秋日的焦虑如何摆脱?

Even as I love the autumn season, it is full of anxiety for me.

尽管我热爱秋天，但是对我来说，秋天仍然充满焦虑。

I start to mourn the ending of summer when I hear the cicadas grow louder the last two weeks of August and when I feel the crispness in the air at that time, which brings less sunlight and longer nights. Then the back-to-school craze: buying shoes, supplies, backpacks, etc. and trying to catch up on the homework we didn’t do during June and July. By the time I make it to the parent-teacher conferences in early September, when I hear about all the things I’m supposed to be doing with the kids, I’m well into panic mode.

在八月最后的两周内，蝉叫声一浪高于一浪，我感受到空气中清冽的味道，阳光变得稀薄，夜晚越来越长，我开始对夏末依依不舍。然后我开始了返校的疯狂准备：买鞋子、日用品和背包等，忙着完成六月和七月没有完成的家务。直到九月初的家长会上，我了解了带孩子应该做的事情，我几乎崩溃了。

The other day, my therapist and I talked about a few coping exercises to keep my anxiety from disabling me this time of year.

前几天，我的心理医生和我讨论了应对秋季焦虑的一些方法。

1. Pick a sound or object to be your Xanax.

My therapist looks up to the clouds. They calm her down in traffic or whenever she feels anxious. For me it’s the water. I don’t now if it’s because I’m a Pisces (fish), but the water has always calmed me down in the same way as Xanax, and since I don’t take the latter (as a recovering alcoholic, I try to stay away from sedatives), I need to rely on the former. So I just downloaded some “ocean waves” that I can listen to on my iPod when I feel that familiar knot in my stomach.

1. 选择一个声音或者物品作为你的镇定药

我的心理医生喜欢抬头看云，这样使她在繁忙的交通或者焦虑的时候心平气和。对我来说，水能够起到这样的效果。不知道是不是因为我是双鱼座（和鱼有关），水像镇定剂一样让我平静下来，因为我从不服用镇定剂（作为一名改过自新的酗酒者，我要远离镇定剂。），所以我要完全依赖水。于是我在IPod中下载了一些“海洋的声音”，当我开始焦虑的时候就拿出来听听。

2. Repeat: “I am good enough.”

My therapist reminded me this morning that even if I don’t meet other people’s standards or my own, I am good enough for God. And that’s all that really matters. So whenever I feel the pinch of anxiety when I don’t have time to call back a friend or send a response to an email or write the blog post that I said I’d write, I should remind myself that I am good enough in the eyes of God.

2. 重复：“我已经足够好了。”

今天早上我的心理医生提醒我，即使我没有满足别人甚至自己的要求，对上帝来说，我已经足够好了。而且这才是最有意义的。所以在我没有给朋友回电话、回邮件或者没有按照原计划写博客的时候，当焦虑袭上心头，我会提醒自己在上帝的眼中我已经足够好了。

3. Take it one minute at a time.

One cognitive adjustment that helps relieve anxiety is reminding myself that I don’t have to think about 2:45 pm when I pick up the kids from school and how I will be able to cope with the noise and chaos when I’m feeling this way, or about the boundary issue I have with a friend–whether or not I’m strong enough to continue putting myself first in that relationship. All I have to worry about is the very second before me. If I am successful at breaking my time down that way, I usually discover that everything is fine for the moment.

3. 活在当下

一个心理调整以缓解焦虑的方法，是告诉自己不必考虑下午两点四十五分，当我把孩子从学校接回家后如何处理那些喧哗和混乱，或者处理和朋友的关系问题——我是否该把自己放在这段关系的首要位置。所以我最应该担心的是眼下的事情。如果我能够成功地将时间分解，我通常发现当下的一切都很好。

4. Pay attention to your breath.

Another easy exercise to ground yourself in the moment and manage anxiety is to concentrate on your breath–and move it ever so gradually from your chest to your diaphragm–because the extra oxygen will send a message to your prefrontal cortex that every thing is just fine even though the fear center of the brain (the amygdala) doesn’t think so at all.

4. 注意你的呼吸

另一个集中精力活在当下和控制焦虑的简单方法注意你的呼吸——使空气慢慢从你的胸部向你的隔膜流动——因为额外的空气会给你的前额皮层发送信息，一切良好，尽管大脑恐惧的信息中心（扁桃体）并不这样认为。

5. Learn from it.

Anxiety doesn’t have to be triggered by an event, but it certainly can motion some adjustment that you need to make in your life. My anxiety says that I am doing too much, once again. Over the summer I forgot about my fragile chemistry and attempted to work full time and take care of the kids full time until, in August, I was going on fumes. What adjustments do I need to make? Bite off less professionally and invest more energy into finding good help for the kids and housework. Because I can’t do it all.

5. 从焦虑中学习

焦虑并不一定是由某一事件引发的，但是它的确预示了你需要对你的生活进行一些调整。我的焦虑使我体会到我做得太多了。整个夏天，我开动马力，全身投入工作，照顾孩子，直到8月，我筋疲力尽。我需要做怎样的调整？减少工作量，投入更多的精力为孩子提供帮助和做家务。因为我不能面面俱到。