Can I Cure My Anxiety?

I’ve spent a lifetime chasing my anxiety but maybe it’s trying to do me a favour

I cracked open the fortune cookie and it said: ‘No need to worry! You will always have everything you need!’ But what I need is to not worry. 

I’ve always been an anxious person. I’m on high alert most of the time. If someone walks too close to me on the street, the hairs on my neck prick up. I’m very sensitive to the energy of people in a room and the mood someone is in can transmit into my body and stay there.

Home alone, without people to upset my equilibrium, I feel anxious about almost everything. So many WhatsApp messages  I receive bring that unsettled feeling into my body. I’m always anxious about money, no matter how much I have. It’s like fingers are constantly wiggling in my tight chest. 

When I do yoga or stretch, I can feel all the tension I hold. So much of that tension is in my jaw. I can feel it now. I don’t want to be so tense. From unhealthy to healthy coping mechanisms, I’ve spent a lifetime chasing my anxiety in the pursuit of my aspiration to be chill. 

My latest methods include: seeds on my ears that I press and breathe deeply for 20 seconds, bathing my feet in magnesium flakes and weekly sauna sessions. Sweating hard is the most effective method to quieten the body and mind. I exercise a lot, not because I’m virtuous, but because my brain is a nightmare if I don’t. I also do gross things like pick at my skin. 

I recently read some recovery memoirs and saw myself in them. Octavia Bright, in her memoir, This Ragged Grace, wrote: 

There’s a common misunderstanding that addiction is about pleasure, that addicts are greedy, undisciplined people who don’t have any willpower and want every desire indulged without question, like children. But the truth is that once it sets in, addiction is not about feeling good, it’s about not feeling terrible. The pleasure found in the hit of one’s substance choice - be that whiskey, nicotine, cocaine, heroin or sugar - is not so much about what it adds, but what it takes away: an immediate curb of anxiety, depression, fear, exhaustion, regret. Boredom. It keeps one’s feelings at bay, the great repression.

Think of that when next reaching for your phone to scroll. 

I wrote about my coping mechanisms to numb my feelings of grief in my memoir of my twenties called Totally Fine, but have I changed? 

Modern society is set up for us to avoid uncomfortable feelings. I’d argue that makes us all addicts. I feel a craving to pick up my phone far too often and I’m addicted to scrolling even though it’s rarely pleasurable (I share my shameful Instagram app time below). We keep ourselves busy, work hard and try to keep moving because we fear what we’ll have to confront if we stop. 

I’ve spent years deep in the world of self-help. The industry’s tactics to calm my brain include reframing anxious thoughts, scheduling time to worry, trusting in the universe and breathing. Lots of breathing. 

I feel better for doing all these things. Eating well, moving my body and looking after myself are essential baselines for an anxious person like me. The unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as alcohol, can trap us in anxiety cycles on a loop and increasingly isolate us from connection with others. However, despite doing all the right things and having a fairly serene working life, anxiety still comes knocking at my chest. 

Towards the end of my last relationship, I was very anxious. At the start of the 2023 new year, my brain was whirring about time passing and my fertility. My body was on edge. I tried to get answers from my partner to quell my anxiety, but he’d react immaturely if I tried to bring up the future: ‘Don’t bother me with this now.’ 

So I didn’t bother him and kept quiet like he told me to. I didn’t listen to that noise in my body and instead went hardcore on wellness. I bought wholegrains, and a peloton and increased my Vitamin D dosage. I felt better for it and my anxiety settled. However, my body was trying to warn me that I was under threat from a man who was wasting my time.

Then I caught him cheating on dating apps and it was time to come down from my wellness high and face the reality that I was with the wrong person.

What would have happened if I’d listened to my anxiety instead of running off to sweat it out at hot yoga? 

The realisation that my anxiety could be my compass has changed how I think about it. Instead of reframing my anxious thoughts, I’m reframing anxiety itself. My anxiety isn’t an enemy to expel from me, but a friend to ask questions to with curiosity. What is it trying to tell me?

Since this reframe, I’ve noticed what sets my anxiety off. I’ve also noticed that if I set a boundary, my anxiety kicks in. When that boundary isn’t respected, the anxious feeling is stronger. I’ve also noticed that I’ve been able to use these feelings as information and take decisive action. When I listen to my body’s signal, I can change direction. 

There are people who have to go and realities I must face. So while I’ll keep moving and doing all the healthy things because that makes me feel good, I’ll also trust my body when it rings the alarm bell because it’s trying to do me a favour. Then, I find that my anxiety is much more temporary when I don’t try to run away from it. 

With love,

Tiff x

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Closing thoughts

This article on The State of the Culture, 2024 is going viral and the TLDR image is this: 

Yes, that’s very bum out. As is the below image from my phone:

Scrolling on Instagram is not how I want to spend my time. I’ve set a 15-minute time limit for the app on my phone (it didn’t work when I set it within the Instagram app FYI). Can I do the alcohol equivalent of just having one drink? Let’s see.

We’re all playing a role in the demise of media as consumers and this podcast on How do we survive the media apocalypse? which I found thanks to

Anna Codrea-Rado

is well worth a listen and as Anna said, it will leave you re-evaluating your role as an ethical internet consumer.

Time for us to wake up!