Category: Anxiety

Sleep Hygiene: Self-Care for Anxiety Strategy 1

This post is all about the first (and I think probably one of the most important) of the 50 anxiety management strategies I wrote about in my last post: SLEEP.

The Background

When I was in the depths of my worst anxiety and depression, all I wanted to do was sleep. I would drink a coffee, sit on the couch with my book (my favourite coping mechanism aside from napping at the time, which is a terrible option), and promptly fall asleep. ON CAFFEINE.

I’m not one of those people who can tolerate a lot of caffeine. Two cups of coffee and my hands start to shake. At this time I was so anxious that my body was working some serious OT and I was always tired. And then I could never sleep at night. Partly because I’d napped for a lot of the day, and partly because my thoughts kept me up until all hours. And not sleeping at night is a classic “makes anxiety way worse” thing. It also made me want to nap more. And so the vicious cycle continued.

The Three Top Elements of Sleep Hygiene

When I started seeing my family doctor about my anxiety, the first three things she told me were about sleep hygiene:

  1. Aim for about 8 hours of sleep per night. Less might make you feel sleepy during the day. More than 9 or so can increase anxiety and make you feel groggy, in my experience.
  2. Your sleep should start and end at the same time every night. Even on weekends. You can relax your wakeup by about half an hour on weekends if you want. I find that most of the time I don’t need this, because I’m now getting enough sleep through the week anyway). For me this looks like falling asleep around 10 and waking up at 6. On the weekends I’m usually up by 7. I know this can be hard for night owls, especially if they need to start work between 7 and 9, like I do. Fortunately for me, I am a homebody. I’m rarely out late with friends or for events. I prefer to hang out in the afternoons and see 7-o’clock movies. Also fortunately for me, I’ve always been a morning person, so going to sleep a little earlier than my usual 11 ish was not too difficult, especially because…
  3. NO NAPS. My doctor said that I should do everything possible to avoid napping – have a snack, go for a walk, get outside, have a coffee, move around, listen to upbeat music, clean, anything I could think of. Naps feel great when you’re anxious. You get to blissfully forget everything for a while, but then you wake up and everything is a thousand times worse, and you’ve ruined your quality of sleep for overnight.

    I would argue that the no-nap technique helped me even more than a rigid sleep schedule did. I often awoke from a nap in a full panic, more anxious about the things that were on my mind and with less time in the day to tackle them. It’s also, however, been the hardest technique to perfect. Every night now, like clockwork, I get super sleepy at 10 and head to bed, if I’m not already there reading. Every morning my alarm goes off and I get out of bed within about half an hour. I get 8 or more hours of sleep per night. But sometimes the blissful allure of forgetting everything and succumbing to a dreamy, cozy, afternoon nap is just too much to resist. I’m human.

Sleep Struggles

Another problem I’ve had my whole life has been falling asleep. I rarely have trouble staying asleep now, but I did as a child and teen. I was a very light sleeper and would wake up to any sound. My mom tells me that every single night when the local cargo train would go by I would wake up. I remember snippets of this, and I definitely remember the sound.

Thankfully, living in first-year residence at university helped. So did later living in an apartment with terrible, rattling windows. Our windows barely provide a barrier between us and the ambient rainforest-proximal city noises. These include cars, yelling, drunken revelers, emergency vehicles’ sirens, dogs, car alarms, and ferocious wind and rainstorms helped me to overcome my flighty, feather-light sleep style. However, falling asleep has remained a problem.

Going to bed reminds me that tomorrow is coming. It’s my brain’s cue to start worrying about that tomorrow, and all the tomorrows after it. It also dwells on things that happened during the day that were anything less than ideal, and berates itself for not having accomplished enough. No day is ever enough. On particularly bad days, my brain runs through all the horrible things I’ve ever said. It remembers the worst interactions and experiences I’ve ever had with the people who are the most important to me. It imagines possibilities of how I might die a gruesome, premature death. It’s exhausting, but rather than putting me to sleep, it keeps me awake.

Falling Asleep Magic

Recently, and so, so thankfully, in my travels online I discovered this fall-asleep technique from SFU adjunct professor Luc Beaudoin, which is a total dream (pun intended). It is nothing short of magic, seriously.

