What happens when the panic monster goes?
Understanding procrastination and anxiety, what happens when the 'panic monster' releases its grip on your nervous system.
This week I re-watched a wonderful Ted talk by Tim Urban; Inside the mind of a master procrastinator (a great way to spend 14 minutes if you haven't seen it, thank me later!) Tim essentially states that procrastinators leave everything to the last minute, when the ‘panic monster’ (anxiety) sweeps in and kicks starts action, even when the rational mind knows the work should have started months ago. It got me thinking… What happens when the 'panic monster', that voice that says, ‘you’ve left this sooooo late’, releases its grip. With all the focus in the modern wellness community around managing anxiety, what if the reliance on anxiety was how I ever got anything done! My ADHD masked by the constant anxiety of people pleasing and deadlines. But once I started to recognise the feelings of anxiety and breathe, yoga, and meditate through it, somehow the urgency to get things done has sort of … disappeared. This relates to everything from paying bills to sending birthday presents!
Recently, I’ve been on a journey to improve my mental wellbeing and realised I’ve spent the last 20 years operating from a space of anxiety. It’s the anxiety that comes precisely ten minutes before a deadline when I’ve been procrastinating with zero motivation for months! To make matters worse as I’ve got older, I’ve started to need higher levels of anxiety to get the panic monster moving. So, what happens now I’ve been learning to manage my anxiety, my one solid buddy that has kept me adhering to deadlines and remembering to text back. I certainly can’t rely on motivation alone, and I can no longer rely on an impulse driven nervous system to pick up the slack of not starting early enough!
Well after two months of missing everything from family visits to workout classes, I went down a rabbit hole of research (welcome to the gift of ADHD!), here are a few things that have helped me refocus, rebirth and just plain get started. Firstly, habit is key, it creates neuropathways that mean I don’t have to rely on memory or motivation, for instance it means for me I will be delivering longer form writing every Wednesday and poetry/ spoken word every Friday. Secondly, brown noise is my new best friend. It stops my mind wondering and I have found it so helpful in focussing. Ultimately, I’ve started to slow down and really understand why I am procrastinating, usually, it’s because I don’t want to fail at something before I’ve even started. So, I don’t start, not until I really must, or I choose something that feels easier and trick myself into “I’ll do this later’, or sometimes not at all. Really understanding what is stopping me getting started, taking a deep breath and being brave to get it done has been a game changer and usually always results in the dopamine hit I desire.
If you can relate to this, feel free to get in touch and let me know how you’ve rewired your brain to get things done!
Ted Talk by Tim Urban Inside the mind of a master procrastinator https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator?language=en