Overcoming Anxiety If You Live on Your Own

If you suffer with anxiety and panic attacks, the prospect or the reality of living on your own may seem a rather less than attractive proposition than it would otherwise. However, it is an excellent, positive position to be in. Not convinced?

Living on your own offers so many more opportunities for you to tackle panic attacks than if you were living with other people, either friends or family. Indeed, other people may be the cause of some problem areas and create anxiety in those who live with them.

In a previous article I stressed the importance of your lifestyle and the impact it can have on panic attacks. Hopefully, if you read the article in question you have begun to look closely at those elements in the way you live your life which might be working against you being free from attacks. It is too easy, as I know, to fall into unhealthy and unhelpful habits when you only have yourself to account for. Indulgence shows its negative face.

Giving yourself only good things which please you reinforces your self-worth positively. For example, ordering what you want to eat from the menu, even if it is the most expensive item, is saying that you are worth it. Ordering the cheapest (not because of lack of money or because you want that particular dish) is the same as saying you are not. Reinforcing your self-worth is important, but indulging in things which only serve to expand your waistline, or make you drunk, or deny your body the vitamins and minerals it needs to stay healthy, is not something which shows you value yourself. You might like to pause here and think about those things which are excessive in your life and which negate your self-worth.

Your feelings of self-worth start in childhood. What responsibilities do parents believe they have to their children? To love them and keep them warm, safe and secure may be top of the agenda; to provide opportunities for them which they as children might have missed out on, for whatever reason; to develop a clone image of themselves and successfully transfer their values onto them.

These may or may not be worthy aims. But one thing that is important is whether parents assume the responsibility of helping their children become fully functioning independent human beings, who know how to make their own decisions and how to cope effectively with mistakes. I wonder how many parents actively encourage independent thought and how many make sure their children have the life skills necessary for them to pass successfully and happily through into adulthood? It is during childhood that learning about the practicalities of life and about how to value your self-worth should take place. Perhaps you feel it didn't happen to you.

But we are dynamic beings, never static and always able to change and adapt. If you think you may not have been given appropriate instruction in life skills which should be your self-protection and self-support through life, you might like to start changing now and begin to strengthen those areas in which you feel weak or lacking. Start to make those lifestyle changes which will lead to a more supportive and pleasurable environment for yourself.

The point I want to make is that those people who are sharing their lives with others might find it far more difficult to make those necessary and perhaps major lifestyle changes. Instead of being free to modify their eating/sleeping/social habits literally overnight, they may have to negotiate through possibly conflicting demands and needs from others. If you live on your own you are unfettered by such restrictions. You are in an ideal position to make as many positive changes as you like in as short a space of time as you want. And change them back again. Or try something completely different next week. The choice is yours.