I live with (and work with, and mother with, and create with) chronic generalized anxiety disorder. It has taken a long time for me to share this openly. The stigma around mental health is still so strong! But that is why I need to share this. It has meant so much to me when other moms and entrepreneurs have shared their journey. If this post can help just one person feel less alone, it is worth it. 

​Before I dive into the weird strategies I have for keeping my anxiety under control so I can do meaningful work, there is one critical disclaimer. I do take medication, I do go to therapy, and I do practice yoga and meditation and journaling. Supportive and loving friendships and a caring husband are all essential. In no way am I trying to make anyone think that if you come up with the one right "trick" can you solve mental health issues. But, that aside, our brains are tricky and funny things. Creativity can sometimes help, and either way, it makes life a little more fun. 

AND - even if you don't live with chronic anxiety, maybe you know someone who does. Or perhaps these ideas will give your non-anxious brain a new perspective too. One other note for the neurotypical among you, these strategies will not work for everyone. If someone you love has anxiety (or any other concern) and they tell you this doesn't help them - believe them. As I say to my kids all the time, the one thing you can never know is how someone else feels unless they tell you. And when they tell you, believe them. 

​Colors, sounds, smells. All of these stimuli can be triggers for anxiety. Even if you have never had anxiety, you are probably familiar with the feeling of dread that occasionally accompanies the sound of your alarm in the morning or the sight of someone with whom you argued. After a few bad days trying to log in to my computer to work is the same feeling. Or seeing my email background will remind me of a stressful email I got the day before. Or opening my cell phone screen will suck me into scrolling through Facebook to escape. The great news is that I have control over what I see when I open my email or computer or phone. And it can be random! 

By turning on the random screen background, themes in my email, and occasionally rearranging my phone home screen, I avoid getting stuck in mental loops. When I open my laptop, my surprise and curiosity circuits in my brain are triggered instead of the stress ones. As an added benefit, sometimes, the image that pops up on my screen is exceptionally captivating and gives me a shot of pleasure and awe—a much better mental place to start working.

More and more research is showing that mindfulness can help reduce stress and anxiety . The only problem with that is often it can be hard to slow the brain down enough to focus on being mindful in the first place. The solution? Tetris or Soduku puzzles. 

Let's talk about Tetris first. Studies show that Tetris specifically can help reduce anxiety and focus your brain. While researchers are not sure why this is, one speculation is that because you have to focus on the rapidly falling tiles, it helps drown other thoughts out. I use this as an occasional exercise to focus before I dive into a task. To maximize this strategy, I will play one game of Tetris and then set a timer for focused work for 20 minutes. 

Next, Soduku. Psychology Today theorizes that playing games like Soduku are calming to the brain because there IS a correct answer. Unlike the messiness of life, there is a single solution. I find the action of solving solvable problems satisfying and anxiety-reducing. 

For Soduku puzzles, I prefer to do them on paper rather than an app or on the computer. The action of writing is also calming and helps ground me in the real world. 

A caveat, watch out for phone apps or online sites with tons of ads! Not only do these interruptions of your thoughts defeat the focusing purpose of the game, but the ads themselves may be upsetting. One of the things that I like about the basic Tetris game on their website or paper Soduku is that it doesn't trap my brain in a reward circuit link. For example, with special bonuses, or limited time extras, or any of the many other tools game creators use to keep you playing for hours. It can be a fine line between intentionally relieving stress to be more productive and using distractions to avoid and ignore. ​​

​Okay, I don't have a thing called "Productivity Cookies," but maybe I should invent a recipe. As I mentioned before, using a timer can be a powerful tool to keep me from getting mentally stuck. The only problem is that sometimes I ignore the timer when it goes off. Know how to prevent that from happening? Put some cookies in the oven! Nothing quite like the smell of burning cookies to snap you out of your funk. 

Baking is in itself helpful for my anxiety because it focuses me on my senses, what is happening right now in the physical world instead of in my fears, and gives me a sense of satisfaction from completing something. Bonuses to this strategy include that my baby falls asleep in the baby carrier while I walk around the kitchen, and everyone else in the house loves the fresh baked goods!

Geeky tools make my day, and one of my favorites is Boomerang for Gmail. It is one of my big secrets to getting to inbox zero daily. And it is also useful for avoiding distractions when I need to get work done. 

I just hit the "pause" button, and no new emails come into my inbox for a while. Time to set a goal set, a timer, and get working! 

Hanukkah and Thanksgiving are over in the United States. Christmas and Kwanzaa are on their way. This is the time of year when we get so busy with so many things that we can lose site of priorities, meaning, and gratefulness. 

But it does not have to be. It can also be the time when we hug those we love a little closer, make the world a little better, and move forward into a new year with the determination to make it better. 

Almost two months ago now the Philippines was devastated by the worst typhoon in recorded history. This was just a couple weeks after being hit by an earthquake and hundreds of aftershocks. This came close to home for our business and family as one of our team, Grace, lives and works in the Philippines. 

In getting to know and working with Grace this year I have been so impressed with her work ethic, her attitude, and her ability to triumph over adversity. She has been the most amazing addition to our team, and I am not sure how we functioned without her. In short, people always ask me how it works to hire from the Philippines and ask me if I would recommend it and I can't recommend it highly enough! (As a side note we used Chris Ducker's Virtual Staff Finder to find Grace which was also a great experience.) 

Sad to say, we in the west seem to have a short attention span. While people in the Philippines are still trying to meet basic needs in some areas, we are most concerned about the lines at the mall to get our shopping done. So in the midst of all that, see if there is room to help those in still in need. 

When I asked Grace about aid organizations, sadly a lot of help that goes to the government and even some charities never makes its way to those who need it most. If you know someone in the Philippines, the best thing to do is help them directly if you can. 

Otherwise, the Red Cross is one organization with a track record that is helping people on the ground. 

But, as there always is, there is a bigger issue here. We live in one of the most amazing times ever in human history. The ability to virtually eliminate poverty, homelessness, hunger, and environmental damage are within our reach. So many technologies exist to build sustainable housing, energy, and food supplies, and more are created every day. Education on almost any subject (even from top Ivy League universities once only open to a select few) is just a click away on the Internet. 

So will you join with me? Help, now. Do something in the Philippines to bring relief there in the short term. But don't forget about the long term. 

Every dollar you spend and every choice you make has an opportunity to make the world a fundamentally better place, or a fundamentally worse one. What you do matters. You matter. You can make a difference. The more of us that do, the better off we all will be.