Anxiety Isn't The Boss

Fear doesn't mean you have to stay still.

Sometimes, I'm sitting around watching television, hanging with family, doing chores, whatever, and I have something like a profound thought about my OCD and anxiety. Fine, it may not be profound, but it feels important to me. I had one such thought just now after using the bathroom, because I'm glamorous like that. The thought was this: My anxiety behaves so much better when I'm the boss. It's like a lap dog. If I don't give it proper discipline, it decides it makes the rules. When I don't let anxiety make decisions for me, it lessens naturally. Doing whatever the hell I want in spite of the horrible physical symptoms and emotions that crop up makes panic so much less intense.

(Disclaimer: I know I've said the same thing in different ways many times, but if you have OCD, you know sometimes you have to find new ways to think of the same ideas.)

What do I mean by doing whatever the hell I want in spite of my anxiety? I mean a few things. Firstly, if I'm working and I panic, I try hard not to stop to try to soothe myself. Soothing myself tells my brain something is actually wrong. Instead, I just keep working (sometimes). Another example is perhaps me excitedly planning to go to some event and then later dreading it because of anxiety. I know I actually want to go, so I do my best to do it anyway. I don't want to prove my anxiety right on any account. It rarely ever is, and it is never right about the severity of a damn thing. She's a drama queen, for real.

I know that self care is a much-touted aspect of mental health, but that doesn't mean self-care has to be a week off of work to collect yourself, thought it can mean that. For some people, like myself, stopping to savor the panic only makes it worse. If I "just keep swimming," as a wise fish once said, I tend to make out better. That's not to say I don't sometimes spend the day trying to distract myself from anxiety, but rather to say that the answer may lie in taking note of what you really want out of life when you're feeling well, so you can do it anyway when you're not.


Listen, if there's one thing, no matter how small, that you really want to do, but your anxiety is telling you is impossible–ignore your anxiety. Even if it makes you feel like you could shake out of your shoes and the world is falling in around you. Just do me a favor and achieve one thing that matters to you. Feel free to tell me how much of an ass I am in the comments if it doesn't go according to plan, but don't you dare forget to tell yourself that you're a badass for trying.

Be well, readers.

Distraction is a Good Thing

Here I am distracting myself with water

Whether you have OCD or not, you've probably heard that distractions are a bad thing. They take your eye off the prize! They keep you from fulfilling your potential! They do all manner of unspecific things to your life, leading you on a spiral of chaos that will only lead to you never facing a challenge head on! Okay, you've heard all that. If you have OCD, you've also heard distraction isn't good for your recovery. I want you to consider that perhaps distraction isn't a bad thing at all.

As a crappy student, I was always distracted. When I was younger, bullies and my efforts to keep my head down, metaphorically, distracted me. When I got older, I was distracted by boys, drugs (very mild, folks; calm down), rock 'n roll and all other manner of mild mayhem. Sure, if I had focused, I would have done better in school. Maybe I would have been happier or more successful now that I'm in my 30s. Nobody knows, so let's not speculate. I do know this, I was going to be distracted to some degree no matter what. Telling people distraction is bad is the same as telling them farting is disgusting. You've just made them feel bad about something they're going to do naturally.

Now for the other side of my distraction story, which is actually distracting me from work. When I fully realized I had OCD, professionals told me that ERP (exposure and response prevention) is the way to go. Most proponents of this method would tell you distraction is bad. Distraction helps you avoid the problems you are having, reinforces the "badness" of your OCD fears, etc. In some ways, they are right. In order to do an exposure, you have to be present, but what about when you are not doing an exposure or your anxiety is more generalized?

Here we get to the part where I tell you it's okay to use things like music, television, video games, family time and exercise to distract yourself from your mental illness. Firstly, your entire life is not an exposure. Sometimes, you need to reset your brain before you can get better. You need to break the loop of worry and reaction by just doing something else. This applies whether you have a mental illness or not. Do you have a cold and feel like shit? You're not going to dwell on it and tell yourself it's okay all day. You're just going to watch a movie and be miserable. The movie helps you forget that you're miserable for a moment. Sick people deserve that break.

I haven't fleshed out this idea as much as I would like to, but some thoughts don't need more than a few paragraphs. You get my meaning. Don't feel bad that you had to play a video game to keep your panic at a manageable level. Don't beat yourself up about needing some down time after a tough exposure. You don't need to live in your illness all the time. By all means, show up for your exposures. Be present. Challenge yourself to face your fears. Just don't forget to unplug when you're done. Really. You're not going to get in trouble or hurt your recovery. I promise.