Essentially, when you want to fall asleep, you pick a four-letter word. It must have no repeating letters, like “bear,” “last,” or my personal favourite when I’ve had a bad day, “f*ck” (let’s not psychoanalyze my word choices). Then you take the first letter and imagine every word you can think of that starts with it. Let’s go with the bear example. Starting with ‘b,’ I might think of bear, bears, beast, beasts, beastly, bent, bend, bending, bends, bender… Of course, when I pick a verb I go through all of its possible forms. This is me we’re talking about. Once you run out of words for the first letter, you move on to the next letter, and so on. I usually barely make it to the third letter before I’m dead to the world.

Reading

Another thing I’ve done my whole life that helps me get ready for sleep is to read. I put my phone on charge away from my bed, and I turn to my analog comfort. Books are probably my favourite thing in the world, besides my family. Their smell, their weight in my hands, their stories, the way they make me feel. They’re almost as good an escape from my as sleep, but they can also make me feel productive, and they help me learn, keep my brain active, and improve my vocabulary and writing.

There are very few nights in my entire life when I can remember going to sleep without having read at least a page of a book. I used to beg for “one more” from my parents when I was tiny, would read under the covers with my Fisher Price tri-colour flashlight  when I was a little older, and would boldly just keep reading past my bedtime with my bedside table lamp or overhead light as a pre-teen and teen. Books and reading have always been a comfort to me, and it helps that reading is often cited as a useful way to relax before bed, improve your sleep, and reduce anxiety in general. It’s a relief to know that at was at least doing one thing right!

Best Wishes!

Hopefully these strategies, if you haven’t thought about or tried them before, will help you like they help me. Now, I’m the first person to admit that they’re hard. It’s especially difficult to make sure you’re doing all of them at once. I’ve recently been finding myself using the plate-spinning analogy for my difficulties with self-care. Imagine that all 50 of my self-care strategies is a plate spinning on a stick that I need to carry at once. Impossible, right? That’s how it feels some days.

How can I keep my apartment clean, stay on top of my work, regularly practice excellent personal hygiene, get enough exercise and sun, get enough nutrients through cooking healthy meals, meditate and practice yoga daily, and have great sleep hygiene all at once? Even just keeping the three sleep plates spinning at once is hard. I’m at a solid 2.5 and I’m struggling to get that third one all the way in the air. It’s been over a year after I started spinning the three of them. That feels too long. But knowing that I’m working on it is half the battle.

Peace and love,

Bee.

 

Related posts:

  1. Exercise: Self-Care for Anxiety Strategy 2
  2. Self-Care for Anxiety: 50 Strategies
  3. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): Coming out on the Sunny Side
  4. Self-Care: The Flower Metaphor

Self-Care for Anxiety: 50 Strategies

There are many “how not to be anxious” and “self-care” lists out there. Those titles alone are just plain ridiculous, because anyone with anxiety knows that you can’t just make it go away. Unfortunately, you can’t just “not.” Usually the absolute worst things you can say to me when I’m anxious or having a panic attack are “Calm down” or “Just breathe.” Let me tell you, I nixed those really early in the game. Dealing with anxiety is about using prevention methods, avoiding triggers, and managing symptoms to make sure that the effects of having the disorder have as little impact on your life as possible. There is no cure for mental illness, but there are my three types of management strategies.

I was recently talking to a co-worker, and she said that she has a friend who is a counsellor and they won’t treat anyone for mental health issues until they are sleeping 8 hours a night, doing 30 minutes of physical activity outside 5 times a week, eating well, and taking both vitamin D and omega 3. It’s a bit severe of a stance to take that could alienate people with severe mental health issues and could also be a barrier for people with any severity of mental health issues to getting help, but it makes an interesting point. Take care of your biological health, and there is a high chance that it will positively affect your mental health.

I went a different route — at the time that my anxiety was at its worst, I was not exercising regularly, sleeping well, or taking vitamins, but I went to see a counsellor and worked from there. I’m pro whatever method you use to try to help yourself. You do you!

Once my overwhelming anxiety began to be managed by therapy (and later meds, but that’s a story for another post), I slowly started working on the physical health aspects with exercise, yoga, and meditation. The physical/biological management strategies have definitely improved my mental health, but I still have anxiety. Many physical self-care items are included in my list because they are helpful. But I want to emphasize that I’m not trying to perpetuate the myth that you can “fix” anxiety by just “going for a walk outside” or “exercising regularly,” as I hear so often. The soundtrack of my life can sometimes seem to sound like a repeating cassette tape that says “I have anxiety,” which is responded to with, “Oh, have you tried exercise?”

Insert eye roll here.

Thankfully, there are many lists out there that are of the “here are my anxiety management strategies, maybe some of them might help you” variety. I want to add a list to that growing library of lists that I turned to when I was first crafting my own coping mechanisms.

