For the past month or so, life has taken me down a road whether I wanted to walk it or not.  I officially moved in with my fiance, I came upon the deadline to get my book proposal to my editor and I’m finalizing the details on our wedding.  Anxiety has been a frontrunner in my emotions.

I only recently realized that I hold my breath…a lot.  My coworker heard me sigh and asked what was wrong.  Dave also mentioned that I sigh a lot.  I knew that I did, but I never realized it was because I hold my breath when I’m feeling stressed or anxious.  I wonder when this started?

From what I’ve read online, it seems this is directly correlated with anxiety.  I know I’ve been stressed and over-committed (this sound familiar to anyone) but I figured it was just my typical reaction.  That may be so, but I am finding that my unhealthy habit of anxiety instead of healthy stress, might be back.  That terrifies me.

I never realized I had anxiety until Kevin became very ill and I had a panic attack in the surgical waiting room in front of my entire family.  I went on meds to control the problem on an as needed basis. I have been proud to say that I’ve been off my anxiety and anti-depressants for a couple of years now, however, I can’t say that the problem is “solved”.  Will it ever be?

With another new chapter of my life just around the corner, I want to find healthy ways of dealing with stress and anxiety.  One seems to be completely correlated with the other.  I don’t want to hold my breath; it’s not healthy.  In fact, now that I’m putting this down, I wonder if the caffeine I cut out (coffee) was not the trigger, but moreso the holding of my breath would trigger my heart palpitations.  Or maybe, it was the combination of both things making my heartbeat go nuts.

Whenever something goes a little bit wrong, I tense my shoulders and hold my breath.  I would love your suggestions for releasing this and just rolling with the punches, something I’ve never been good with.

Anxiety has such a control in my life, and with a dominant personality, I crave control far too much.  How do you let go?