Why “Nice” Advice Used to Stress Me Out

And how I fixed it.

When you have an anxiety disorder, you’re used to navigating the world of “life advice” like football players doing the block and tackle. New perspectives are coming at you from all directions, and it’s your job to quarterback yourself through the experience intact. It’s not always easy, though.

In the past few years, I’ve learned that even well-intentioned, “nice” advice needs reframing in order to avoid leaving a mark. It’s just part of having anxiety.

Through my past few years of job changes, there’s been one piece of advice that’s come up more than others. I’ve heard it again and again. It’s: “Embrace Who You Are.” Though it’s definitely a nice sentiment, since I have anxiety, being told to embrace my true self has made me feel:

Here’s Why.

Anxiety made it very hard to know what, exactly, what I should be embracing. Anxiety obscured who I was and what I liked. All I could hear was pressure and static inside my head. Well-intentioned advice like “Embrace Who You Are” added pressure to an already-tight space.

I Tried This Instead.

When someone gives me the “embrace who you are” advice, I’ve learned to reframe it into:

Seek the space to allow your inner voice to speak up.

This was my daughter at the beach last week. She pondered sand for 20 minutes.

Instead of piling another difficult to-do onto the list, I’ve used this reframe to remove them, giving myself room to let the answers start to bubble up themselves.

For those of us with anxiety, the best advice is never about trying harder to do anything. I’ll sound like Yoda here, but the advice that works all enters on this theme: Create the space, and the insight will come.

This is how I learned to reframe “nice” advice so that it works for me. I hope it works for you, too!

Why I Would Never Create a Donation Page

And what changed my mind.

For the past two years I’ve been working on a website to help people struggling with stress, anxiety, perfectionism and overthinking. In that time, many well-intentioned friends have suggested that I ask for donations to support my work. My response:

Why all the head shaking, you ask?

When it came to donations, my biggest fear was audience perception. (Shouldn’t be a surprise considering what I write about.) I didn’t like the idea of my site, which works to connect sensitive overthinkers with each other, being categorized as “just another non-profit.” I worried that it made it easier for people to write my work off since in our country, we take businesses more seriously than we do social work.

I was also very aware of the pressure it put on friends and family. I’m trying to change perceptions about mental health. I didn’t want to stress more people out.

I also wanted to make sure that the money I asked for served a purpose. Asking for donations before my site had proven its worth to readers and community members felt all wrong.

So what changed?

https://bevoya.com/donate

Earlier today, for the first time, I added a donate page to the Beautiful Voyager. Here’s why it finally felt like time:

• Today I launched the Beautiful Voyager Marketplace. In creating a business model that would help others build their own creative businesses while helping me support the Beautiful Voyager, I no longer felt vulnerable to the same potential criticism I had in the past.

• My vision is being validated by an audience. In the BV Slack group, nearly every day I see comments like, “I am so happy I found Beautiful Voyager. It has made a huge difference in how I see myself and the world.” These statements let me know that I am on the right path in what I’m creating.

• I can’t build my vision alone. It’s OK to ask others for help if you know that what you’re building is special. This no longer worries me.

• My brother told me I needed to do it, saying that he would donate if I put the donation form up. And he did, too! He was the first one. Sometimes you just have to listen to family.

Want to be a rockstar? Join in now.

Thank you for reading!

Migraines, Anxiety, and Magnesium

Have you been given advice about taking magnesium for stress, anxiety, or migraines, but not sure what to take? Read a story in Teen Vogue about the best foods to eat to get more magnesium, and wondering what it's all about? Curious about what others are experiencing when it comes to magnesium? I wanted to share my story in the hopes of helping others figure out their own confusing magnesium needs.

Magnesium-rich almonds and spinach.

My own path with magnesium supplements was fills with stops and starts. I first started experimenting with it back in June of 2014 when my UCSF neurologist gave me the advice:

Get Magnesium Ox 400 mg from Walgreen’s. Take 800mg. Take 1 at night to begin, then graduate to 2 at night after dinner, around an hour before bed. 

(I kept a Google doc of exactly what she said in an effort to make sure I was tracking and keeping straight everything that was happening at that time.)

Because I'm a perfectionist and rule-follower, I did exactly as she said. I bought Magnesium Oxide and slowly built up to 800 mg.

What I didn't realize at the time is that Magnesium Oxide has some pretty nasty side effects.

I confirmed on Reddit (as you do) that I was not alone in the side effects I was experiencing:

I was in the trial-and-error phase of magnesium. It wasn't pretty. From my pathetic notes of that era:

Magnesium Oxide could be to blame for the diarrhea problem. Have switched to Magnesium Glycinate and will see how that goes. Diarrhea caused enormous hemorrhoid so I now need to do more epsom salt soaks (which also, ironically, means more magnesium).