I’m not purporting to be the be-all and end-all of “do this and your anxiety is managed,” because I know that these things are absolutely very personal. But I also know that reading other people’s lists helped me to create my own through trial and error. So I hope that at least one thing on my list is something you might not have thought of. Perhaps reading mine will inspire you to create your own! I find that it’s often helpful to read my list to remind myself of things I can easily do to make myself feel even a bit better.

Finally, after working on this post for months, I realized that it was becoming a behemoth, so I decided to simply post my list today, and then in future posts I’ll elaborate on each strategy with personal anecdotes, links, and recommendations.

So without further ado, here’s my (by no means exhaustive) list, categorized into the three types of management strategies I outlined above:

Self-Care 1: Prevention Methods

First, here are the prevention methods that I’m trying to make sure I hit regularly each week.

  1. Regular sleep schedule
  2. Exercise
  3. Medication
  4. Meditation (yes, I had to look twice when I typed this as well)
  5. Yoga
  6. Hydration
  7. Writing
  8. Talking about it
  9. Anxiety-reducing foods
  10. Eating regularly
  11. Hygge
  12. Vitamins
  13. Fighting procrastination

Self-Care 2: Avoiding Triggers

Second, in terms of avoiding triggers, it’s important for me to note that everyone has different triggers. Hopefully you’ll feel less alone reading a (by no means exhaustive) list of some of mine.

  1. Messy workspace
  2. Messy home
  3. Email backlog
  4. Traffic
  5. Crowds
  6. Coffee
  7. Hunger
  8. Deadlines
  9. Evaluations at work
  10. Long days
  11. Being cold
  12. Texting
  13. Sending emails
  14. Running out of food at work
  15. Forgetfulness
  16. Not having a plan
  17. Social gatherings
  18. Medical appointments
  19. Phone calls
  20. Being late

Self-Care 3: Managing Symptoms

Finally, a lot of the things I do to manage my symptoms (such as, if I’ve just had a panic attack or if I’m feeling particularly anxious at any given time) are the same as things I use as prevention methods. I’ll list them again.

  1. Tea
  2. Anxiety-reducing foods
  3. Hygge
  4. Meditation (the t-one this time!)
  5. Yoga
  6. Writing
  7. Reading
  8. Talking about it
  9. Getting shit done
  10. Taking a bath
  11. Lighting candles
  12. Going for a walk or run
  13. Exercise in general
  14. Playing video games
  15. Listening to music
  16. Listening to a podcast
  17. Dance parties

That’s it for now! Can’t wait to share my first in-depth post on self-care, talking all about regular sleep schedules!

Peace and love,

Bee.

Related posts:

  1. Self-Care: The Flower Metaphor
  2. Creativity, Anxiety, and Courage

Self-Care: The Flower Metaphor

A month ago, I wrote a reflection paper for my adult development course.  I recently re-potted my plants. Finally, I had an epiphany about self-care while I was out for a walk. All of this is connected; trust me, it will make sense in a minute.

The History of the Colour of my Thumb

First, it is important to know that until recently, I’ve had a pretty black thumb. I come by it honestly. My mom has an art piece in her garden that says “I tried, but it died” on it. It was gifted to her by a close friend who knows her well. I had a small bamboo plant during my undergrad years that literally only needed to have water in its jar that died. With water in the jar.

A couple of years ago, my husband and I used our generous wedding gifts to re-vamp our apartment. I decided to risk it and get a new plant. Two years later, it’s three times its size. I had to re-pot it last summer into a larger pot. So this year, I bought four new plants – aloe, a succulent, a bonsai, and a bigger bamboo. All was going well, until a couple of weeks ago.

My aloe plant’s soil had started growing algae. I think it might have been because of the way I had it potted (glass vase, cute rocks at the bottom, and then soil). I thought that if I left off watering it for a while it might dry out the algae (Sciencey people – if this makes me sounds like an idiot, suspend judgement. Science is not my forté. Also, refer to above about my black thumb). Alas, it didn’t work. And my aloe started to go brown at the edges. I couldn’t be sure if this was a side-effect of the algae-y soil, or the lack of water, or some combination of the two. Either way, the roots were also starting to reach into the rock part of the vase, so I knew I would need to re-pot it. My black thumb and I at least know that much.

