The need to fill time.

I'm a doer. I was raised in a family where down time was a rare commodity. If I wasn't doing something productive, it was frowned on.  This isn't to say that we wouldn't do things that were simply for fun. However, my life was often just go, go, go.  There were very few dull spots in my life.  Even our family entertainment activities were often very fast and focused. When I switched professions to mental health, the idea of self care was a tremendous transition for me. Self care? What the heck is that?

In mental health, self care is the concept of doing things just for you that make you feel balanced. I didn't know how to do things for myself without it being something with a deadline. Even if it was quilting or doing the laundry, it was about when I had to finish it and who I was doing it for.To this day, I struggle with doing something simply for the enjoyment of doing it. If I am sitting there watching a football game, I will be thinking that I should be quilting or working on a craft for somebody for Christmas with all this spare time on my hands. I cannot remember the last time I just sat and watched football just for the enjoyment of watching football.

A lot of what triggers people to eat stems from the need to constantly be doing. If you are a naturally anxious person, and you don't feel like you're being productive enough, that impulse can translate into eating. Have you ever found yourself exhausted with an activity and suddenly you're standing in the kitchen looking in the cabinet or the refrigerator, as if switching to eating will be a more productive activity that your brain can handle for that moment? Anxiety eating is a well documented problem. The act of chewing and crunching on something helps relieve the tension that we are physically experiencing by being anxious. This is well documented even in young children which is why you now see the fidget devices that you can chew on in classes. You've seen a kid chew on a pencil or a pen during class. The need to chew somehow relieves some of that anxious energy.

For a lot of us, practicing doing something just for the sake of doing it almost feels like learning how to redo a habit you already have. For instance, many people will read a book with the television on or not be able to simply watch a movie, like me, and must have something in their hands at the same time. I'm not truly engaged in either activity. I have to practice using my brain and all of its resources to focus on one activity at a time. The advantages to this are that you will be less anxious because you're not allowing your brain to multitask constantly, which can cause added stress, and you will get more pleasure from completely and totally focusing on a single task.

When I write in my blog to you guys, it is normally because I have a series of thoughts going through my head that are not allowing me to focus on the things I should be focusing on. I journal these thoughts to you guys and go back to focusing on my activity. So maybe this week, we should practice the art of focusing on our tasks throughout the day, each individual one, with less multitasking. Let us see if this helps us calm some of the anxious impulse that we carry with us throughout the day. Let us see if this also helps relieve some of the pressure to anxiously eat.

If you're struggling with self harming or suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the Suicide hotline (1-800-273-8255). Always feel free to use our chat or 7 cups just to have someone to talk to.

We're in this together.

Jess