Is this actually helping me feel better?
When I get anxious, I tend to run away from it by surfing Facebook on my phone. I feel uncomfortable and nervous and Facebook is something very easy and mindless. My mind sees it as an escape — a pressure release valve. I always picture Facebook as fun posts about my friends, like a fun little mini-vacation into the world of grown-ups. The thing is when I’m done, I often feel worse than I felt before. You never know what kind of content you’re going to get with Facebook, but there’s usually a lively debate or scary news feature that’s making the rounds. It can leave me feeling like I am spinning around in the same sort of high emotion soup as before.
When I realized I was spending way too much time on social media, I had to look at the addictive behaviors that were sucking me in again and again. If you want to look at your unhealthy internet use, I share some tips in this post.
An important part of what I worked on was finding better things to work out my anxious feelings. If Facebook doesn’t actually make me feel better, what does? For me, I have found the following behaviors actually help me feel better:
- Exercise, especially outside
- Talking it out with a friend
- Journaling
- Using a meditation app
- Drink a hot beverage
- Clean something
The above are all healthy and great choices to really fix the problem. But sometimes, I’m too exhausted and really all I want to do is veg out on my phone. If I’m feeling emotionally sensitive and want mindless fun on the phone, I often find it healthier to surf things that are less deep and more visual. Some ideas for safe and chill things to do on my phone:
- Listen to a trashy romance audiobook
- Surf Pinterest projects
- Watch funny YouTube videos
- Surf through dresses on the online thrift store (ThredUp)
It may sound silly, but Pinterest often brings me back to my crafty side, and YouTube videos make me laugh. I never walk away feeling worse looking at dress pattern hacks. It’s not that I never read deep topics, but during this long COVID pandemic period, fun books with guaranteed happy endings are their own kind of therapy.
What do you do when your stress or anxiety gets overwhelming? Do you have things you run too that don’t actually help you feel better or maybe aren’t the healthiest choices? What other things might you try to break out of your cycle of nerves and stress.