Operation Re-Pot

So, off I went to Home Depot to get more potting soil. Home I returned to begin operation re-pot in the bathtub (another problem with apartment living – nowhere good to garden!). Once I had carefully extracted the aloe from the dreaded algae death vase, I aggressively cleaned and dried the vase, took out, cleaned, and put away the rocks, and put soil only in the vase and then re-potted the aloe. I put a bit of new topsoil in all my plant pots, and watered everything as usual. The next day, my aloe had almost entirely magically transformed from brown to green, and all my other plants were thriving happily. It was then that I had the epiphany. To put it all together, let’s go back to the paper.

Life Metaphor: The Car

For the first section, I was tasked with coming up with a metaphor for my life, based on an exercise in Norman Amundson’s The Physics of Living. At the time, I was dealing with the beginnings of a new (probably stress-related) chronic illness, was working full-time, and was concurrently enrolled in 11 university credits in 6 weeks. The metaphor I came up with was ‘a car that is running out of gas speeding down a deserted road with no signs of civilization.’

My life then amounted to waking up in the morning, heading to work, coming home, doing readings and homework, going to sleep, and repeating. Weekends were all homework and no play. I did manage to get some readings done at the beach, sand in my binders and all. However, self-care was at a minimum. I was burning the candle at both ends, running out of gas with no way and no place to fill up. Unsurprising that this blog was left neglected.

Life Metaphor: Self-Care

The next task of the reflection paper (and Amundson’s above-mentioned text) was to rework that metaphor into something more positive. It was then that the flower metaphor sprouted (sorry not sorry). Here I transformed my sputtering car into a flower, sitting in a sunless room, with drooping petals and dry soil. What’s the difference?

A car is perpetually using gas. When my tank has less than 60km left in it, the warning light comes on, and I fill it up. But that’s easy and reliable; humans aren’t like that. There isn’t a day when a warning light will come on in my brain to tell me that I need to fill up. And ‘filling up’ is not as easy as stopping at a gas station. Rather than filling up with gas every now and again, flowers, like people, need much more nuanced care. They can’t get too much sun, or too little; too much water, or too little. They need careful, constant observation and care that is catered to their needs. They need a thoughtful, intelligent, and caring helper.

Like tending to flowers, self-care is a constant process for humans, and it involves lots of different, smaller processes, like enough sleep, a healthy diet, exercise, spirituality, connections with others, and activities to relax you and bring you joy.

Through this exercise, I learned that I need to take the time each day to tune into what it is that I need to nourish myself (plenty of soil and regular watering). I need to place myself in the best possible environment for my happiness and health (in a room with sunlight away from toxins). Nourishment – with good food, regular sleep, joyful and relaxing activities, connections with others, spirituality, and exercise – is essential. I can also place myself in environments that make me feel more nourished and supported.

I can take myself out of the library and the office, and head out for a hike in the forest or watch the sunset on the beach. Placing myself in a lower-intensity environment with less obligations will be helpful. I need to practice self-care not only by adding free-time to my schedule, but by removing obligations. If I am going to continue to my Masters and stay working full-time, three and four classes at once is too much. I cannot stop exercising because I feel like I don’t have the time. It is important to focus on feeding myself quality nutrients and not what is easy and fast. I need to take the time to relax and enjoy life, and not let it go speeding by me as I focus on the next achievement I want to conquer and unwittingly run out of gas.

The Epiphany

Although that was an epiphany in itself (which I’m sure my husband and parents are cheering about, because they’ve been trying to shove it into my brain for years), I had another one, right after re-potting my aloe.

Seemingly at the same time, I have learned to be an effective apartment gardener, shedding my black thumb for one of the slightly greener variety, and I’ve learned to take care of myself. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? What flipped a switch in my mind that helped me realize I wasn’t practicing self-care? What prompted the more intuitive response to my plants in addition to my body? The introspective work I was doing during my illness and through my courses?  Learning to care for my plants? I’m not sure I’ll come to a positive conclusion on that question; I think it might be a bit of both. But at the moment I don’t care; I’m just enjoying spending the last two weeks of my summer using all of my energy to care for myself.

Bee.

Related posts:

  1. Self-Care for Anxiety: 50 Strategies

Job (In)Security: “Millennials’ Problem”

Before I even begin, I need to preface this with my concept of what is a Millennial. For me, the word is not derogatory. It means to be the offspring of a baby boomer. To have inherited their forebears’ work ethic. To add to it heavy doses of creativity and a willingness to collaborate. To be planted in a hostile job market and pitted against heavy competition. We are enthusiastic and resilient, but we also deal with increased occurrences of mental illness. We also have antiquated perspectives placed upon us (especially women). For example, the need to “get a good job, get married, buy a home, settle down, and have a family” in an economy where this is increasingly difficult. Besides, many of us do not feel the urge to do so until later in our lives anyway.

