Tag Archives: anxiety

Stoptober & Go Sober for October Challenge

Posted in Living with Anxiety, Money Saving by

Well it has been another busy few weeks here with the start of the new school term and lots of changes taking place at work. I have been feeling pretty rough & tired and the anxiety has been bothering me, so I have decided that it is time to make some changes.

I have wanted to stop smoking for a long time now and with Stoptober coming up I have decided that now is the time to do it. I also saw a campaign on Facebook to Go Sober in October and raise funds for Macmillan Cancer research, which is a charity I like to support where possible due to the effects that cancer has had on a number of my friends and family. As I find it much more difficult to avoid smoking if I have had a drink I am going to join this challenge too and hopefully raise a bit of money in the process. If you would like to support my challenge and donate to Macmillan you can do so here.

During a visit to the doctors this week I was also advised to cut out caffeine so I am going to give this a go as well as trying to eat my five portions of fruit & veg a day, as at the moment I can go for the best part of a week without seeing any fruit!

Quitting smoking is definitely going to be the biggest challenge. I have quit on a number of occasions before, mainly around the times that I had my children but I also managed to stop for a few years before I started my current job. Smoking is part of my daily routine and going out for a cigarette from work is the only time I get any daylight during the winter months. I have ordered my kit from the NHS website but as there are only two days to go until the start of the challenge I need some other strategies to support me. I have tried nicotine replacement of various types before but these all make me feel ill so this is not an option this time. I have succeeded in giving up before after reading Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking book. I still have a copy on the bookshelf so reading this again is going to be my first step. You are supposed to continue smoking as you read the book so I will need to read it quickly!

I am a regular visitor of the forums at moneysavingexpert.com and have used their excellent demotivator tool to work out how much money I will be saving and how long I would need to work for to pay for my smoking over the course of a year. I will save approximately £3000 per year if I manage to stop smoking which would make a huge difference to our family finances and allow me to buy myself a few treats!

My second biggest challenge will be cutting down on caffeine. I drink a lot of tea and carry a full travel mug with me everywhere I go. I suffer from headaches if I don’t drink caffeine so this will be unpleasant for a few days. I do like some herbal teas and I also like water infused with fruit. I think I will use some of the money I save on smoking to treat myself to a fruit infusing water bottle like this one and a selection of expensive fruit teas!

Giving up alcohol will be less of a challenge as I do not usually drink heavily but I do go to the pub twice a week and have a pint or two and I have the occasional bottle of wine at home. Giving up the wine will be easy as I just won’t buy any but I will need to find an alternative to beer in the pub. I am not a fan of fizzy drinks so most soft drinks are not an option. The pub does serve hot chocolate though so I will give that a go. (Hot chocolate does contain a small amount of caffeine but this is much lower than a cup of tea).

The main reason that my diet is somewhat lacking in anything nutritious is that I am often grabbing food on the go. If I am to eat more fruit then I need to make sure that I have it available at work so then I will eat that rather than the usual diet of chocolates, cakes and sweets that are often available. As I will be saving so much money I think I can stretch to an organic fruit box that I can have delivered to work. We have had organic food delivered in the past from riverford.co.uk so I will set myself up a delivery and then I have no excuse!

This seems like quite a daunting set of changes to make all at once but I am determined to give it a try and see if cutting out the stimulants has an effect on my anxiety levels and my overall wellbeing. By sharing my plans I am now far more likely to actually achieve my goals so I will be updating the blog with my progress as the month goes on.

If you are planning on joining any of these challenges then let me know in the comments and we can try to keep each other motivated!

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Living with Anxiety

Posted in Living with Anxiety by

I have suffered from anxiety, low self-esteem and bouts of depression for as long as I can remember. However, the first time I realised what it was that I was suffering from was when No 1 was very small and I had a panic attack which resulted in an emergency visit to the doctors followed by a course of anti-depressants and beta-blockers.

At least I then had a label for the irrational way that I had been feeling but the treatment only succeeded in masking the problem and it has returned repeatedly throughout my adult life. Thankfully though that was the only occasion that I have had a full blown panic attack and I have the deepest sympathy for people that go through this on a regular basis.

Anxiety is a debilitating condition that is poorly understood by people that do not suffer from it. My anxiety usually manifests itself in irrational fears about my health but I also suffer from generalised anxiety and feelings of inadequacy and there is rarely a moment when I feel completely relaxed. It prevents me enjoying myself in a wide variety of situations as I am constantly plagued by irrational thoughts. There is a social stigma surrounding many mental health conditions, anxiety included, and I have always felt ashamed of my condition and do not discuss it with anyone other than to a small extent with my long-suffering DH. I have also experienced stigma when going to the doctor about the condition and have felt patronised on a number of occasions by the people that are supposed to be there to help. This has resulted in a severe reluctance to visit the doctor for any reason.

I have got to the stage now that I do not want this condition to plague my life any more and I want to be modelling a healthy mental attitude to my children. I need to do something to tackle the underlying problems and find better ways to manage the condition. There is much that has been written about living with anxiety but the advice is of very variable quality and has variable effects. I intend to use this section of my blog in a positive way to record the strategies that I am using to help me overcome this condition and to share what is successful for me and what is not.

I appreciate that a lot of my readers will have little interest in this subject and if you don’t then feel free to ignore these posts but I know that I am not the only person out there that suffers from this condition and I hope that my experiences may be of some help to someone else.