“The crow of anxiety always finds some branch to land on”

This is a quote I read by South African artist William Kentridge who was asked during an interview why his desk was so messy. He explained that the scraps of paper littering his desk represented the remains of different fragments of ideas that were moving across his mind – awakening him at 4 in the morning as his brain was jumping between 50 different anxieties.

The image of crows landing on the tree branches of my mind is a wonderfully descriptive way to capture the anxieties that I sometimes obsess over in my own life – the thoughts that stay in the back of my mind, preventing me from living in the moment and enjoying life to the fullest.

We can become our own worst enemies when we let the worries of tomorrow prevent us from enjoying the blessings of today. There is a lyric verse from a Tom Petty song “Crawling Back to You” that speaks about how worry just leads to exhaustion and futility:

“I’m so tired of being tired
Sure as night will follow day
Most things I worry about
Never happen anyway”

People can make themselves sick and tired worrying all day about things that will never happen. How much better and more productive we all would be if we could just let go of our anxieties and devote our energies to making the most of each day.

It is easier said than done though – and it is difficult to stop anxieties from lodging on the tree branches of our minds without employing one or more stress relief coping mechanisms. I find the following activities help me to keep my anxieties at bay:

• Prayer – daily prayer has a power to comfort me because it reminds me that there is a higher power who sees all ends and that I can take those concerns and worries I have that are beyond my control and place them in the hands of divine providence.
• Exercise – regular exercise seems to have a strong effect on reducing my anxiety and I don’t know why. It may be related to brain chemistry, improved blood flow, or just being too fatigued after a workout to worry. During prolonged exercise I often find myself working through my anxieties subconsciously which usually helps me to put them aside at the end of the workout.
• Meditation – I am a relative newcomer to the practice of meditation, but I have been surprised given my limited experience how effective this ancient technique can be. Meditation teaches you to empty your mind, to put aside concerns that enter your thoughts and just concentrate on your breathing. A mantra can be used to help concentration – I have used simple phrases like “Grass Withers”, “All is Vanity”, “Must Pass” because they help remind me of the transience of life and the insignificance of things that I mistakenly believe are so important.
• Music – this is my go to activity for clearing my mind of thoughts that are bouncing around my head and keeping me awake at night. I keep an iPod by my bed loaded with a special collection of peaceful and contemplative songs. Listening to these songs seems to break the cycle of thoughts in my mind, pushes my anxieties into the background and allows me to relax  enough to fall back asleep.
• Journaling – this is something that I do infrequently, but I find it especially helpful at times of greatest stress. When my wife of 22 years was struggling with illness and losing her battle with breast cancer I began a gratitude journal. Every few days I would write in the journal three things I was thankful for on that day. They were usually simple things like a shared family meal or the warming sun on my face on a cold winter day – but for a brief moment that journal activity forced me to focus on the blessings in my life and not just my struggles.

So, I hope any readers of this blog have discovered their own effective techniques for pruning the branches of anxieties in their life and in the words of that renowned radio Psychologist  Frasier Crane, “I wish you good mental health”.