Or an Atavan. Or Xanax.
Work anxiety kept me up all night. Woke up after 3 hours of sleep and couldn’t go back to sleep for a dang. I hate work anxiety. I really do. I don’t like my job or get paid enough to have it affect my whole life. They only reason why I do it is because I am not vested yet (2 more months to go!) and the benefits can not be beat. Even though my insurance was raised $6 this month. It cancels out plus some on my so called 3% kick in the… pay raise this new fiscal year.
Partly, my horoscope is to blame for anxiety.
We had a meeting at the start of our shift tonight with, I guess, my bosses boss, if we had a boss. Our department director is retiring this Friday, one supervisor died of cancer a few months ago, another left to Alaska for a better paying job, and my personal supervisor was fired about a month ago. We have only a day shift supervisor, whom we do not work with, as the only supervisor. It’s a cluster f working for the government sometimes.
We have to 2 lead workers who are the worst supervisors ever, or want to be a supervisors, that are “in charge.” But no one has respect for them as leaders. I even mentioned that too, to my head of the department because, well, I was babbling and things kinda just come out when I don’t think about what I say. And he kinda fishes for complaints or concerns and I really have to bite my tongue because I can complain about a lot of things!
So, all of my co-workers had a lot of fear for this meeting. Potential changes and upsets were possible. Although nothing happened in the way for my anxiety to be justified. Well, that I know of for sure.
I don’t take medication for anxiety or have been formally diagnosed. So take my advice with a grain of salt. If I wanted to go into the Doctors office this week and say, “I have a problem”, there is a good chance that they will throw some pills at me and I can be on my way. But I don’t want pills. Unless I am flying in a plane. I really don’t like the thought of being in a tin can, thousands of feet in the air, going hundreds of miles an hour and who knows what is going to happen. This happened in front of me on my flight from Vegas a few years ago. So, yes, if I am flying, I want to take something.
So what to do? Well, there are only a handful of things that I do that doesn’t involve drugs or alcohol for anxiety.
- Exercise. I rode my bike to work. Yes, I had “I hate my job” going through my head for 15 minutes, but movement helped burn off some excess adrenaline and nerves I had going.
- Deep breaths. I had to really focus on my breath to get out of my head last night when I was trying to sleep. It was a bad dream about work that woke me up and kept waking me up all night long. Instead of focusing on my thoughts, which can get out of control, focusing on my breathing helped calm me down to get back to sleep for a few moments.
- Lavender. I keep a lavender sachet (I have the Silk Embroidered one) on my nightstand. Lavender calms me if I focus on the scent during my deep breaths to help me get to sleep.
- Make notes. Writing helped me realize how silly my problem sounded and gave me a topic for today’s blog! Yay!
- Talk to someone. My job gives us 5 free visits to a shrink a year. Yeah. One of the perks to my job. I found a good counselor that gives me advice that I can use. (1 visit is $100 so you better believe I am taking advantage of that $500 on someone else’s dime!) Plus, I chatter to the BF until his ears fall off and my BFF understands my anxiety issues better then most.
- Oh Well. I was told to say “oh well” by two friends last week. It works with any situation, and I forgot they told me to say it on Friday until now. You can’t do anything except shrug your shoulders and say “Oh Well” sometimes. A lot of things are out of our control.
- Finding Alternatives. Since my work can be high stress, finding other employment is always a thought. I do have my massage certifications, smoking cessation certifications, and today’s Groupon- Bartender Certification. Yes, I bought it because I thought it would be fun, and something to help get my mind off of my job and onto a new one.
- Jumping in. Yeah, things are scary, like my meeting, getting to the start line of races, new situations/people, ect) but getting it done and over with is better then giving in to anxiety for another day or however long we put it off. I almost let my worries allow me to call in sick. But really, I think I would have went to this instead. And then really worried that I was playing hooky and could get caught/in trouble, ect.
Do you have any tips to help with your/my nerves? What are some of the things you worry about? Do you read your horoscope?
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