A post-baby boomer job environment

The basic understanding of the world of work for the parents who raised us Millennials is “work hard, and you’ll succeed.” Unfortunately, that perspective did not prepare us for the 21st century. So, when I hear yet another baby boomer from my parents’ generation tell me that success rewards hard work and that I shouldn’t worry too much, I can’t help but roll my eyes, justifiably. How can it not be the problem of millennials to be worried about their futures? What even is success anymore anyway?

I realize that my anxiety is different from regular worry; that it’s an uncontrollable physiological fear response to fear that has little basis. However, the life circumstances that Millennials face should make any normal human being quake in their boots. We are naturally worried about truly worrying circumstances.

It’s just even more fun to handle it when you have an anxiety disorder.

So you want to be a teacher? Good luck.

Which brings my to my particular situation. As a beginning teacher in a province with a terrible job market for teachers (see Christy Clark’s 2002 decimation of our bargaining rights, only recently (February 2017) won back in the Supreme Court of Canada), job security is, needless to say, poor; that is, if you can even get a job to begin with.

In September 2013, when I began my Bachelor of Education program, the Secondary Education practicum coordinator had all ~300 of us in a lecture hall and began with, “You will not get a job.”

I graduated with my BEd in August of 2014, and I applied to be a TTOC (Teacher Teaching on Call – for all my New Brunswicker friends, this is a glorified term for ‘sub’) in every district, even those that weren’t recruiting at the time. It was a summer of many applications and zero calls. It didn’t help that BC teachers were on strike — what perfect timing.

A common theme: Sacrifice to get your start

I got lucky, as I made a follow-up call to a district where I had applied to be a TTOC. It turned out that they were looking for a French, English, and Social Studies teacher, which matched my qualifications almost exactly, and they asked me to apply. Sounds perfect, right? The only problem? This district was 6 hours north of Vancouver and I would have to leave home and fiancé behind and live alone for at least a year. I applied, and the interview was essentially an advertisement for how much I would enjoy life up in their neck of the woods.

I accepted the offer (how could I not, it was the only one I got!) and sat on my hands for most of September. As soon as the job action ended, I hauled ass up to the BC interior desert land. I worked there for the year, and peaced the heck out when I was finished. I loved the job, but the place was not for me for an extended period. Frequent trips on a tiny-ass plane that made me feel like I was in the middle of the Donnie Darko crash scene were my mental saving grace.

Another new start

I returned to Vancouver and once again entered the TTOC application race. Fortunately, this year, the district where I completed my practicum was accepting applications for French Immersion TTOCs. I applied, and eventually got the job. Thus began my career in the Lower Mainland.


Great, right? Pretty great, except that some months as a TTOC (namely September and June), you only work an average of 6 days. So I also had to stay at my other part-time job shift managing at McDonald’s. I spent my days religiously poring over our finances. Every morning, I counted the number of days I had worked so far that month. I created a formula to figure out how much I earned per day after taxes and deductions. I would figure out exactly how much I needed to work to “get by.” And of course, I’m one of the lucky ones, with a husband who has a steady job with benefits, which cover most of my prescription and extended health needs. However, as a TTOC, I don’t get access to teacher benefits so I’m still out-of-pocket for a number of things.

I spent the year last year as a TTOC, but I also picked up 2 months of a 1-block contract. 1 block. Out of 8. That’s what they had on offer! I loved it, but it also reduced my ability to TTOC, as I was unavailable in the afternoons every other day, and ended up reducing the amount of money I made overall. But contracts are currency in my district. TTOCs don’t get seniority, and seniority is what gets you a continuing contract (permanent – for my NB friends, a B contract).

Pair this with anxiety…

This transitional period in my life has me thinking. Particularly about what it’s like, for a person with anxiety specifically, to deal with a lack of job security. This is something so many millennials like me face for years once we graduate. The common perspective of older generations about millennials seems to be that we’re lazy, when in fact there are just not enough jobs to go around. Workers are taking later retirements. Companies and governments are squeezing wherever they can to save money in a tough economy. Cost of living is now exponentially higher compared to average salaries versus 30 years ago.

