Laughing at Anxiety – Or With It – Or Something

[I originally wrote this article for the Huffington Post – click here to see it in its natural habitat] Laughter is the best medicine. (Unless you’re trying to treat insomnia, in which case laughter is at best highly inconvenient or – more likely – annoying beyond belief.) But how useful is laughter for the anxious?…

Shoot The Moon (And Aim For Happy)

In the addictive card game, Hearts, the play that scores the most points is known as ‘Shooting the Moon’. I’m greatly in favour of this. The moon has sat there for long enough, arrogantly watching over us. For aeons it has floated judgementally over the Earth, thinking it’s better than us, all ‘romantically’ flying around…

The Little Virus Who Fell In Love

There once was a virus who fell in love with its host. It drifted around in their bloodstream, dreamily content with its lot in life. Every moment was a joy. It was physically joined with its true love, and it had never wanted anything more. One day, after a spate of joyous multiplying, the virus…

It’s Helpful to Seek Fresh Perspectives

Let’s summarise The Story So Far of this initial exploration of anxiety. And because I’m dangerously over-organised, let’s do it as a list: It wasn’t obvious to me that I even had anxiety, despite being constantly anxious forever. My first instinct was to hide it, repress it, and pretend everything was okay… but that just…

Untangling Anxiety: The First Step

The first thing I had to do after admitting that I had anxiety was to decide to actually do something towards being less anxious. Well, I say the “first” thing. But this decision actually took me several years. In fairness, I was busy! You can’t just drop everything and go ‘deal with anxiety’, can you?…