How to Battle Anxiety

Top Tips on How to Battle Anxiety5

Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. One of the most unfortunate things is that it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As soon as we start worrying that we're going to have a panic attack, our heart races and we feel short of breath. And then we worry more because our heart is racing and we're feeling short of breath.

Some people are more prone to anxiety than others. It's possible that this is due to genetics or upbringing, but it's also possible that the differences are just random. If you want to learn how to battle anxiety, you may be able to find different ways that are more effective for you than others. The experts at Forest Healthcare have shared 5 top tips that could help you.

1. Exercise

Physical exercise is a great way to help cure your anxiety for many reasons. It helps to take your mind off your worries and focus on the exercise you are doing instead. Exercise effectively reduces stress by increasing the body’s production of endorphins, chemicals that boost mood and act as natural painkillers, and by reducing our stress hormones, such as adrenaline. Finally, exercise increases blood flow to the brain, bringing it more oxygen and nutrients, and potentially helping to offset some of the physical changes caused by stress.

2. Understand your Triggers

It is likely that you have a good understanding of what triggers you, but in the same breath you might overlook things that you’ve done well. At the end of each day, write down three things that have stressed you out and three things that you’ve done well. They don’t have to be huge, just things that you’ve noticed throughout the day. Try and do this every day for a week or two. Then look back over the list of things that have gone wrong and identify what triggered your feelings of anxiety. You’ll probably find that most of them fall into a few broad themes – there may be just one or two main triggers.

3. Stay on Top of your Nutrition

We're all prone to mood changes when hunger sets in – whether it's anxious, cranky, lethargic. Keep your blood sugar from dropping by having a quick snack handy for when you need it. These quick snacks are great if you need to feel calm and energised: a handful of almonds or walnuts (high in omega-3 fats), a half cup of berries (blueberries have the highest antioxidant levels) or half an avocado with sea salt sprinkled on top (another great source of healthy fats).

4. Practise Mindfulness

It can be very difficult to learn mindfulness, especially if you are used to thinking about the past and future or if you are consumed by worry and stress. To become more mindful, try to learn deep breathing. Deep breathing can help you relax and get out of your head. It can also reduce your blood pressure and heart rate, which will help calm you down when you’re feeling anxious. When you feel yourself getting stressed, take a deep breath by inhaling slowly through your nose while counting to three; hold it for three seconds; then exhale slowly through your mouth while counting to three again. Repeat this until you feel calmer.

5. Get Enough Sleep

For many of us, the most challenging part of overcoming anxiety is getting a good night's sleep. This can be due to the racing thoughts, worries and nervous energy that can accompany anxiety conditions. If sleep problems are due to anxiety, making lifestyle changes to reduce worry and stress may help. These changes include avoiding caffeine and alcohol at night and going to bed only when you're sleepy. Cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is another effective treatment for both anxiety and insomnia.

www.foresthc.com

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Four Ways Stress Can Affect Your Eye Health

Stress is a significant factor in mental health problems including anxiety and depression. It is also linked to physical health problems like heart disease, problems with our immune system, insomnia, digestive problems and perhaps surprisingly eye health.

We spoke to leading eye expert Dr Andy Hepworth from Essilor who shared four ways that stress can affect eyesight and how to reduce its impact.

Blurred vision and light sensitivity: Our pupils will naturally dilate in a stressful situation to enhance vision so that threats can be seen clearly. However, high levels of adrenaline can cause pressure on the eyes, resulting in temporary blurred vision. You may also find that your eyes become more sensitive to light, with bright light hurting your eyes and making it harder to see.

Eye strain: Whilst eye strain is more commonly caused by digital screen usage, it can also result from stress. This is because when we are stressed we tense our muscles – this might lead to headaches, jaw ache from teeth grinding and muscular pain. People with longterm anxiety can suffer from eye strain during the day on a regular basis. Eye twitches: Another temporary sign of stress can be eye twitches. These also occur because of muscle tension, as well as tiredness and will often occur in just one eye. Eye twitches can be extremely irritating and you may feel conscious that other people can see the contraction but they are often something that only you will be aware of and will go away on their own.

Dry or watery eyes: There are a number of ways that stress can contribute to both dry and watery eyes. This could be from a weakening of the immune system or lack of sleep. You may experience one or the other dependent on how your body responds. Dr Andy Hepworth says: “When you experience stress, your body will follow a fight or flight response and will react in a number of different ways. This will often have a negative impact on your body and your eyes are no exception. Many people may not realise that eye issues

can be so intrinsically linked to stress and put it down to other factors. But in reality, stress may be impacting your day-to-day in many more ways than you think.

“Similarly, eye tests are also an important way to spot underlying issues that may be related to high levels of stress. Eyes are like a magnifying glass into the inner workings of our blood vessels, nerves and connective tissues throughout the body. A close inspection of the lens, retina and optic nerve can reveal a host of disorders, high blood pressure and diabetes among them, even if the patient feels fine and shows no other symptoms.

“For example, eye exams can detect a number of cardiovascular conditions, including clogged arteries or decreased blood flow due to heart disease. These conditions can leave plaque deposits or show as damage within the eye area to indicate a more significant health issue. A very slight bleed in the eye, that presents itself as a tiny broken blood vessel in the white of the eye, can be associated with high blood pressure.”

And what about the stress we’re putting our eyes under everyday with hours and hours of screen usage?

As a world-leading innovator in spectacle lens technology, Essilor is encouraging Brits to take extra precautions to avoid eyesight issues and discomfort caused by digital screen usage and to understand the risk of developing visual fatigue also known as Computer Vision Syndrome.

