If you read my last post, you probably know that I had a small breakdown last week. I have been dealing with anxiety for a few years now but I’ve been dealing with it pretty well for the past few months. This anxiety episode was accompanied with PMS making it much much worse. But recovering from an anxiety episode is extremely important to ensure I don’t get stuck in a loop of anxious thoughts. Please note that I am not a medical practitioner and this isn’t advice to anyone about how to deal with mental health issues. I am just chronicling what I did to help myself. Here is how I spent my weekend:

• Researched and found a new therapist. I haven’t had the best luck with therapists in the past which is why I gave up on finding one last year. But I think I underestimated the power of just openly talking to someone about all that goes on in my head. It may not solve all my problems but it does help to unload. I have found a new therapist – hope it helps me more this time around.
• Attended a pottery workshop. I attended a pottery workshop a few months back and I found it very therapeutic to work with clay. I was curious to work with a pottery wheel so I booked a workshop and boy was it fun to work with clay and make a mess. The 15 minutes I had on the pottery wheel felt so so so relaxing – I completely forgot that I was making something and instead just focused on the patterns the clay and the wheel were making. I also met a few new people and it was fun to talk to them.

• Helped a friend pack. I really like labour intensive work especially when my mind is in a dark place. Doing laborious work just makes me feel much much better. Helping a friend pack also included planning – another activity that kept my brain busy.
• Didn’t cancel any plans. In such situations, I usually cancel plans and stay in bed and wallow. But I made sure to make a lot of plans and just keep myself busy the entire weekend.

• Attended a baithak with my mom. A baithak is a conversation on a topic. This particular baithak was at a beautiful heritage spot and had a historian discussing famous Urdu poets of the past. It was a beautiful evening and very relaxing.

• Ate a lot. This was probably not the best thing to do but I binge eat when I am upset. So I did eat a lot of comfort food (read as: icecream, spicy noodles, sushi). But I don’t want to beat myself up about it.

• Kept away from what was causing me anxiety. Again, probably not the best thing to do but I let myself not worry about what was going wrong for 2 days and it really helped me calm down and get some perspective on the whole thing.

I honestly feel so so much better today. But I want to do even more things to help my mental health including working out every day for 45 minutes. (Do you want to keep each other motivated? Join me on Strava? It is free and this is not an ad.) How was your weekend? What did you do?

My Strava Information (Strava is an app to track your workouts/activities and share with your friends in a social media kind of set up):

Join me on Strava! You can track your runs and rides, and we can follow each other’s activities. Check it out here: https://strava.app.link/B0HdiRzIfCb

Check out my other recent posts here:

• Things I Never Got To Say To You
• Choices
• And Now I…
• Life Update – Happy Panda Is Back (Maybe?)
• I Got Inked – My Experience, Dos, Don’ts and More (Tattoo Newbie)