Working hard means I have less time to think about anxiety...

Why does Anxiety impact me more at night than during the day?

Anxiety is nothing new. In fact, I’ve been living with it officially since 2007, and unofficially from as early as my childhood. Where I have memories of myself being paralyzed in fear or remembering myself struggling to eat dinner in the evenings, or being curled up in a ball on the floor in tears.

These memories albeit negative, do give me confidence that I have come a long way. I have spent a lot of time (a lot!) trying to understand my anxiety, working with trained professionals to dissect my past and my present to figure it out.

I also do a lot of self-reflection, and I have been doing that lately. What I’ve realised is that often the anxiety stays away during the day, and tends to rear its ugly head at night. Why is that I thought to myself?

Well, for me I spend a lot of my days since around 2011, working hard to build a business, growing a small team, building a client portfolio, and trying to manage it all whilst living with anxiety. During the day, I am liaising with clients, replying to team members, creating products, bouncing in and out of meetings and so much more.

So you see, I don’t have time to be anxious. I don’t have time to stop and worry. Don’t get me wrong, worry comes and goes throughout the day. Will we get another ‘No’ on our proposal, will we have cash flow through Christmas, etc, but these worries are just that. They don’t consume me. I don’t have time to spend all day worrying, I have work to do. I have to continuously meet my obligations to my customers, to my team, my community, and to myself.

Simply put, there is no time to be anxious. So if you want to starve anxiety of attention, keep busy with things you love, whether it’s hobbies, building a family, climbing the corporate ladder, or being the best you can be. And when it comes to the evenings, find things that make you happy, partake in exhausting exercise, and then treat yourself to a movie or a nice book.

For more inspiration visit www.returnofthepanda.org

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or to learn more about me and my journey go to www.fatimahabbouchi.com

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1. www.returnofthepanda.org

2. www.fatimahabbouchi.com