Dr. Andy Hepworth explains: “Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS) is a condition resulting from looking at a digital device (phone, tablet &/or computer screen) for protracted, uninterrupted periods of time; because the screen distance will make eyes work harder amplified by pixels constantly refreshing and the eyes must constantly refocus to see the screen clearly. The muscles within the eye are unable to recover from the strain. It is also proven that people blink less frequently when staring at a screen, which causes eyes to dry, become slightly itchy and in some cases can result in blurred vision. Glasses wearers that have incorrect or outdated prescription lenses can also be more susceptible to CVS.

“Signs of CVS are often overlooked, but left unchecked, could lead to longer term eye health issues. Symptoms include eyestrain, headaches, blurred vision, dry eyes and neck and shoulder pain. If you are suffering from any of these ailments you should contact your local optician, which will remain open during lockdown, for an eye exam.”

Here’s how to reduce stressing your eyes out and to help with CVS.

Prevent eye strain with ‘Eye Yoga’

It goes without saying that taking breaks from screens will help to reduce eye-strain. An easy way to get into a positive habit is to follow the 20:20:20 rule. Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds.

Or take part in eye yoga, anywhere, anytime. Look to the left, hold the position, repeat looking right. Look up, hold the position, repeat looking down. Repeat four times, closing your eyes and relaxing in between.

Use lenses to combat CVS

Eyezen lenses, with first of its kind DualOptim technology, are specialist ‘computer lenses’, designed to reduce eye strain or visual fatigue. Wearing these lenses can support your eyes from working so hard especially when using digital devices. Eyezen lenses can be worn even if you don’t need a prescription. Different waves lengths of light, such as Ultraviolet and Blue-Violet light, can also cause premature eye ageing. Eye Protect System is a unique filtering system that is embedded into Eyezen lenses to create Blue-Violet light filtering glasses.

Maintain regular eye tests

Having regular eye tests and wearing the right corrective prescription lenses is the most important way you can protect your sight. By keeping on top of your optician appointments, or maybe going for your first one, you can maintain one of the most important senses we have and see as clearly as possible, for as long as possible. It is important not to be put off visiting your optician because of the pandemic – all practitioners have stringent social distancing measures in place.

Take a break and go outdoors

It’s important to take a break from screens and to go outside. Looking at objects in different distances and in natural light can be beneficial for your eyes and sight.

There is no quick fix for dealing with stress, but if you are concerned that your stress and anxiety levels are having an impact on your eyesight then you should consider it a warning sign that you need to take steps to get things a little bit more under control. A good starting point is working out which stress management techniques work best for you. This could be:

• Meditation and breathing techniques • Exercise • Talking to a friend • Indulging in some self-care and a thorough bedtime winddown routine • Taking regular breaks from your screen during the day – going outside to give your eyes a rest and to benefit from fresh air and the outdoors (ecotherapy) • A digital detox

In the main, eyesight issues caused by stress are often temporary and they will ease once the causes of stress are reduced, but as with many conditions, being overwhelmed by stress can sometimes lead to other health problems, so if eye issues don’t lessen a visit to an optician is advisable.

For more information and eye health advice visit

www.essilor.co.uk

Midlife Madness

I have to confess to having some fond memories about lockdown, I enjoyed walks in the nearby countryside, I took up crocheting, started playing guitar again, and as for box sets, can’t begin to count the ones I watched.

Some of those things have been firmly embedded in my post lockdown life. I hope I continue with guitar and crocheting, I do still enjoy walks but it is more of a challenge fitting them in so I have recently joined a gym. I suppose I would confess to enjoying Joe Wickes during lockdown but online workouts really aren’t for me so I’m not sure I’ll be doing those again any time soon, but there are some things that I think we should really let go of now lockdowns are over – crossing my fingers and hoping that is the case.

One mistake I made in lockdown was letting my husband – always willing and supportive- colour my hair. Definite mistake not to be repeated!! Thank goodness I didn’t let him cut it, although actually this might have been preferable to colouring. I delighted in getting back to the hairdressers but I am alarmed to find some people don’t seem to have done the same – why on earth would you assume that people who haven’t been trained to cut or colour hair can do so unless it is a very basic trim (not even sure about that really).

The impact of lockdown in work was immense too and for many people working from home for one or two days per week may now be the norm. My own work shifted so that a lot is now online and I enjoy working from my own little office – created during lockdown – and it’s not for everyone I recognise that. Much of my work is on zoom so that won’t be left behind any time soon but I hope never to use zoom to attend events I really want to be at in person, birthdays, funerals or family get togethers. We had a get together recently at a pub by a canal it was a lovely sunny day and not one single person suggested we did a quiz! Though I must confess that with smaller gatherings we sometimes would. Do you remember those zoom quizzes that seemed to happen all the time? Zoom may be staying for some but I’m secretly hoping that the zoom quizzes remain part of lockdown not normal (what on earth is that anyway) life. I hope not to hear the words ‘you are on mute’ for a long time.

But of course, with working at home came a whole new set of behaviours particularly with regard to dress. I would simply never turn up to work wearing shorts and flip flops, albeit with a smart top. I’m not saying others would and obviously it is a free country but it’s definitely not me. I do have a fabulous wardrobe of dresses and smart work clothes that are rarely worn but real as opposed to virtual work is beginning to pick up so there is hope they may be worn again – providing I can still squeeze into them. I have to confess lock down eating habits are being very slow to disappear – I eat like a horse at home AND enjoy going out for meals again!

I must confess to some withdrawal symptoms when it comes to TV – there is simply too much good TV to watch when I am now working most of the day on most days. Citing TV as reason to reduce work hours – quite apart from financial consequences just feels a bit lame! No doubt whether we loved it or hated it we have we have all learned some things from lockdown but there are some things that we should definitely leave behind as we move forward.