Review of the Stress Free App by Thrive

Screenshot of the Stress Free
home screen

Stress Free is an app created by Thrive to give people tools to help them meditate, breathe mindfully and more. You can use it right from the website. There is no download required. However, there is about a £5 per month fee for a monthly subscription and a little less for a six or twelve-month subscription. You can try the app before you commit to a subscription.

Full disclosure: I was given a full month free trial of the app so that I could try it and review it. The opinions here are my own, unbiased view of my experience using the app.

While I was signing in for the first time, the site played soothing music. I wasn't having any particular anxiety at the time, but it was still relaxing. The home page featured an inviting beach animation, complete with rolling waves. Signing up was simple. I typed in the usual name, email and password to create an account. In order to log in, I had to confirm my email address.

Once you have an account, you will see a few options on the page arranged over a cartoon island. They include breathing, "Thrive," meditation, self-hypnosis and deep muscle. I clicked Thrive first to learn a bit more. It took me to a link to a blog, a mental health helpline and advice on how to get help from NHS after hours. I'm in the U.S. and these resources are based in the UK, so they are not super helpful to me. However, that wouldn't be a deterrent for using the app because people in the U.S. can find similar help with just a quick Google search.

Next, I went to breathing. I have some experience with breathing techniques, but it is nice to have guided options. Stress Free explains that breathing has some benefits and offers breathing exercise lengths between 3 minutes and 15 minutes. I went with three to start. A friendly voice explains that calm breathing can help you relax and tells you how to do it, at least insofar as telling you how long to breathe in, hold and breathe out. Page features a little animated dude and some more ocean scenery that I later realized were present for most of the pages. Be wary, the timer for the breathing practice stops when you click away to another tab. It resumes when you go back, so you have to really do the full exercise to move on to the next thing.

I tried meditation next. This is something I have significant experience with, though not enough success. Sessions last from 5 minutes to 25 minutes. Again, I went with the shortest to start. I wanted to get a taste of what Stress Free had in the way of meditation before I dove in. Right away, I realized something interesting about the method. Stress Free asks users to repeat a mantra when distracted by thoughts when meditating. It's not my usual method, but I gave it a shot. It kind of reminds me of the "cue word" technique used by a former therapist of mine. You could definitely use this to develop a cue word.

Deep Muscle didn't unlock until I finished the meditation session. I was wondering what it was because I've only every heard the term deep muscle in reference to massage. It turns out that this is basically a body scan meditation. This one does not have length options or tell you how long it will be. I kept track and it took five minutes to do the muscle exercises. The app then led me through a series of questions that for some reason made me relax more. I'm not sure how long that lasted. I closed my eyes and felt a lot like I should take a nap.

The final category on the first island was self-hypnosis. I'm not a fan of hypnosis because I think it's pretty much guided meditation with an element of suggestion. Since we're "self" suggesting in this instance, I played along. This too was a lot like conditioning yourself to respond to a cue word or phrase. There is no length option. It takes roughly 3 minutes.

I finished the first "island" on all of the shortest settings. I then clicked the little palm tree icon on the bottom right that would take me the next island. There was a section there called "Zen Garden."Zen Garden is a cool little area where you can create your own virtual versions of Japanese Zen Gardens. It's meant to help with meditation. It's a nice idea. I suggest shutting off the sound while in the Zen area. The beep it makes when you click on items is distracting. I'm not sure if there is a way to shut that off and keep the music. I know you can shut off the music in the settings section too. You can always play your own relaxing music on another device while using the Stress Free app.

The second day I logged in, the app asked me my mood based on its mood meter so that it could suggest exercises. When I finished, it didn't suggest anything. In fact, the categories weren't even visible. When I reloaded the page and logged in again, the categories were available and deep muscle was highlighted as my suggested activity. I'm pretty sure that should have happened the first time, but it just glitched out for a second. No big deal. It was back up in no time.

On the final island, after the Zen Garden island, you can check your progress, write messages in bottles to other users and use the mood meter. There is a thought trainer section in the progress area. I have no idea what that is. I can't find anything that has to do with thought training and I've made no progress in that area in my own treatment. I would like to thought train, but I just couldn't figure it out. Sorry about that, guys.

My final word on the Stress Free app is that it's pretty cool. I personally have never paid for any of these services because I know where to find them all individually free. However, if you have the budget for it and prefer your breathing, meditation, hypnosis, etc. in the same place, this app could work for you. Do I think it's a magic fix for anxiety disorder? No. Don't expect to be cured when you finish, but don't be afraid to use the app as a tool to get through panic attacks or stressful days. It has the potential to help.

Note: I reached out to the developers on Twitter to see if they had plans to make it a mobile app and learned that the app is now available on Android and Apple! I didn't test the mobile versions, but I do imagine this will make it more accessible to those who need it. Furthermore, Thrive does intend to continue develop the app, which means more islands and other features in the future.