Anxiety? Or Something Else?

A woman in a brown dress is sitting on the floor with her head in her hands and her feet kicking in the air.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 vi Unsplash

Do you ever feel anxious all of the sudden, and for seemingly no reason, at the end of the day? And when you try to solve it using your usual tools it doesn't really feel like it helps? I had this problem for a while, almost every workday around 9pm, I would begin to feel what I thought was anxious. After thinking about it for a while and talking about it with my therapist, I began to realize how regular it was and realized that the problem wasn't anxiety, my body was trying to tell me that it needed to stim! I had been masking all day and now that I was home in a safe environment it was telling me to move. 

The main thing that has helped me to reduce the feeling is to stim more, both when my body needs it and throughout the day. I have found that big movements are the most helpful, such as walking or pacing around the room, rocking, or even running on the treadmill. 

Somethings that have helped me to get that evening feeling less often are to stim more throughout the day and to engage in my hobbies and special interests. The best solution to this problem is to proudly stim throughout the day, but even I am not that brave 😉. Another great long term solution would be to workout regularly, but I cannot speak to the efficacy of that option either. 

Either way, I think that this is a sign that everyone should stim more, no matter who they are.

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