I’m  a new teacher. I have anxiety. It’s hard to convince myself that I am worthy of the districts I’m applying to. It’s hard to convince myself that the reason my 100s of applications are returning no calls is that everyone else that applied had more seniority than me (highly likely, at this point). The amount of dead air I’ve encountered in response to my job searches, I’m sure, is enough to cripple a normal person, but a person who doubts every single word they say? Crushing.

I often tell myself I got lucky again when I pick up another small contract. I need to remind myself that I’m likely getting them now because I am becoming more skilled and more recognized and valued by the schools I am working for. My anxiety leads me to constantly think the worst about myself – to constantly assume that I am not worthy.

Lack of structure…

One of the things I find toughest to deal with as a person with anxiety is a lack of structure. This comes with unemployment. It’s also provided by the long breaks that I have in my profession as a teacher.

Now, I’m definitely not complaining about the (remember, unpaid) time we get off at holidays and in the summer. However, I often find that during those periods of my life, my anxiety is at its peak. I grow listless and depressed, and become increasingly anxious about not accomplishing anything, which then paralyzes me even more. I definitely feel the need to take on big artistic projects in the summer especially. These could be redesigning the layout and decor of my apartment, creating a scrapbook, or undertaking a photography project. I then create a day schedule in which I work toward project completion for at least a certain number of hours each day. I also dedicate day parts to relaxation, reflection, cleaning, and exercise.

Unclear schedules…

Sometimes more difficult are the days I don’t get a callout in the evening or early morning. This doesn’t mean that I am off for the day – callout is open until 1:30 pm. I could spend my morning assuming I’ve got the day off, only to have the phone ring at 1pm for the afternoon. Sometimes, I’m settling into the couch with a book at 8:30, and I get a call demanding I brave the worst of the morning’s traffic to be at a school for 9. On these days, it’s impossible to have a schedule. First, they are unexpected days off. I generally don’t have an anxiety-calming schedule created for a day when I expect to be working. However, they are also not necessarily days off, so I have to structure my time such that I can grab food and run out the door at a moment’s notice.

The dog’s breakfast…

There is also a lack of structure in the career development process for young teachers. We often get what is known as the “dog’s breakfast,” if we can even snatch that. Anything is better than being on call! In that first contract I took, I had 5 preps – French 7, French 8, French 9, English 8, and Social Studies 8. The normal maximum for any sane person is 4, preferably 3. This past year, I covered a paternity leave and had 5 again – French 8, French 9, French 10, French 11, and FRAL 8.

And negative amounts of security.

All of this with no clear “end” in sight. The “end” for me means having a full-time continuing contract. This equals working every day for the same district, receiving health benefits, and having the right to take leave (maternity or otherwise). My current school district requires 2 consecutive years of full-time contract work plus an extra contract before they award you continuing. To make matters worse, if a teacher goes 6 months plus 1 day between any contracts, all previously accumulated seniority disappears. For example, my current contract extends until June 30. That means that I have until December 30 to get another contract, or I lose the 1.5 years of seniority I now have. That’ would have been 75% of the way to a continuing contract. It’s a terrifying, paralyzing space to live in every day of my existence.

We’re losing such great people

I speak what I know. This is what I know about an increasingly difficult teaching market: it continually loses bright stars due to the difficulty of finding a secure job. A very small percentage of the wonderful people I met throughout the Education program are working in schools. Many did end up in educational positions that are unrelated to the private or public K-12 systems. However, many others work retail or administrative jobs or went back to school to do something else.

This is not just my problem, not just teachers’ problem

I am confident that my situation is not unique. Nor is it to unique to the teaching profession. My peers across the country, and the world, face very similar struggles. Small wonder that even more people do not deal with anxiety or other mental health disorders than already do.

But what can I do?!

I wish I could propose a solution, but I don’t really see one. The only thing that really helps to settle my anxiety is to work toward the fulfillment of my values, regardless of how I earn money. I think that to feel fulfilled in our lives, we need to do a few simple things:

  • do something for work that we enjoy
  • live life according to our values, in the greatest capacity of which we are capable
  • work hard
  • be creative
  • collaborate
  • ask for help
  • reflect
  • love ourselves
  • breathe

The rest is positivity and hoping for the best! This list is gets me through the worst of times and the best of times. Add a bit of luck, which often comes from that  positive perspective, and hopefully, you’ll find your days are more fulfilling than not.

Peace and love,

Bee.

 

 

No related posts.

Small Town Big City

I have lived in the big city of Vancouver for 7 years. When I was 18 years old, I left New Brunswick for British Columbia to attend UBC. The official anniversary is coming up in a couple of weeks. Sometimes it feels like I’ve been here my entire life. Other times I can’t believe it’s been that long. I definitely felt both of these feelings multiple times when I went to visit my hometown last week.