Bottom line (pardon the pun): If you've had a baby within the past few years, be cautious with your testing, as the ill-effects (as you see above) can last weeks!

A friend of mine was in a similar, not nearly as bad boat. I asked what she was taking and she said:  

"I take 240 mg a day of Magnesium Glycinate. But for one week before my period and a couple of days into it I take 480 mg a day. I'm taking the Pure Encapsulations gel caps just before bed, and it doesn't seem to give me any problems."

Here are some more first-hand experiences from fellow headache sufferers.

The biggest side effects that most people seem to suffer are: digestive issues like an upset stomach or diarrhea, fatigue, sleepiness. Psychology Today once called magnesium supplements "the chill pill," so it's a good idea to take your magnesium at bed. I take my mine at night because it does have a soporific effect. 

 I take 400 mg of chelated magnesium every day in addition to the magnesium I get from eating foods like almonds and spinach. 

But it also has a positive effect on both my migraines and my anxiety. I would recommend magnesium to anyone who is up for trying new approaches to feeling better.  

Good luck! I'd love to hear what works for you. Share below in comments.

How Anxiety Feels as a Teenager in India

The Manisha/Shahpura lake of Bhopal. Photo credit: Pratigya 

Dear Anxiety,

If I could say three words to you, I would undoubtedly say 'please stop'. You silently laugh that I can't count but honestly I'm too tired to give a second thought to something that's been on my mind for far too long now. I've been meaning to say this for quite sometime, or maybe since the day we started and I was scared to say this until now, but I don't think this is working out.

Pratigya

I think we need to part so you might as well find another host to feed upon. You seemed nice in the beginning; you taught me things that I could not have managed learning on my own, but now I want to do this alone. And oh yeah, I do have to appreciate how you pointed out to me that enjoying one's own company is good for a change; but I see through you, you wanted to keep me all to yourself, didn't you? Funny how not too long ago I used to laugh at girls who could not see that they were clearly being used, and now life has come a full circle and I silently curse myself to have been so blind to see that ours was never a fair truce.

The Manisha/Shahpura lake, here in Bhopal. Photo credit: Pratigya 

So please, dear anxiety, just stop. Stop messing with my head so much. Stop interfering in matters that have no need for you. Stop sneaking up on me on random days and whispering 'hello'. Stop dragging me down into lanes where you and your friends hang out. Stop using me like your personal ruse.

You've done more than enough, so much so that I have forgotten where the line used to be. You've succeeded in your plan and thrown me off my feet. You've pushed me into alleyways that I don't recognize. You've turned me into a being that's more of a monster and less of a human. Like a skilled puppeteer you've fooled me into destroying myself such that I'm the only one left who can be blamed and chastised.
So, tonight, not for the first time but surely for the last I order you to leave because I've finally come to accept a long known fact, that it's you and not me.

(Not) Yours (anymore),

T.Q.M.

Pratigya is a 19-year-old undergrad commerce student in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh in India. She originally published this post on Medium.

This is where Pratigya lives.

A Clear Case of Anxiety in Motion

How the desire to cross something off the list can lead to bad work

Note: I sent this out as an email the day after my last newsletter, “What’s Up With the Unconscious Mind?”

I was in the middle of finishing up my newsletter for the social network of overthinkers, bevoya.com. Alone and taking care of my 6-year-old daughter, a work issue suddenly popped up. Though I was distracted and I hadn’t completely finished my process of nailing down what I wanted to say in the newsletter, I hit send. I wanted the dopamine hit. I wanted to move on.

People don’t usually unsubscribe from the bevoya newsletter. But after rushing and sending this one out, 2 people unsubscribed pretty quickly. I was upset and disturbed. Not because people had decided what I was creating wasn’t for them. I was upset because I hadn’t given myself the spaceto finish my work and send it when it was ready to go. My anxiety to finish and feel done had pushed me to hit send before I was really ready to. I needed more space.

How does the space work?

I keep pondering this idea of space. The best way I can describe it is: the space to create. Focused relaxation.

If I were to do it over, I would have forced myself to wait to send that newsletter. I would have rewritten it when I had time. I would have achieved the completion of my thought and felt my conclusion click, nailing the ending (a very different feeling than the dopamine-send hit).

Make space for yourselves, friends. That’s the takeaway here. You don’t need to rush everything. Especially the things you are doing to help yourself feel better.

Love, Meredith

p.s. In case you’re curious, you can read the original version of the newsletter and the version I ended up posting here on Medium, after I gave myself some space to connect the pieces of thinking.