– Tips for Managing Anxiety (Part 6 of 10): Add a Healthy Dose of Fun

Last Updated on June 21, 2018 by Chris Roberts

REMEMBER TO LAUGH, EVEN IF YOU’VE FORGOTTEN HOW

References- “10 Best-Ever Anxiety Management Techniques” an article on Psychotherapy Networker by Margaret Wehrenberg

It can seem pithy to prescribe fun as a treatment for anxiety.  It can also be quite patronizing to assume that laughter and fun is accessible to all.  For many people suffering through the unceasing tension of anxiety, fun can feel inaccessible and even cruel.  On many levels, laughter is the inverse of anxiety.  Anxiety is tense, tight, vigilant, pressurized, exhausting, and skeptical.  Laughter is light, open, silly, energizing, carefree, and spontaneous.

But for those struggling with anxiety, and as difficult as it might be to attain, laughter is a necessary element of life that needs to be experienced.  In her wonderful article about ameliorating anxiety, Margaret Wehrenberg gives the practical advice of spending time with children to help aid in the engagement of laughter.  Although being with a child willnot automatically create laughter, there is something about the inherent nature of a child that can bring about fun in ways that can seem simpler and easier.  It would be best to begin spending time with children whom you are already familiar with like nieces and nephews, or neighbors, or god-children.

Wehrenberg also advises being spontaneous.  No matter the situation, whenever a random idea for fun or enjoyment pops into the brain just go for it!  Kick a ball inside the house.  Get an ice cream cone with 3 scoops.  Stay up late watching a movie.  Make a fort out of the sofa cushions.  Go shopping during the middle of the day.  To an anxious person all of these ideas come with the trap that while you are out having fun and being “spontaneous,” there are chores and work and projects building up for when you get back.  And this is the never-ending hamster wheel of anxiety…and the reason fun and laughter are so diminished for the anxiety-stricken person.  Laughter and fun aren’t seen as “productive” or “constructive.”

Anxiety has at its core an underlying presumption that if a person plans enough, works enough, prepares enough- they can prevent bad things from happening to them and to others they love.  Anxiety can’t stand randomness or an arbitrary nature to some things.  And laughter and fun, for the most part, are arbitrary and random- at least the best kinds are!

Further, the more time and energy we spend preparing and planning, the less time we have for exploring and understanding our true selves. Not that we should throw out all planning and preparing for the sake of knowing ourselves, there must be time for both.  But when we spend so much of our precious energy in planning and preparing, we do lose touch with knowing the things that make us come alive and smile and laugh.  And so, for the person stuck in anxiety for long periods of time, it will take time and energy and effort to remember the things that make us smile and laugh.

The journey back to laughter and fun for the anxious person may begin with making a goal to work on discovering the things that make them feel happy and silly and free.  A good anxiety counselor should be able to unpack and delve into the debilitating effects of anxiety, but they should also be able to teach and encourage play and fun and silliness.