Honest Talk: Anxiety - Xoxa

Most of the anxiety I feel is social anxiety.

[MUSIC PLAYING] When I was a kid, I was really, really shy and experienced a lot of social anxiety that I didn't realize I was experiencing. I more thought I was shy, and I just like to lay back. I have migraines. I suffer from migraines. I've been diagnosed.

I have a migraine doctor. And one of the really big symptoms I experience with migraines is dizziness and stomach aches or nausea. When I feel super anxious-- or, in the past, when I've felt more anxiety about certain things, more stress about really anything-- then I will get more dizzy, and I'll get more blurred vision, and I'll really nauseous.

When I'm super stressed out with a bunch of assignments, I'll shake a lot. And then, say, I'm going to get a glass of water-- I drop the glass of water, just because my hand is shaking. And then that just furthers me not feeling great and feeling very anxious. And then that obviously makes work even harder to do.

I think, with being inside for so long with the pandemic, I've gotten so used to not seeing people, that it was an adjustment for me going back to in-person. Even for the couple of days that I did see people, I was definitely experiencing some social anxiety with that. I meditate every night before I go to bed, which is something that really, really helps me with-- I don't know if this is the right word, but I guess-- I crash after a long day or even a short day. And I found that those meditations are really helpful for me to de-stress before I go to sleep, which will help me sleep better and help me feel better the next day physically.

During my classes, I'll have 10-minute breaks between each class, and I'll walk around my house and I'll water the plant sometimes. This thing is growing, because I keep feeding it sunlight and water. And because of that, it's steadily growing. I'm helping it just stay alive, and that's all it needs. And it's just staying alive. And I think that's really something that is very calming for me.

Humans are obviously probably more complicated than plants. We need different nutrients and stuff, but we still need food, and water, and sunlight to stay alive. That's very bare minimum. But looking at simplifying it like that and going, oh, this is all we need. So everything else is just enhancing our experience of life and making it even better.

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