & numerous. Nothing's ever as straightforward as we'd hope. Having spent time exploring the internal workings of my head with the help of my therapist, I discovered that my anxiety & panic attacks stemmed from childhood experiences & were exacerbated by events I had experienced as an adult. As a child I experienced bullying at school that sadly left me suffering from huge self-doubt & self-loathing. This childhood trauma was worsened by a serious illness as a young adult where I experienced an illness-induced black-out on public transport & a trip to hospital. This combination led to feelings of anxiety, occasional panic attacks, but most disablingly, an increasing fear of anxiety & panic attacks. In other words, I became fearful of the fear. As I learnt from reading articles online & chatting to my therapist, fear-of--the-fear becomes the biggest source of anxiety
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As my anxiety was deep-rooted, I eventually ended up undergoing a programme of therapy known as EMDR - short for Eye Movement Desensitisation & Reprogramming. This was nothing short of a life-changing experience. This treatment didn't cure my anxiety, but it helped to reduce it very considerably. EMDR is a treatment which is becoming known to more & more people, in part because
a number of high profile individuals have begun to talk about their own
experience of undergoing EMDR to overcome their own anxiety
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As you'll find discussed in more detail elsewhere, this life-changing personal experience led me to found nowME & create the nowME Pebbles. I managed to find my trueSELF after many years of hiding in the shadows. I felt it was my responsibility to get the news out there that anxiety doesn't have to
become a life-long ordeal
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