Patterns are similar

I suffered with migraine most of my life. The headache symptoms went away when the anxiety started 4 years ago. I am now recognizing that the anxiety comes in the same pattern as the migraines. Weather, especially wind was a big trigger for my migraines and now I see it playing the same role with anxiety. The anxiety symptoms will disappear or dissipate just as the migraine symptoms use to. It was a mystery to me then and remains a mystery now. I am sure it is all TMS. Any ideas on this and how I can break out of the pattern.

 

Practice being with your anxiety when it comes as calmly as possible. You are retraining your brain by doing this to not add secondary stress and worry to the anxiety about the anxiety. Over time the peaks of anxiety will reduce, positivity and confidence will take its place. Anxiety will try to attach itself to all sorts of things, like your stressful association with the wind, but it is only negative thoughts about situations causing this. The reality is usually a lot less dramatic. This is a practice in self care that is well worth the effort.

 

In "Hope And Help For Your Nerves", Claire Weekes describes the emotional and physiological components of anxiety, and gives you a specific and easy strategy for doing as BirdSetFree suggests. It's a simple but invaluable little book that has saved untold thousands of sufferers from the tyranny of lifelong anxiety, myself included. It's my #2 book after The Divided Mind.

A daily practice of journaling followed by meditation is also hugely helpful for long term maintenance, but read Dr Weekes first.

 

Thank you both for your kind, soothing words and suggestions. I have read Dr Weekes's book and it seems a good time to review it again. I find TMS to be very complicated with so many quirks and angles and possibilities. Daily meditation has been valuable and perhaps I will start a daily journal too. Up to now I have just been journaling when an issue pops up. I can see now, after a year at this, that it is a matter of learning to live with TMS and making the necessary changes for long term maintenance. Kind of like all that flossing for my teeth.

 

Nicole Sachs makes a really good case for daily journaling, followed by meditation. She has an excellent podcast, and talks about this a lot.