Art & Anxiety

Trigger Warning: anxiety, panic attacks

I remember the first time I had a panic attack.
Do you remember your first time?
I didn't know what was going on and it really did scare me. Its been years since that first time. I was really quiet about having anxiety. It has been something that affects my relationships and at times it has been this monster that follows me every day.

In fact I dealt with that monster yesterday.  It literally brought me to my knees, had me in tears and looking for my phone to call 911.

Its hard for me to talk about. Its just such a scary thing for me. Instead of going into full blown examples. Lets talk about what I'm doing on this journey.

One winter my anxiety was awful. I couldn't sleep. I was not my best. This is when I started painting. My husband was buying me adult coloring books, acrylic paint and so many things.

Art by the permission of Allaah has helped me immensely. Its hard for me to think about stress while doing art.

• It help calms my mind.
• my focus isn't on the whispers
• I can express myself
• I get joy from it and sharing it

Art is truly a therapy for me. After making tons of prayer and drinking a turmeric- i work on getting my brain to refocus.  Its hard for me to put a emphasis on things when I am too busy trying to nail a drawing or working on my Quran journaling.

Now there are times where the anxiety is 100 and I'm over focused on the stress that I don't always draw. Just writing this makes me cry...
How I manage those moments will be for another post.
If you haven't give art a chance.
Try the following;

• creative journaling
  
• Quran journaling
  
• Drawing
  
• painting
  
• sewing
  
• junk journaling
  
• scrapbooking
  

Drawing, scrapbooking and journaling have been my go to activities. Art is one way to cope with anxiety.
What's your way?