Health

Social Anxiety at Events

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It’s holiday season. That means tons of social events with work, family and friends. My life has a lot of that stuff in general but around the holidays, a lot of it can be condensed into a short period of time.

What a lot of people don’t seem to know – and I have definitely improved on – is my social anxiety.

I often feel like my mind has left my body and am watching myself feeling like a tomato in a room full of potatoes.

That was probably a bizarre comparison but I often feel like everyone is so confident with small talk (or talking in general) that I don’t know what to say. Or worse it comes out as verbal diarrhea.

The thing I realized is: I’m not alone.

I had a meet up the other day and an artist that I was hanging out with, who is a totally badass performer live had the same shyness and anxieties in the room that I did. We talked to each other about being afraid to chat with people but then proceeded to think of opening lines. It was kind of fun to know that someone else was having similar reservations, especially someone who is super confident on stage.

We met and bonded with some new people. It’s totally okay to be a ball of nervous energy.

December Can Be Overwhelming

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December can be a hard month for anxiety. I’m anxious for the year to be over. I’m anxious to finish Christmas shopping. I’m anxious to spend more time with family. I’m anxious about all the goals I set for myself, and what I did and didn’t achieve.

Pulling through the last stretch, but hanging in there. I hope you all are too!

Tracking the water I drink 

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I have been embracing wearables and finding fun health things to track.

Something I often lack in my day is water so I am trying the Waterminder app. It has a suggested daily intake due to your weight and activity. You can then program cup sizes that you normally drink. For example a grande at Starbucks is 470ml. All liquid counts but water is the most recommended.

There are achievements to unlock and constant reminders throughout the day to remind you take sips. They appear on my Apple Watch too, which can be a tiny bit aggressive. At least now I have no excuse not to drink more water! 

Unplugging was good for me

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Dim sum royalty

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Saturday, I hardly checked my phone. My friends made up a day called ASIA DAY where we went for dim sum, bought snacks, play mahjong/board games, had hot pot, went karaoking, all on the same day.

It was an activity jammed day with friends that I think all of us had needed. None of us really felt the need (or the want really) to be on our phones and it felt healthy and I feel much more clear-minded than I was before the weekend.

Plus, I got to try out a fancy dim sum place I’ve never been to. Food heals many wounds.

Dog Therapy

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Best fluffball #dogsofinstragram

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This week I was having a major anxiety attack and couldn’t focus much on life. I decided to go home (to my parent’s) and spend some quality time with Teddy. Cuddling with a dog really helped calm me down.

Now I’m doing some very necessary blogging and work I was behind on!

Anxiety…

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hyperventilating

I’m having a weird day where everything is trigger an internal panic attack. Right now, I don’t know if sitting at home is better. I can’t find my mail key and probably won’t stop frantically looking if I stay here. I spilled a trail of coffee down the hallway this morning. A bug scared the hell out of me in my apartment.

Tiny things add up and although sometimes I value the alone time to cry, or relax or whatever, going out has it’s values of forgetting the dumb things that I am currently anxious about.

So off I go to a Simpsons Halloween marathon and a concert!

Turning on the light 

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SADS is hitting hard right now as the days are getting shorter. Mornings are too dark and by the time I get home from work the sun is setting. 

I take Vitamin D3 and I have started turning on my Happy Light again. I don’t generally use it in the warmer months because the sun shines longer.

Placebo or not it does work for me if I have it on for 30 minutes. I wish I could have it on my desk at work but I’m scared that it would be too weird so it’s just on my desk at home.

What are your tips for curing SADS? 

Relaxing is different for everyone…

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This is not actually that relaxing #enchantedforest

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I don’t know about you but I do not find colouring relaxing. I get too worked up in choosing what types of markers or pencil crayons I should use, the patterns of colours, the right pressure. There’s too many things to think about! It’s never just colouring. I still love it but not my idea of relaxing.

What works for you?

I Got Hit By A Bike

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Thursday after work heavy rain set the pathetic fallacy of the evening. I had a long commute home waiting for a bus with hundreds of others who had also forgotten to think ahead and carry an umbrella.

Finally the bus would let me off at the stop closest to home and out in the pouring rain I was for what was supposed to be 5 minutes. I hit the button at the pedestrian crosswalk and all the cars on either side at stopped. I started walking and as I hit the second lane a zooming bike hit me and I fell on my back and elbows.

“I brakes didn’t work,” said the blonde who girl who had flown off her blue bike.

I thought this was kind of a dumb answer considering it’s raining quite heavily by now and biking in the middle lane would put both the rider and others in danger.

Too embarrassed to remain on the scene (the full bus I just got off was still there), I ran the 5 minutes home in the rain. I didn’t notice my left elbow was badly bleeding until half way home. I hyperventilated a little in the washroom until Nash came to calm me down and bandage me up. In the end I only suffered with a scraped and a few sore joints (mostly my tailbone and legs). No broken bones as far as I know and I’m thankful that it wasn’t much worse.

I felt like I had to write about this to tell people to be more careful. I double check to makes sure bikes are coming to a complete stop or far enough before crossing the roads. It was a little bit of a traumatic experience that I get anxious every time bikes are close to me when I’m walking down the street. If you’re a biker, please pay attention pedestrians, especially those at designated crosswalks. And if your bike is broken, take it into the shop!

I Had My First Massage

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I recently went for my first registered massage. I have a lot of tension around my shoulders, neck and head (resulting in the occasional tension headaches). Generally, I don’t like to take Tylenol to relieve pain if I can help it so I decided massages would be a solution to try.

I had no idea how to find a place. Googling “Registered Massage Therapist in Toronto” was useless and still yielded many XXX results. I didn’t want to put myself in a compromising position or go anywhere that seemed unsafe. So I did what I usually do, I hit up Twitter.

I received a bunch of replies but Anatomica caught my eye because it was literally on the corner of Bloor & Lansdowne, an intersection I walk by every day! Another bonus was that they filed directly to my insurance and the less grown up paperwork I have to do the better.

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Their current office is super new (they used to be just down the street). They seemingly popped up overnight one day because I swear to god I’ve walked passed this a million times and never noticed a massage place here! I think it used to be an art gallery type thing. It was cozy and inviting inside.

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My therapist was Kate, who was specifically recommended to me on Twitter. She was super nice and made sure I was comfortable with everything at all times but also not afraid to dig deep into my muscles (I am not afraid of a tough massage). The blanket was heated and the room had relaxing music.

For my 45 minute massage I felt myself fall into deep relaxation. It’s totally worth doing every once in a while if you live a busy life. It forces you to let go of everything during that time (including your social media accounts). When I was done, I got up and felt like a happy blob of jello.

I seriously can’t wait for my next massage!