Anxiety can really ruin a vacation.
At worst the anxious state can attract negative situations that intensify the anxiety and at best it can taint your trip by making it memorable for all the wrong reasons.
At the youthful age of 21 on my way home from my London OE, I stopped in Bali for a much needed holiday on my own. I recall thinking to myself, yay a bit of me time, relaxing on the beach sunbathing for a few days before heading back home to New Zealand, just what the doctor ordered!
I wasn’t expecting to be so bombarded by a huge crowd of locals trying to literally put their goods and services right into my hands, that I couldn’t see 2 feet in front of me, let alone get to a point where I had my towel out and enough space around me to relax on the beach! After buying a beautiful carving and having my hair braided, I realized they weren’t letting up. The more I spent, the more locals followed me around. It got to the point where I feared for my own health as anxiety really started to kick in.
Luckily I met a kind Australian man that looked after me for the next 4 days of my stay, although he wasn’t really my type, he was a damn site better to be around than a crowd of financially hungry locals and once they realized we were together they left us alone. I did enjoy my time with him a lot more but was a little anxious about him and his motives with me. So the anxiety was still there but I chose the lesser anxious situation to see me through the trip. At the end of the trip I had to explain to this guy that although I enjoyed his company, I was not going to be accompanying him back to live with him in Australia. If only Gina’s Tour Company had been around 20 years ago and I’d had the sense not to travel on my own as a 21 year old female! Oh the joys of hind sight lol.
Me at the youthful age of 21 with my “Bali braids”.
Now that I have 20 years of personal experience in how to get anxiety and anxiety attacks under control from personal self-help experiences and from my professional experience as a meditation, mindfulness and EFT expert and a qualified Ayurvedic Lifestyle consultant (ancient Indian philosophy and herbal medicine), I have a very useful tool kit I’d love to share with you today:
Here are the 4 best ways to minimize your anxiety before and during your tour:
1: Know Your Anxiety Triggers
Know the thoughts, situations and fears around your anxiety. What thoughts do you repetitively think about that make you anxious? What situations are you worrying about having to deal with on this trip? What are your fears surrounding this trip? Becoming aware of these thoughts and fears is your first step.
2: The Emotional Freedom Technique (see video tutorial to learn how to do it)
Most of the time 90% of what you worry about doesn’t happen so the best thing to do about these worries and fears is to use a very easy meditative tool called EFT (the emotional freedom technique) to release the fears, thoughts and concerns so you don’t think about them anymore and therefore they will no longer cause you anxiety. It only takes a couple of minutes to do and is very effective at reducing and sometimes fully eliminating a worry, negative thought or feeling anxious in general.
I used to suffer consistently with anxiety, PTSD symptoms and body pain from stored trauma and hypertension and are still prone to bouts of these but I would travel with no problems these days knowing I can use EFT on any issues that arise so therefore my limitations are decreased significantly. Video tutorial can be found here; https://skl.sh/2NP6hz1
3: Walk Barefoot to Ground Yourself
Walking barefoot on the ground (grass or sand is best) whenever you can is awesome for relieving and preventing anxiety build up. It helps to ground your nervous system, reduce inflammation in the body and helps calm the mind from anxious thoughts.
4: Know Your Body’s Physical Anxiety Cues
What I mean by this is to know what signs and symptoms are precursors to building up anxiety such as ignoring essential body comforts by skipping meals or exceeding your body’s limits by drinking too much coffee or eating foods you know your digestive system struggles to digest well. Once you know these signs and symptoms you can plan for them by packing suitable snacks so that hunger doesn’t exacerbate your symptoms, and taking a flask of worry free tea with you to sip on to gently reduce your anxiety through the day trips while eliminating dehydration issues.
If you suffer with exhaustion and find you swing between tiredness and hyper energy states, you may want to look into restoring your body’s natural energy stores so that adrenalin doesn’t kick in the minute you start feeling anxious. Worry Free Tablets are the best natural remedy I’ve found to reverse adrenal fatigue as well as drastically reduce anxiety within half an hour. They are perfect to take on tour to use before bed to restore your energy and re-balance worried or anxious minds while you sleep.
Since I have adapted all of the above methods to my everyday life (no longer requiring any natural remedies but rely purely on mindfulness, meditation and EFT) and very rarely experience anxiety issues that I can’t get under control in 5-10 mins using the above techniques, I have developed a consultation that takes you through the above steps thoroughly to help you minimize your anxiety for your next trip and teach you how to use it for any situation causing you anxiety in the future.
Feel free to ring me for a chat or to book an appointment. Contact me on; info@profoundmindfulness.com
Written by Chantelle Brown of Profound Mindfulness
Want to understand the EFT; Emotional Freedom Technique and how it works? Check out this tutorial video- https://skl.sh/2NP6hz1
Chantelle is available to all the women who are or are thinking of taking one of my tours or retreats, to support you through any anxiety issues.
Chantelle is a Mindfulness coach, a meditation expert and Ayurvedic Lifestyle Consultant since 2009 after graduating from Wellpark College of Natural Therapies. She has used meditation daily to overcome her own health problems that ranged from anxiety and social anxiety to symptoms of fibromyalgia, consistent back and neck pain and a reduced ability to walk and run without pain and limited range of movement.
You can find out more on her website here:http://profoundmindfulness.com
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