I consider myself a pretty outgoing, confident person who really
tries not to let stress or anxiety get to me too much. However, I do have to
say that medical school has been a whole different “ball game” so to speak. Being
away from my family in an atmosphere where everyone is “buggin’ out” in Grenadian terms (aka uber stressed) can start to get to really anyone. As for anxiety, I can admit that I’ve
definitely experienced that put-on-the-spot jittery feeling, with a racing heart, a red face, complete with the voice cracks of a teenage boy... the feeling that makes you really just want to crawl in a hole
and hide. My point is: everyone gets stressed
and everyone gets anxiety on different levels (even when you think you're invincible).
I
definitely started to let stress get the best of me a few months ago and I want everyone to know that it's very possible to turn things around. I had never experienced any anxiety in my life, so I didn’t really know what was
going on when it started. When people used to say that they were having the
worst anxiety and that they needed to sit down or something, I’d pretty much
shrug it off and say “you’re fine, there’s nothing wrong with you”. However, karma nipped me in the butt when I too started to experience my own anxiety. My anxiety got so bad that it was to the point
where I’d sit at my desk and my heart would just start racing. Then I’d
feel a sense of vertigo and just wanted to get out of the library as fast as I
could. I tried to blame it on too much coffee, or poor eating habits, or not
enough sleep etc. I even at one point thought I had a cardiomyopathy ha (as most
med students know, the more info we learn, the more things we try to diagnose
ourselves with outrageous things). I started to feel anxious even when I had stopped drinking caffeine. I’ve
never been claustrophobic at all, and even simply getting in the back seat of a
car started to make me anxious. I felt like I was losing complete control,
thinking of any reason under the sun for what could be causing these
feelings. Finally, I came to terms with
the fact I, the person who could drink 4 cups of coffee and a red bull a day
and feel perfectly fine, had a problem with anxiety.
The next step was now what? Basically, I learned that anxiety is very common in students
living away from family, in a setting such as medical school with overwhelming
stress, and it even has some genetic factors; my sister Lindsey and I always
joke about how our faces turn red when we’re caught off guard, or how our
voices both crack if we’re put on the spot and we literally are like-geeze this
is soo embarrassing. But anyways, in short, fixing anxiety has to do with the
way you think and approach situations. Here are some tips that I think are very
useful:
1. Imagine yourself in a situation that makes you
anxious over and over until the thought of the situation doesn't bother you anymore
2. Get rid of black and white thinking and mix in
some grey. ie. “oh crap, I’m in a situation that makes me anxious, now I’m
going to get anxious, I can feel my heart racing ahh”. That would be the black.
The white would be not feeling anxious at all, possibly by avoiding the
situation in general. Now go for grey thinking- this situation will probably
make me anxious, but it’s likely that I’ll live through it and it won’t be that
bad.
3. Make goals to conquer your fears!
4. Eliminate avoidance. Avoidance just perpetuates anxiety.
5. Learn to breathe! Try to breath from your diaphragm and
through your nose at a slower rate to help calm yourself down.
Thats all for now!
#happyfriday #nostress
-Carling
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