As a formerly anxious person who’s much calmer now…

A lot of times it’s exhaustion. Burn out makes a lot of supposedly simple things extremely difficult.

Guilt and shame take energy but accomplish nothing. When they try to attack, your shield is “I’m doing the best I can.”

Find one little step that you can do to make things better. A nap, water, a walk, a multivitamin. They won’t fix everything or even much but they are a concrete choice you can make to go towards making things easier and every step, every choice, counts.

Give your brain a task. Reading a fun book is better than lying awake overthinking. (Yoga nidra on insight timer app helps me fall sleep so fast, if you have a phone.)

Doing fun things helps calm your nervous system so you can do hard things. Sometimes you need to reward yourself ahead of time.

Communication helps. If you tell a friend “I’m having a bad day so I have to cancel,” they will be way less upset than if you just don’t show. It’s not embarrassing to cancel plans, it’s a favour to be honest with your friends.

Finally, there’s a lot to be anxious about. You are not a bad person. You are not a bad person. You are not a bad person.