Keeping the Anti-Anxiety Beat

I know I've written about taking breaks from anxiety before, but an encounter with the really great folks over at Seattle Drum School in Georgetown got me thinking about the buffering effects of music on anxiety's chatter. When the mind is engaged in counting out triplets with one hand and sixteenth notes in the other, there's not much mental room left for anxiety. (Okay, so I'm not a drummer--except for in my dreams--but at least that's how it seemed to me back when I played Chopin on the piano. Or maybe I just have less "mental room" than others!) It seems to me that when the mind and body are fully engaged with each other (as in drumming or playing an instrument), there's little opportunity left for anxiety's influence to insinuate itself. And while anxiety and "perfectionism" cures remain elusive, taking much-needed breaks from their chatter is a life-preserving practice.

Sharing Parenting Equally

In this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Lisa Belkin wrote a thought-provoking article on "equally shared parenting." The concept behind equally shared parenting is just as it sounds: each parents spends as much time contributing to work, home, and family as the other. While I commend the parents who are engaging in this arrangement, I couldn't help but wonder about the details. How exactly does one track every single contribution in the work, home, and family categories? How does one weigh tasks that are more burdensome than others? Reading about the featured couples, it seemed to me that this arrangement could open itself up to persistent arguments over the division of labor.

One mother, whose family eventually opted out of equally shared parenting, had this to say about her family's experience: "The question should not be, Is it all exactly equal, but, What is best for all of us as a group right now?...If we decide it's really important that we are 50-50 on everything, we would work on that. If we decide it's really important that we be close to family, then we work on that."

Now, that sounds like an arrangement I could live with.

Talking to Your Kids About Financial Anxiety

Growing up in Michigan in the 1980s, my family lived through an especially bleak period of economic history. Though I was in elementary school at the time, I was acutely aware of the economic uncertainty in my corner of the world. Several of my classmates moved to Alaska, California, and the South, their parents unable to find work. My father went through long stretches of unemployment over the course of four years, with stints at work just long enough to prolong his unemployment benefits. I remember the nightly news compared Michigan's unemployment rate with that of the Republic of Ireland's (around 13%, if memory serves--but oh, for Michigan's economy to be compared to the Celtic Tiger's now...)

If you are feeling anxious about your family's financial situation, chances are your children feel it, too. Here are three things you can do with children of all ages to help assuage your family's financial anxiety:

With Toddlers: Just say no. Perhaps you bought special treats for them while out shopping before. You are in charge, and it's okay to say no to purchases you might have made before. When grocery shopping, pack along snacks you know your toddler enjoys to avoid tantrums in the cookie and cracker aisle. And if your toddler screams throughout the store for that special snack, that's okay (albeit, highly irritating). If people glare at you in the store, remind yourself that those looks mean, "that's a parent who knows how to set limits." Good for you!

With elementary-school age kids: They really want to be helpful. They really do. And they understand the ethic of helping their family. Explaining to them that while certain activities might be too expensive (e.g. lavish parties, theme parks, camp), there are lots of ways to have fun or to earn money towards something they'd like to do. Your kids might enjoying organizing a garage sale of their unwanted toys and clothes to put toward something they really want. They can have book or toy swaps with friends to get a new-to-them item. And to help them understand the ways they are fortunate, your family can volunteer at a food bank or homeless shelter. They really, really want to be helpful; they just don't always know how to do the helping.

Tweens and Teens: This age group is hard, no doubt. They are under a lot of pressure to look the "right" way. Let them know that you understand style matters at this age. Also let them understand how much is in your family budget for things like clothes. If they haven't discovered it already, your t(w)een will appreciate how much further her clothing dollar goes at thrift stores. (I just saw a navy pleated mini-skirt with green embroidered skulls at Goodwill that I would have killed for when I was 16 and first discovered the many joys of thrift store shopping.) And speaking of budgets, if your t(w)een is interested, share with them the family budget. Maybe she has ideas for trimming costs. A real go-getter might find you a more competitive rate on insurance or a mortgage, or compare prices online for regular purchases. As the recent mortgage crisis points out, it's never too early to give your children a good financial education.

The Mind-Body Solution

I just took my marriage and family therapy licensing exam today, which reminded me of the importance of being physically well to perform mentally well. During the days leading up to my exam, I took great care to get lots of rest, limit my caffeine intake, drink lots of water, eat healthfully, and make time for exercise. Truly, it's the lifestyle I should lead EVERY week, but today I really did notice a difference. In the past, I've experienced horrible test anxiety, but today I felt a great deal of calm. I sensed I'd prepared myself both physically and mentally well for the test, and I left the testing center feeling I'd done my best. Now, I'll have to wait for my scores to confirm how I did exactly, but for now I feel at peace that my physical and mental preparation kept test anxiety from pestering me today.

Coping With Financial Anxiety

The financial news these days is pretty bleak: The national average for a gallon of gasoline is roughly $4. The housing foreclosure crisis continues apace. And the U.S. dollar looks like spare change when compared with the pound, euro, or even the Canadian dollar! How the mighty have fallen, indeed.

