Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
Woke up this morning with stuffy nose and sore throat. Kids all have runny noses too. Not too long after getting up the cold symptoms pretty much dissapeared. Was having a pretty good day until I seen a news article online as well as getting a phone call from my mom about how bad the h1n1 virus is spreading around. We have at least a dozen young adults as well as children on life support at our main state hospital because of this flu. As soon as I heard this all my cold symptoms came back and now feel body aches and worse then I did this morning. My family never does flu shots so we didnt get them this year either. I am so anti medicine for anything so I cant imagine injecting something into me that i cant just stop taking if it causes any horrible side effects! Is anybody else freaking out about this horrible outbreak?
I can definitely relate. I have bad contamination fears (OCD) and anytime I hear about an outbreak or illness, I freak out.
Since I deal with this myself, I'm probably not the best person to offer advice. But, I have realized that, number one, often these news reports on TV are over sensationalized. Couple that with our tendency to catastrophize, and suddenly the issue at hand is a lot bigger in our heads than it is in reality. I think realizing this, as well as my own tendency to blow things out of proportion, has really put things into perspective for me.
Second, realize that there is only so much you can do to protect yourself. Be cognizant of keeping your hands away from your mouth/eyes/face, wash your hands before you eat and when you get home from a public place, eat healthy and get enough sleep. These things all help strengthen your immune system and prevent you from getting sick. If you take these precautions, you are doing more than probably 75% of the population. Also, stressing and worrying won't protect you from getting sick. In fact, the extra stress actually weakens your immune system. I know that knowing this doesn't make the anxiety go away, but it can help.
I hope this helped. Just do what you can to keep clean, but don't stress over it. The most important thing is to remain relaxed and remember that no matter what happens, you will be okay. Best wishes.