I grew up in the Kennebecasis Valley, which is an umbrella term for the two adjacent towns of Quispamsis and Rothesay. These are suburbs of Saint John (not to be mistaken for St. John’s, NFLD). Throughout this article I use the blanket phrases small town and big city. However, the experiences I write about are specifically drawn from the KV and Vancouver.

[Language nerd alert: I wrote the title for this post a couple of days ago. Current me is loving past me for subconsciously making it sound like “Sit Still Look Pretty,” by Daya, one of my current favourite songs. Just had to put that out there.]

The longer I live in a big city, the more interesting it is to go back to my small hometown. It’s so interesting the way a person’s perspective, and even personality, can change based on the environment they live in. There are things I used to love about my small town upbringing that I really dislike now. I do still miss some of the things I thought I would when I first left, like seeing the stars and having a backyard. However, I’m surprised to dread returning to some of the  other aspects of a small town. Here’s a look at some of the things I’ve found to be very polarizing between big cities and small towns.

Things that are drastically different when comparing a small town and a big city:

Driving.

1. Definition of traffic.

In a small town, people define heavy traffic/”rush hour” as “more cars than none.” It won’t affect your travel time at all; the added vehicles will only affect the amount of space you have around you as you drive. In a big city, people define heavy traffic/rush hour as traffic being stop-start rather than flowing. Heavy traffic in cities severely impacts travel time. I find this contrast amusing.

2. Distance.

Because of this difference in traffic, measurements for distance are different. When measuring distance in a small town, people use minutes. It rarely ever takes a longer (or shorter) amount of time than usual to get anywhere. In a big city, you use literal distance, (here in Canada km). This is because even a distance as small as 10km (like my drive to work) can fluctuate as much as between 13 and 105 minutes. No joke.

3. Courtesy.

As a rule, in a small town, people are too polite as drivers. Just this last trip, we were driving on a road with a 60km/h limit, and the car in front of us slowed to about 35km/h because he saw that someone coming from the opposite direction was waiting to cross our path to turn left. Just let that sink in for a second. He slowed to a crawl to let someone turn left. Was there a long line of cars behind us? No. The other car’s path would have been completely clear for him to make a left turn as soon as us two cars had passed. Unreal.

Also, the old “You go!” “No you go!” game happens all the time, especially at 4-way stops and in parking lots. That shit causes accidents. There’s a reason there are rules for those things. Honestly. You want to make me panic? Force me to play chicken with a small town driver who’s trying to be nice.

4. Urgency.

People really take their time as drivers in small towns as well – again on this trip, we had a person take a good minute to reverse into his driveway in front of us all the while completely blocking our path. And that’s not the entire parking job. That’s just how long it took them to get out of the way of oncoming “traffic” (aka us). In a big city, you need skill at performing precise maneuvers quickly, or you face the wrath of the masses. It’s made me a better driver, but also a sometimes more anxious one, especially when parking (usually parallel).

Also, more likely than not in a small town, a person will slow down at a yellow light. In a big city, you’ll get honked at if you don’t speed up and go through it.

Light and Sound.

Small, low-population areas are very dark. Both in homes and on the road. My street back east literally has zero streetlights. I find it very difficult to see while driving at night, even with my glasses on. In my bedroom with the light off, I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. This gives the bonus of being able to see the stars more often, which I like, but I’ve always been afraid of the dark, so the city glow of home is very comforting to me.

Light “pollution” is such a negative term – I’ve always found it beautiful. Although I do sometimes miss seeing the stars with ease, I have always loved city lights. I adore throwing open my curtains and revelling in their radiance. It’s also nice to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without having to turn on a light. Rather than pollution, I like to call it illumination.

The view from our bedroom window.
The view from our bedroom window.

Just as they are dark, low-population areas are also very quiet. Living in a big city has really heightened my ability to sleep through noise. I used to wake up at every little sound, and now I can sleep through anything from drunken debauchery to emergency sirens and car alarms (but thankfully never my on-call ringer or my alarm clock). It’s very eerie to fall asleep in absolutely silence when I visit my hometown.

Social Encounters.

In a small town, you literally can’t go anywhere without seeing someone you know. It’s necessary to factor into your excursion time the extreme likelihood of meeting someone or several someones and having a chat or three or four. It’s often hard for people with anxiety to deal with spontaneous social situations like this. Going back east is hard for me in that respect, especially because everyone hasn’t seen me in a while and wants to hear my life story. It’s a lot easier to just say hi and be on your way without feeling bad if you regularly encounter a person. There’s a lot of guilt involved in trying to avoid having a conversation with a person you like and haven’t talked to in a long time.