Being surrounded by news of financial distress--not to mention the cold, hard facts of the prices at the pump and the supermarket--is bound to take a toll on one's feelings of financial security. Here's three ideas for helping quiet your financial anxiety.

1. Examine Your Budget. If you've never drawn up a budget before, start with that first. (It's easy to do if you limit your discretionary spending to credit cards.) Look where the money goes. Does the amount you spend raise your anxiety when compared with your income? Focus on the spending categories you can control. Some expenses may be difficult to reduce, like housing, groceries, or utilities, but others, such as entertainment, eating out, or clothing are easier to rein in. Put your savings into a "rainy day" fund or some such account that you can point to when financial anxiety will not stop nagging you.

2. Share Your Strength. You're a fantastic knitter, car repairer, cook, stitcher, gardener, dog walker, or caregiver. Why not barter your services in exchange for something a friend or acquaintance can do for you? (Personally, I would love to trade rhubarb for a pre-natal massage, but then, I gotta find someone who really loves the rhubarb. I've got a lot of rhubarb.) Bartering can help shave a bit off your expenses while allying you with someone else who's trying to make a go of it in this sluggish economy.

3. Talk to Someone. When financial anxiety will not keep quiet, it's helpful to talk to someone who can remind you of all your good financial practices and keep you focused on your budgetary goals. Talking to someone who shares your anti-financial anxiety stance can help keep your attention on the things you can control while letting go of the things you can't.

Coming Soon: Helping Children Cope in Tough Financial Times

Us vs. Anxiety

Michael Tomasello, co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, writes in today's New York Times Sunday Magazine that, when given non-verbal IQ tests, two year-old children and chimpanzees demonstrate similar spatial and mathematical intelligence. Where the toddlers showed the greatest advantage was in their social and emotional intelligence. Humans, through cooperation, can acquire skills and information and then share it with another; apes cannot. Thus, cooperation leads to a collective identity that bonds humans powerfully to one another. It also helps organize us into "camps": "Us" and "Not Us".

This article got me thinking about the socially-inhibiting effects of anxiety. Anxiety would have one believe that each struggle is unique. It says that no one out there can understand what this particular anxiety is like. In actuality, individual messages from anxiety may differ but the overall themes tend to be very similar. Few people I know who suffer from severe anxiety are able to deeply connect with others like them. The social stigma assigned to anxiety stymies the very social sharing that could lead to its ultimate undoing.

So, humans have the capacity to learn from one another. But such communication depends on our willingness to share and our "proximity" to the information. I propose that as humans, our two camps are not "people with anxiety" and "people without", but rather "us" and "anxiety." The internet can potentially solve the "proximity" issue--we no longer need to be physically close to communicate--but we still need to share and teach others what can be learned about anxiety.

How to become "anti-anxiety teachers" is still murky to me. This blog is a start. I hope that you, my dear readers, will share in this endeavor.

Licking OCD Without Licking Toilet Seats (or Please, Oprah, go back to interviewing John Travolta and Eckhart Tolle!)

I rarely watch talk shows, but sometimes there's a topic on that I simply can't resist. Today Oprah covered a subject I find endlessly fascinating: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (or OCD, for short). I was ready to learn about the new developments in OCD treatment, but the whole show left me totally repulsed. The show followed Dr. John Grayson as he "treated" several people affected by time- and life-consuming OCD. His belief is that through "exposure", people can be "cured" of OCD, much like radiation or chemotherapy can elimiate cancer. While I believe exposure can be helpful, I found Dr. Grayson's methods abhorrent. He asked a man who suffered from germ phobia to touch a toilet seat and then lick his hands. Then he asked several people to touch the inside of a Philly Dumpster and lick their hands. (Don't we all want to just lick our hands after touching the residue of cheesesteak and Yuengling vomit?)

Now, like I said, I believe practicing exposure can be helpful, but this was ridiculous and disgusting. Dr. Grayson insisted that the people affected by OCD were in control during their "exposure", but he neglected to consider the influence of being told by a doctor in front of the richest woman in the world's camera people to perform these gross practices. And secondly, these people wanted to be free from the many rituals they perform to keep themselves clean. No one said they wanted to be able to lick their hands after touching a toilet seat or a trash bin. His "exposures" seemed extremely far removed from their real-life experiences.

When I was young, I wanted desperately to be able to jump off the high diving board at the pool. I was also terrified to go up there. So, I would go as far as I could before the fear would force me to turn back. The first time up, I made it to the top of the stairs. The second time, I went as far as the end of the hand rails. Then a step past the hand rails. Then to the very end of the board. I thought about turning back, but I remembered my goal and all the scary things I did before (and survived) to get there, and I jumped. This "exposure" worked because I decided how far to go, and each subsequent "exposure" built on the one before it.

We can overcome our worst fears. And we can do it without inducing gag reflexes or panic attacks!