In a small town even when you don’t meet someone you know, people are always striking up a conversation with you anyway. The usual culprits are the cashier or another person waiting in line. Can’t I just buy my bananas in peace?!

It’s really nice knowing that in a big city I can do groceries and the only things I’ll have to say are “No thanks I have bags,” “Mastercard please,” and “Yes, thank you.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum, it’s a novelty to meet someone you know when you’re out running errands in a big city. It’s fun and I usually get a huge kick out of it. Especially if it’s someone I didn’t know moved out here, like old high school acquaintances – it’s happened three times as far as I can remember.

Getting places.

In a small town, pretty much everything requires a car. Want to go to a friend’s place? Car. Need groceries? Car. Going to work? Car. Going to school? Car (or bus). Need to go to the pharmacy, mall, or to get takeout? Car. Want to go to the gym, for a walk (YUP), or to the beach? Car. Want to catch some Pokémon or capture a gym or two? Car.

My husband and I have lived together in Vancouver for 6 years and we only just got a car a year ago. That’s not to say that there weren’t times it would have been convenient to have one. We definitely love doing our groceries and Costco runs with a car now. But it wasn’t necessary. We have hiking trails, beaches, gyms, banks, grocery stores, malls, schools, work, restaurants, coffee shops, clothing stores, art galleries, movie theatres, sports stadiums, Pokéstops and gyms, and more, all within easy walking, biking, or super-fast, cheap, and convenient transit distance. Everything is within reach.

Perspective.

This last one is a little trickier to define. People just seem to have a different outlook if you compare small town to big city. There are so many less options in smaller places. People have to settle all the time, and they’re just fine with that. Here in Vancouver I have everything I could ever want right at my fingertips – and often multiple options for the same thing.

A great example would be Starbucks. There are about 5 within 10 minutes’ walking distance of our apartment. Out east, there is one, and it’s about a 20-minute drive from our family homes. I looooooooooove Starbucks coffee, but when I visit KV, I don’t go there. Tim Horton’s is only ~5 minutes away in the car. Plus, the SJ Starbucks always gets our order wrong. Sometimes in multiple ways. A NF Vanilla Latte and an Iced Grande Coffee with Milk are really not difficult.

Ordering issues at coffee shops and fast food places really trigger my anxiety. That’s another reason we don’t go to Starbucks back east. In Vancouver, I’m able to choose the Starbucks that best suits my needs – a) most friendly baristas that b) always get the job done in c) an efficient and d) correct manner, and e) close by.

I often feel that in a small town, the mindset is Oh well, it’s my only choice. None of that out here. I don’t have to compromise my comfort, values, convenience, or money to get what I want in a big city. It enables me to avoid anxiety triggers, get better deals on things, have better experiences, and just be happier in general.

There is one issue with that perspective, though – I find that in a big city companies have so much competition that they REALLY try hard to sell you things, and to give you the very best all the time. Most of the time, this is great. In radio, however, it’s annoying. The amount of times I’ve texted my mom about this FANTASTIC “new” song she just HAS to listen to, only to have her reply that she’s been listening to it for months, are innumerable. Radio stations here tend to play the same top 20 songs over and over simply because they’re the most popular. They also won’t début a new song until they’re sure it’s a major hit. My favourite radio station in my hometown, 97.3 The Wave, is constantly introducing super new music and has really great variety. I often listen to it online from Vancouver.

I’m not trying to say that big cities are better than small towns. Each has their pros and cons, and different people like different things. I do, however, find it very interesting how environmental changes can seemingly change a person. As a child I LOVED my small town. As a teenager it was stifling and I couldn’t wait to get out. When I left, I found the transition to Vancouver very difficult, but loved the city so much I decided not to leave it as an adult. Now, I find it difficult to go back east.

Has living in a big city made my anxiety worse? Quite possibly. It is easier for me to avoid the things that trigger my anxiety. You’re also potentially more likely to have issues with your mental health if you live in a big city. I’m probably going to talk about that in a future post. But you could also say that being able to avoid triggers is a good thing, and I definitely feel more anxious when I visit my hometown than I do when I’m at home in the big city. That could be circumstantial, but at the very least it’s interesting.

Bee.

Related posts:

  1. An Ode to Vancouver’s West End